Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. Paul here.
Today I'm doing my latest episode of the Ontario Small Business Podcast Roundtable.
And what I've started with this whole premise is there was one episode I did
at the end of last year that sort of got this idea going for me and I thought it was a lot of fun.
And I've since opened it up to some other people in some Facebook groups.
And because of that, I've got these really great people joining me for this
series. So I want to just jump right into that and start with the introductions.
So we're first of all going to start off with Manjiri. Let people know who you
are, what your story is, and we'll start with that.
So I'm a doctor of Ayurvedic medicine. And Ayurveda, for those that are not
familiar with it, is the Eastern form of holistic medicine. It's the oldest medicine in the world.
And we have had so many great results with Eastern medicine where mainstream medicine kind of ends.
You know, we can find the root cause. We can really find some solutions.
And we look at health beyond your lab results.
You know, we look at certain bioenergies in the body. We look at your body from
an aspect of how is your mind doing, you know, spiritual health,
physical health, mental health, everything combined together.
So that's what I specialize in.
I specialize in women's health, a lot of chronic hormonal conditions.
Digestive issues that you have not found results anywhere else.
So that's when people will find me through the word of mouth.
And that's, you know, how I work. And one of the things like why was I excited
to be on the podcast is that as a small business owner, you know,
your health is the key to everything that you do as an individual itself.
But with today's changing world, business owners, there's so much pressure.
So if you optimize your health rather than just kind of, you know,
wake up and be tired and not be that enthusiastic about your health.
If you have health on your side, you can thrive in your business.
So that's my passion and my reason behind it. Yeah. You know what?
I, I was telling you before we started recording how.
How much of what you're going to be talking about is important to me as well.
Before I even got into real estate, the one thing I did for a living and a passion
was in the fitness and health business.
So I spent 10 years there studying as much as I could, but I got to the point
where I love the business a lot, but it would not pay the bills.
And I had to find something that did because I wanted a little bit more for my life.
But the fact it's still a passion to me. I still read books on alternative medicine.
I've got all the, all the Bibles in my bookshelf to me. It's really important.
So thank you, Manjuri. We're going to definitely be talking a lot more about
that. So let's introduce Cheyenne and hear a little bit about your story.
Super excited to be here. Manjuri, I just got off a call. I did a five-day challenge
for business owners around investing in themselves.
And the last call we just did was on EFT tapping.
And it's exactly, I'm a marketer, so I'm a marketing coaching consultant in Southern Ontario.
And it all comes down to yourself as a business owner, you are at the core of
everything you're doing in your business and your capacity, your health,
your emotional health, all of it dictates your business results.
So I'm super excited for this conversation.
My name is Cheyenne. I have a business called CEO Marketing. I'm in Quinney West.
I serve business owners, independent business owners, in growing their business
through marketing that feels very authentic and very strategic,
that I'm really passionate about local communities and independent business
owners are the core of it.
And if we lose them, we lose the culture of our cities and our towns.
And there's such a beautiful health they bring to the communities.
So I've dedicated myself to helping them grow through marketing that is specialized to them.
Yeah. Again, obviously there's so much really great stuff here to talk about.
So I'm really glad that you're both here.
And again, as I said in the beginning of before we started recording,
I don't have any control over how many people show up to these things.
I'm just happy when anyone shows up. So the fact that we can talk about,
again, obviously the, the alternative health that you're talking about,
Manjiri and Cheyenne, the things that you're doing for small businesses,
for me, it's really important that people,
and, and of course, you know, Now, we don't really have, you know,
even starting on this podcast, we didn't have a theme, but it seems like a good
one to sort of, you know, sort of relate to would be the issue of,
you know, the importance of, of healthy lives and, and being healthy.
And of course, as a small business owner, you're the janitor in many cases.
You're the, you know, you're the cleaner, you're the, you know,
you're the one repairing, you know, things that are broken.
You're doing all of the things basically that you can possibly do for small businesses.
A lot of us sort of take care of all the details, including marketing in terms
of like things like this, podcasting.
And the reason why I think we're able to help each other grow on this medium
is because literally, and it wasn't, I had no clue in 2018 when I started doing
this, I had no idea where podcasting was going.
Uh, it was before the pandemic, which basically became sort of,
it changed podcasting obviously into sort of a whole different thing because
there was people who were, you know, not going anywhere.
Listening to just anything they could for, for media and podcasting because
of that, I think it had a huge boost and it's still growing every day.
