Jen (00:00.886)
Welcome to the Mum Safe Movement podcast. I'm your host, Jen Dugard. And today I'm coming to you from another hotel room. Today I'm not in Singapore, I'm in Adelaide. And I'm gonna be doing a solo episode. The last couple of weeks have been those kinds of episodes that prove, that could prove to yourself or I could have proved to me.
that when I took on the task of a weekly podcast and I made that commitment, and the reason why it took me so long to make that commitment is because it is a weekly task and it is a big commitment. And I feel like it's been going pretty well so far, although I'm very deadline driven. I'm not someone who's got episodes banked up into the future, although that could be in my future.
And the last two weeks, it could have been the reason to kind of throw in the towel or just stop. But I decided to keep going and to just do it in the way that I can get it done. And so today we're down in Adelaide. It's my husband's birthday on Monday and he's been traveling for, no, he's not been traveling. He's been away for work for quite some time.
and we've decided to come down here. And it's just left me this week, scrambling a little bit off the back of my trip to Singapore. And I know what I wanna talk about today, but I also, I've been feeling a little bit discombobulated and I've used that word in my email, if you're someone that receives my weekly or bi-weekly emails, I use the word discombobulated. So today we're gonna be talking about
why the world needs your voice and your unique voice, because I know sometimes it can feel like there's too many voices. But before I get to that bit, I do wanna recognize what is going on in the world right now. And I've been writing and I've been sharing some things on social media. And I noticed there's a lot of people not doing that. And I think that that's okay because there's so much.
Jen (02:21.006)
difference of opinion and there's feelings and there's so much involved with what's happening in Gaza and Israel right now. And I think sometimes it can make us feel like the work that we do is really insignificant. And it can make some people feel like they don't wanna post anything or say anything at all. And it can make other people feel like they need to.
shut out what is happening and only focus on work. And I don't think there's a right or wrong, but I did wanna read out a diary entry of mine from this week. And maybe it'll help you, maybe it won't, and that's okay. But this is what I wrote on the 18th of October. When there's so much death and destruction and suffering in the world, how do you focus on your own world? A world that feels so sheltered and so privileged where life goes on.
where you feel so helpless at the enormity of such devastation and where the world continues to be divided. And even if you did want to do or stand for something, you feel like a pawn in a bigger game. Never sure if what you see is real and what agendas far beyond yourself are at play. And you'll never truly know. And so you, whilst being drawn to learn and mourn for humanity in a world you'll never truly understand or fully understand,
you must also turn your attention to your own little world. Because despite it all feeling small and potentially meaningless in comparison, it's absolutely not. What you are here to do, your purpose, the way you help people, and in our case, mothers, is so incredibly meaningful and needed. Because the wellbeing of mothers is so incredibly important. Your work is not just needed, it's essential.
As I know you know, mothers are the backbone of our society, our world. And that's where I stop writing.
Jen (04:25.206)
But I want you guys to know that I, where am I? The words, your own little world is something that I think is really important because.
regardless or despite of, despite in, of, what is going on in the world, what is going on in your little world is also really, really important.
And inside that world, we need your voice. The voice that you have with the mums that you work with is incredibly important. We need your individual voice and your individual message to contribute towards safe and effective exercise for mums at every stage of motherhood.
Because the reality is not every mom can hear every one of our voices. And not every one of us can take care of every one of them. We can't hear everybody and we can't talk to everybody. This is one of the reasons when why, why? This is one of the reasons why way back in, so I started Body Beyond Baby in 2008 and
sold it in 2018. And throughout that journey, initially I was driven to license or franchise the Body Beyond Baby brand. Like I had this vision of being the McDonald's of fitness for moms. And I really thought that was the path that I wanted to go on. And throughout the journey of exploring that path, a few things happened. So the first thing that happened was I was
Jen (06:19.514)
mentoring and coaching a beautiful trainer called Magdalena. She was on an episode earlier on, so make sure you go check out that episode about her journey. And I was teaching her my way of doing things. And when I say my way of doing things, I had, and I still have on file, all of the processes, the systems, the scripts. Like, if you were coming to me to learn how to coach my clients inside of Body Beyond Baby, I had a word for word.
script of the way that you were going to do it. I used to teach anyone that I mentored and Mag sat outside of this because I was coaching her for her own business but I did have one of our other MumSafe trainers, Mellie of Phoenix for Mums, who came to work for me for a little while. And other trainers, we had other contractors along the way and they had to learn.
my way of doing things. Now, of course, my way is wonderful. And I believed it's a good way and I still believe it's a good way. It's much of what I teach in Safe Retent Exercise today, obviously with some adaptions because the world has moved on. But the trainers that came to work inside or the contractors that came to work inside Body Beyond Baby had to learn the way that we did things. And I had, I would...
observe once they'd learn how to do it and I would give them marks out of 10 of what they got right and what they hadn't included and parts of the script that they had misquoted or needed to work on. And although I still believe that inside of a fitness business we need to have continuity and we need to have consistency and especially across multiple locations if you're running a brand
and you've got different trainers working for you and you've got different locations and things like that happening, I absolutely stand by the fact that there needs to be absolute, absolute coherence in the messaging and the instruction and the way things are being taught from one trainer to another, from one location to another to properly represent your brand. I realized that not everybody wants to train in the way that I wanted to train them.