But the good thing about doing these things is that we get to share all these
great stories, you know, with, with other business owners, like,
you know, obviously like YouTube.
So let's start off again, sort of in the general conversation,
because now we can sort of skip introductions or down, we can just sort of jump into general.
What sort of brought you, Manjiri, into the field that you're in?
What was the sort of the spark?
What age and when were you interested in doing what you do?
So interestingly, you know, my personal journey actually brought me to Ayurveda or Ayurvedic medicine.
In India, I was dealing with health issues. I was severely obese.
My hormones were out of whack and we
did all kinds of mainstream testing so i
went to endocrinologist in mumbai we tried everything
was perfect on paper like they didn't find any hormonal imbalances
whether it was ultrasounds whether it was blood test and
they could not figure out why i kept gaining weight while
i was losing my hair my skin texture was
awful i was just angry irritable you know
and I was 18 at the time right so
like in the later teens I was just like so frustrated
not finding answers and somebody
suggested go to this you know holistic practitioner I didn't even know what
ayurvedic medicine was but when I went to her she went take my detailed history
my dietary history and she was the first one to tell me that what I had been
eating was not working for my body It was creating a lot of inflammation.
It was completely incompatible with my body type.
So she made me change my diet. I didn't take a lot of supplements at the time
either, some basic herbs that she suggested.
And three months later, I had dropped 20 pounds.
And I was a different person. I was not irritable. I had a lot more energy.
And I had an option. I was planning, like I was studying to get into med school.
So from my own experience, I was wanting, like I got into an Ayurvedic school
where I studied Ayurvedic medicine for five and a half years.
I'm not a licensed doctor in Canada.
I am a licensed doctor in India.
I went for three more years of my MD in Ayurvedic pathology.
And that is like, it's my passion to help people find answers that they cannot
find otherwise, because I know how frustrating it is being on the other side.
You know what, I'm going to bring something up that might be controversial,
but obviously it's worth talking about, because I have looked into this.
Do you know how much nutrition training a doctor gets? Do you know how many hours?
Do you know the number? Less than 10, I'm sure. How many hours? Less than 10? Yeah. 19.
Oh, okay. This is the most recent one I heard.
And I've been studying this stuff for a long time, way more than 19 hours of studying nutrition.
And And I feel like, how am I more qualified than a doctor to give nutrition advice?
And I don't, and I'm not saying that I am for my own purposes.
I feel like I am my kids here, my lectures about all the kinds of things they
should be eating our freezers basically pack with, you know.
No, no mistake options. It's what I'm trying to say, especially when it's late night.
And if you want a yogurt bar instead of an ice cream bar, it's,
it's, it's small little and that's, and you're saying when you lost 20 pounds
being in the fitness world, when I would help someone lose 20 pounds,
in some cases it was 10% of their body weight.
It's like the, the, the lifestyle. And again, just for, for reference,
for anybody who's listening, go pick up a 20 pound dumbbell well and just,
and it sounds dumb, but pick it up and see how much it feels like it's heavy.
Carrying it around is, is not light. So the fact that you did that,
of course, that's amazing.
And of course you, you, you sort of, you, you let that, you know,
sort of, you, you took that stress off your body and I've done the same too.
I've also, I've battled with my weight over the years, just playing rugby and
playing football for most of my teens, I could eat whatever I wanted and you
would burn all of that off.
It would, none of it would stick. And then when you're 20 something and you're
eating like that, not a good idea.
And it just sort of, everything sort of just packs on and you realize,
okay, wait a minute, I've got to eat now for someone that's not running three
hours a day and all that stuff.
So that's, that's a, that's a really great starting story, I think,
as far as what, you know, where your, where your came from.
So how about for yourself, Shalia, where did your sort of journey begin?
What made you want to get into what you're doing?
In a fascinating way, it also started with food. I had a similar journey where
I was my relationship with food and the impact on my body was not where I wanted it to be.
And I decided to go to culinary school. And while I was studying classical French
cuisine, I realized local was the we actually had to take nutritional training in culinary school.
And if you want the best dish, you start with the best ingredients and it's always local.
And a huge reason behind that is because it's more nutritionally dense.
So there's more flavor in it.
And I fell in love with local farms and local businesses.
And then I had children and I was at home with them for a while and working
in the culinary field wasn't going to work.
So I looked for another way to support those local businesses I had fallen in
love with and to help more people connect to those kind of products.