Jen (08:39.51)
And when Magdalena came into my world and she, we went through this whole process, I paid money to get, to work with a company to help me to license the business. I was working with another company to help me to divide up the country into sections and you know, this is your territory and this is their territory. And that's exactly what you do within a license or a franchise.
But when Mags and I sat down on that very last day or the day that was kind of like the reckoning, was she gonna be a licensee or was she not? She said to me, Jen, I wanna do what you do and I wanna know what you know, but I wanna grow my own thing. And I was like, huh, okay. I have a framework, but what she wants to do is bring her voice to the framework. And...
have so much respect for her having done that. And in that moment, I started to really realize that, yes, I wanted to work with her, and yes, I wanted to grow my brand, but really what I wanted to grow was the impact of the mission and the message.
to make sure all mums are looked after safely and effectively. And I realized, and I began to, it became clearer and clearer and clearer that licensing or franchising Body Beyond Baby for me wasn't the right way to go. Now, months later, I was at the Women's Health and Fitness Conference in Melbourne and again, there's a podcast episode with the wonderful Molly Gore-Brayth, so go back and listen to that one. And she said,
build a table big enough for everybody. And through the realization for me that was that through licensing or franchising or more to the point carving up the country so that there were only a certain number of Body Beyond Baby territories available, I was creating a table that only had so many seats to sit at. And if I go back to my...
Jen (10:57.346)
true belief of collaboration over competition. By carving up the country, I was then creating an element of competition. I know licenses and franchises, franchisees work really well together, but in some circumstances they don't. We create a really big rivalry between one franchise area and another franchise area if it's not done really beautifully and really well. And I never wanted that to be a thing.
And I never wanted people to get upset with their, their neighbor who was on the exact same mission as them for putting a flyer or marketing in an area that they deemed to be theirs. So I walked away from that conference and I walked away from the conversation with Mags and I knew that the world needed Mags' voice in exactly the way that she wanted to grow it with her brand and her brand identity.
and adapting the things that she'd learned from me into the way that she wanted to teach it and give that message to the world inside of her business. And I share this with you because sometimes it can feel like there's not enough room for your voice.
And at times when things are hard, it can feel like, or when there's big things going on in the world, or it can feel like there's no space for your voice. And what I wanna offer you today is that there is always space for your voice. And whether you choose to use that voice in a business space, or whether you choose to use that voice in something that you stand up for, and I've been playing with that a lot over the last week or so.
But when it comes to you being on a mission to help as many moms as possible in your unique way, it's absolutely imperative that you find the confidence to use your voice because there's some moms that can only listen to you. And until you find it within you to step out from beyond, behind, behind whatever it is that's holding you back.
Jen (13:13.014)
whether it's comparison, because it could be comparison, whether it's feeling like there's so many people already doing this in this space, why do we need my voice? Then there are certain moms in this world, I truly believe, that will not be helped because they need to be helped by you. It's when you come forward with your unique messaging, it's when you create your unique brand, it's when you choose which mom.
You know, which mom is it that you need to help? We've got mom safe trainers that specialize in helping moms with prolapse. We've got mom safe trainers that specialize in helping moms that wanna do triathlons. We've also got mom safe trainers that work with moms of all ages and stages. And that's incredibly important as well. So my offering to you today, and it is a short podcast episode.
because I am gonna go hang out with my kids and my husband, but I did want to honour my commitment to you and make sure that I show up for you this Monday morning, is that I believe in you. And I truly hope that you can come from a place and find within you, whatever it is that you need to find to start to bring your voice to the table, because...
I want to hear you. I truly want to hear you. And the mums of your community and the mums that you need to talk to, they really need to hear from you as well. And there are millions and millions of mothers in the world. And no matter how many mums one individual mum safe trainer or specialized trainer that works with mums talks to, she cannot or he cannot possibly
work with and help all of the mums that need helping. So we're a real minority at the end of the day, although you might feel that there's millions of trainers out there and every trainer that you come across now is saying that they work with mums and you know what? Maybe in your circles, cause you're moving in that space, maybe there are more and more trainers saying that they're working with mums, but there's still not enough. I promise you there is not enough of us.
Jen (15:34.126)
to make sure that every single mom is being looked after safely and effectively. You have to find your voice. If you've enjoyed this episode of the Mom Safe Movement podcast, I would really, really love to hear from you today. I'd love for you to post something on Instagram. I'd love for you to answer my question about what's holding you back or share with me your unique voice. What is your unique?
mission and positioning around the way that you are going to be supporting mums. And if you're listening to this in real time, applications to become a MumSafe trainer are opening in a few short weeks. And I would absolutely love to invite you to explore the next phase of your journey in becoming the go-to trainer for mums in your area and joining us inside the MumSafe mission of ensuring all mums are looked after safely and at
safely and effectively because collaboration over competition is the only way that we're going to get this done and ensure that all mums have the information and the education that they truly deserve. Have a beautiful day.