Because I could see people wanted it. There's a lot of people who want that quality in their life.
And there's a lot of amazing producers and suppliers, but there was a lack of
a connection and the bridge was marketing. So I decided to study marketing and
to use it exclusively for independent local businesses.
Exactly. I started with food in the same place and was recognizing the impact
and the health that it had for people.
In a really fascinating way, there's a lot of common threads in this.
So that was my journey through it.
Yeah. I mean, obviously, yeah, food, local food, as far as that goes,
like being able to support.
One of my previous guests is a baker who lives about five minutes away from where I live now.
And she cooks all these like amazing versions of desserts, but for people who
have gluten allergies and diabetics and all that kind of cool stuff.
And I'm like, I'm the, whenever I do see those options, like someone's made
like a healthier rice crispy or something, I'll jump all over it just because
I grew up in school growing up. for me, what was it called?
A bake sale. Bake sale days were just like, those were my favorite days of all
school, just because you could
literally go to school and for 25 cents or whatever it was back in my day,
you'd have like a plate full of like all this stuff.
And it was all terrible food, but I mean, it was just, you know,
it was just stuff I look forward to.
So I've got a little bit of a sweet tooth left thanks to those days.
So it's good that people who are, again, obviously having backgrounds in food.
Like you said, Cheyenne, like the fact that you were in culinary,
that to me is, is, is very interesting because.
Being in the food business, and I only spent one year in the food business in
my teens. I worked at a pizza shop. It was not at all glamorous.
But boy, do you learn a lot about life, right?
In the food business, you're shaking your head.
Have you got any interesting stories from learning behind the scenes of how
a restaurant works or anything?
Being in a kitchen is a beautiful experience of community.
You have to work together. You're not working on your own. You're a team.
And you have to tap into a sense of synergy and connection that I haven't seen
in a lot of other places. It was as an academic going into a trade and being in a kitchen.
It completely opened up my mind to how powerful we are when we work together
and when we recognize how interconnected we all are. That was a huge part of it for me. Yeah.
Yeah. I would say the story I bring up often, I've probably told it on the podcast
a bunch of times is when you work the counter at a pizza shop at two in the morning.
And I was, I was 14. I think I was working one shift a week from 3 PM to 3 AM on a Friday.
I don't know how it happened, but it was a 12 hour shift.
One day seemed like a good idea to me. I didn't miss any school or any sports.
I just had one day where I worked, but the people you meet at 2 AM on,
on, on, on a Friday night, like you, you sort of realize these are not usually the nicest people.
They're angry, they're drunk and they want pizza and they want it now.
And it's never, in some cases, it's never good enough. But the fact is you sort
of, you're forced sort of to learn about how people work.
So obviously what you're saying behind in the kitchen.
Yeah. I, I, I remember Tom and I remember, I think Frank, the guy who was the
owner and they taught me how to make pizza from scratch.
That I love that my kids still do that. I love.
Making food. And you're talking about, man, you're like learning,
you know, how to eat properly and just being able to know.
And I had these, I had, again, I get into these conversations with people in
my community groups. And one of them was about where do I get the best pizza?
I said, you probably get the best pizza at home, technically.
And even if you can't make dough, go, just go get the dough, start with that.
And then just start putting your own stuff on it. And I sort of jokingly said,
at least that way, you know, whose fingers have been in the dough.
At least it's, it's just you and your kids and you're probably,
I, you know, hopefully you're washing your hands, but at least,
you know, whose fingers are in the dough and the toppings, you know,
where they came from. Like they could be, you know, very simple.
It could be, it could be a certain kind of cheese that you like or onions or
whatever that you like on there.
So yeah, I mean, those kinds of things. So Manjiri, in terms of what you're
doing today, how are you finding, you mentioned to me before we started as well,
just because there's so many,
I mean, there's keto diets, there's fasting there's
a million things online i mean this is
probably the worst time ever to try to get straight information
on nutrition how how are you helping people make
sense of it yeah so from an
ayurvedic perspective you know we look at food as
well as people beyond the diets you
know so first we have to understand how the person is we look at it in terms
of bio energies so the easiest way to discuss is you know there are different
types of personality There is a person that we all know who can eat whatever
they want and they're constantly on the go. They are never gaining an inch, right?
Never gaining a pound of weight. They can eat, but they're constantly on the
go, busy in the mind. So we call them wind type personalities.
Then we have those fiery people who are go-getters, who are constantly,
you know, they can get angry at the drop of a hat.
They also have a good metabolism. They're probably always around the same weight,
never bothered about weight, can eat whatever they want.
The wind ones are the skinnier ones who are trying to gain weight.
The fire ones are the perfect weight, never focused on weight,
but focused on doing things outside or like really a lot of great work ethic
pushing themselves hard. That's the fire type personality or the sun type personality.
And then there are the moon type personalities, you know, who are pretty laid
back, easygoing, you know, round face, darker colored eyes.
The sun type are more of the blondes. The wind is more like frizzy hair, dry skin, you know.
So that's how we categorize different personalities into.
And somebody who's a wind type personality does really well on keto diet from my perspective.
Again, there could be exceptions. but because keto
is a high fat diet wind as
a personality is very dry so keto can be
nourishing for them so they need nutrient dense foods they need
good amounts of fat in the diet a moon type personality who's always heavy does
really well on a plant-based diet whether you choose vegan or not having more
plants in your diet is going to give you that fiber is going to make you less
lethargic because all animal proteins are going to be denser to digest.
And then when we look at the sun type or the fire type personality,
they do better on a paleo diet where they can get dense amounts of protein that's
going to keep them satiated and make them less grumpy.
So that's very generalized. Again, we have to look into different individualities,
their imbalances as well.
So this is what we are talking about, a healthy status of how you are bio-individually.
We are not talking about any pathological states.
So when somebody goes into or has some disease, then things may change according to it.
But we look at food beyond. We look at foods in terms of cooling,
foods, nourishing foods, foods that are cleansing the body, that are helping
you get rid of that excess weight, excess water, foods that lower inflammation.
So we look at foods as hot, cold, dry, moist, you know, very different perspective, yeah.
Yeah, no, that's, to me, that's fascinating. I mean, if I could figure out,
and I know, and my wife will even remind me of this, is that if there's a certain
point where I haven't eaten and I think, you know, maybe this is a good thing,
I shouldn't, you know, shouldn't eat too much, I'll cross the line and get grumpy.
And I know that about myself and I'll know, okay, you know what,
even though I don't really want to eat, I should, and I'm still learning every day about this.
So I really, I'm fascinated by the idea of the fire, the wind,
the sun sort of elements of that. That's, that's very cool.
So Cheyenne, as far as, again, what you're doing from the, coming from the culinary
background, getting into the marketing that you're doing now. Yeah.
How are you finding small businesses navigating, again, today's terrain?
Because it's just as confusing, just like dieting is confusing, social media.
I mean, the amount of platforms out there, I'm sure there's probably so many
now that I've probably forgotten, you know, which ones I should be using because
I just can't keep track aside from, you know, the usual, the Facebook,
the Instagram, the Twitter.
So how are you finding people these days are adjusting to sort of the new landscape,
the ever-changing landscape, I guess?
It's a lot like diets. There's a lot of confusion and trying to find the one
that suits them. It's not about looking at the diet. It's about looking at the business.
And, Jerry, I have three kids, and they're all different eaters.
It's incredible. When you raise three kids, you think it's you. No.
They have different relationships with food, different needs. and
with businesses it's very similar a lot of the work i do is
around let's pause before we decide are we on facebook
are we on youtube and we pull back
so what kind of business are you are you i have categories of
everyday experience or expertise so everyday businesses are consumer staple
businesses and you need to market a different way than if you're a experienced
business which is a consumer discretionary that's going to require a different
kind of messaging a different kind of marketing and expertise business or professional services.
And that's a whole different field. And before we get into deciding which social
media platform are you on, we pull back and we really identify what kind of
business are you and what suits your business specifically.
And then we move forward into deciding the type of channels because it is really
confusing. It's a lot like all the different diets out there.
And there's a lot of predatory marketing.
A lot of the times as long as they can sell you into the
diet or into the social or into the program that's good
enough for them and i think majority you and
i probably have a very similar we want to actually solve the
root problem we don't just want to make a sale yeah and
as a practitioner you know like marketing is
not the strongest side right like i'm
more focused on my work but you know it's great to
talk to a marketing consultant because most practitioners
holistic practitioners that's not your stronger side
and then you go on instagram and see this completely crazy content which is
not even good for you you know people just dancing in the most random way and
they have a million views and as a practitioner you know you're trying your
best to give right information out there and you're you know barely a thousand views right yeah.
Yeah, the funny elements of social media,
how it relates to my business is that I've seen people like just probably some
of the dumbest people that have ever been born talking about financial issues.
Like really bad financial advice with dancing involved.
And I can't even put my head around the idea of, again, I get that you're doing
this for the attention and the likes and all this stuff.
And it's probably a TikTok thing, but they're giving this really terrible advice
that's going to probably make people, you know, like bankrupt, but they're dancing.
They're actually like, you know, like pointing in the air and having words show up.
Like, it's just, it's so ridiculous. And you can get, as you said,
Cheyenne, you can get overwhelmed and trying to,
Manjuri, trying to be a marketer and trying to do all this other stuff as a
small business owner. Absolutely.
It's one of the hardest things. And no one prepares you.
I don't care what school you went to. I promise you, even real estate school.
And for me, it's been a while. So they wasn't even social media at the time,
but they never really will prepare you for what you need to know.
So this is sort of us literally on the fly and podcasting for me sort of became
that thing where I, I, I love educating people. I love storytelling.
What's the platform for me to do it. And it became podcasting.
It's the only one to me that doesn't feel like pressure and I don't have to
do anything aside from, you know.
Ideally it's not, again, it's, it's sometimes my podcasts are just me,
but when I'm in a room with people and we're podcasting for me,
there's really, there's no, there's no scripts.
I, I, and you guys can vote for this and I've never, ever pitched anybody questions
to ask or what questions you want to ask me.
I don't want it to be one of those, you know, television interviews that feels
like just like fake questions moving around for me, none of that ever works.
So the fact that people have to learn how to do this stuff, and again,
and obviously this is more your thing, Cheyenne.
It's so, it's so important that again, obviously that you guys took the time
to just, just join me on this one podcast.
And that's literally just all this is, it's just the three of us talking for
a half an hour, but hopefully what it does, and this is all I ever want for
these things is to just start a conversation for, for you.
Obviously I'm hoping Manjiri, I'm hoping the people who have listened to this,
even five minutes of it at the gym or whatever people do.
Cause I mean, where, where people tell me they listen to podcasts is fascinating
to me, walking the dog, going to the gym, you know, in bed.
And it's like, this is like, again, it's just, it's too weird to think where
people are going to hear this, but it's not up to me.
It was never up to me. But if they're interested in small businesses and health
in marketing, they're going to probably tune in for a few minutes, I hope.
And here are you guys. So sort of parting words here.
Obviously I want to make sure people have a, you know, an easy way to reach
both of you and to again, continue the conversation. So Manjuria,
what's the best way for people to sort of, you know, any parting words and what's
the best way for people to reach you, so to speak?
So the parting words are take care of your health. You know,
you only have this one vehicle.
You know, we take better care of our cars, but, you know, you fuel your car,
you maintain your car, but about your body, that's the only body you're given.
You can't change it, right? So you have to take good care of it.
And that's your vehicle to take you to any destination that you want.
And you can find me on social media at Manjiri Ayurveda, M-A-N-J-I-R-I-A-Y-U-R-V-E-D-A.
So that's where you'll find me. I have a YouTube channel with lots of information
about Ayurveda, about different holistic diets, nutrition, digestion,
you name it. It's there. So you can find me there.
Okay, wonderful. I'll make sure that I add that in the notes as well.
So make sure you text me or email me because it's easier for me to save it that way.
Those links so that I can post them there. And same goes for you, Cheyenne.
Parting word, you don't need to do all the marketing. You just want to find
the 20% that's going to get you the 80% results.
As you said, Paul, we wear a lot of hats. And even as a marketer,
I find it difficult to keep up with my own marketing.
We don't need it. We don't need it all. Just the 20%. It'll save your sanity
and get you the results you're looking for.
To find me online, Instagram, Facebook, CO Marketing Consultant,
and also LinkedIn, and Cheyenne O'Driscoll. Love connecting on LinkedIn with professionals.
Wonderful. Absolutely. Yeah, this is going to be, this podcast will probably be there.
I'll try to do, of course, the full podcast. I'll try to put some clips together
and you guys are welcome to do the same.
So thanks for joining me today for roundtable session number two of the year.
And I really wish you both a great year. And if there's anything at all that
you need from me, please don't hesitate to reach out and let me know.
Thank you very much, Paul. This was great. Thank you. Okay. Thank you both. Thank you.