PP 046: Idea and To-Do List Tracking Strategies with Amy Cannatta

Quick Show Notes – Amy Cannatta

Amy Cannatta, Business Strategist and Life Coach, shares her life stories and tips including what to do when in an abusive relationship, idea and to-do list tracking strategies and the importance of self-care when establishing priorities.

.@acannattadc and @thekimsutton share personal and professional life stories and tips including what to do when in an abusive relationship, idea and to-do list tracking strategies and more. https://thekimsutton.com/pp046 #positiveproductivity #podcastClick To Tweet

Episode Transcription

KIM: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity! This is your host, Kim Sutton. And today, I am thrilled to have guest Amy Cannatta, who is a business strategist and life coach with Amy Cannatta Enterprises. Welcome, Amy – I’m so thrilled to have you here today.

AMY CANNATTA: Oh, my gosh. Kim, I am so happy to be here. I am ecstatic. I can’t wait to talk to you. I love having conversation with people about business and life, and so thank you so much for having me.

KIM: Oh, I’m thrilled. And especially after getting to be the – what was it? “Queen for a Day”, or whatever, in your Facebook group while you were moving – which I’m sure we’ll talk about a little bit later in the episode. Not about me being “queen”, but… I’ll take that title for a day, but it’s not anything I do regularly. But I’m sure we’ll talk about your movie later.

But Amy, can you please tell the audience about your journey, about what you do, and how you got to where you are today?

AMY CANNATTA: Sure, sure. How much – is this a three-hour podcast, Kim?

KIM: It’s as long as you have time. Be forewarned, listeners.

AMY CANNATTA: Yeah, be forewarned. I’ll try to make the short version as I can short as I can make it, so listeners can connect the dots.

I actually started out – I grew up on a farm in Connecticut, a rural farm in Connecticut. And by rural, I mean there were 2,000 people in my town. And there was probably more livestock in the town than there were people – I mean it was very, very rural. And I sort of kind of grew up thinking that that’s what life was going to be about for me, until I decided, “You know what? I don’t think this is really going to be for me. I think I have more potential.” Not from an egotistical way – just because I was doing really well in school. So I’ve always really kind of done well in school.

My parents got divorced when I was 13, and when that happened, I poured myself into school. I became a very high-achiever, was involved with a lot of things, class vice president, all this stuff, played three sports, got straight A’s – all this stuff. Because I really saw that – that was my way to kind of cope with the hurt that I was feeling at the time over this break up at this pivotal age in my life, which was 13.

As a result of that, I decided that I was going to be the first person in my family to really go to college and do something about that, and get an education, and get off the farm, and make something of myself.

And that took me 500 miles away to a little town in western New York, and with my boyfriend at that time – my parents thought I was crazy. I definitely looking back on it now being – now I’m a mom of two teenage daughters, one’s 19, and one’s 17 – and if my daughter said to me, “I’m going to go five miles away with this guy I’ve known six months,” I would say, “What are you thinking?”

But my parents kind of let me go, and that took my life down a really kind of crazy path for a while. And I woke up at 29 years old. My grandmother had passed away, and my oldest daughter was roughly three years old, two and a half to three, and then my younger daughter at the time was like six months old.

And I woke up one morning, and I said, “I’m 29. I actually don’t have a college degree.” I went to kind of go to college. I ended up dropping out after a year, which was crazy. And I woke up, and I’m like, “I can’t be a college dropout. This is not what my life is going to look like.”

My grandmother was my rock, kind of raised me to think differently. And when I lost her, I really went through this pivotal moment. And I woke up, and I said, “This is not going to be the end story of my life. I can’t work a minimum wage job.” Not that that’s bad, I just knew I had more inside me.

So I told my family – I told my then-husband (we had gotten married), I told him, “We’re moving back to Connecticut. And I’m going to go to – I want to pursue a degree to be a doctor of chiropractic. Everyone except me thought I was insane. I had two little kids. I was going to have to kind of start school from scratch. I had taken a couple of years of business degree stuff, but never – didn’t really do anything with that. So they thought I was nuts, starting all over again.

So I went back to a chiropractor school. And in the midst of that, one year into that, I went through a very brutal divorce that took me two and a half years to come out of. Because I was – unbeknownst to anyone, including my family, I was in the middle of a domestically violent situation. I had gotten myself into that and didn’t see the warning signs.

And 10 years into that, I woke up in roughly 2001, and I needed to get out of there. It was getting really, really volatile. And by then, my daughters were five and three, and I was in the middle of chiropractic school. So I just decided to keep on keeping on.

And a lot of people around me, friends, family said, “You know, you really might want to think about quitting school.” I decided that was not an option for me and continued on with school, finished school, graduated with honors. And I was a chiropractor for ten years after that – until about four years ago, we had a family tragedy – which again…

It’s funny how these these pivotal moments in our lives come down to sometimes traumatic experiences. And so we had a family tragedy, and that’s what set me on the path of thinking about having a bigger impact in the world and beyond the four walls of my chiropractic treatment room. Seeing one person at a time, one person at a time, I can only see so many people today.

And I had started working for a coaching company that was doing health and wellness coaching, because it seemed like a perfect fit for me, being in the alternative health field and learning a lot about nutrition, and wellness, and health, and always kind of being health-oriented. That was the perfect fit. So that’s how I started coaching.

And then it just evolved into way more than that. I’ve started multiple businesses, I’ve started more businesses that have actually failed. And in that process of starting businesses from the time I was about – the time I left to move away from Connecticut, started a business at 19, I started another business at 25. I just kept starting these businesses.

And that kind of just led me into, “Gosh, I know a lot about life, and I know a lot about strategy, which is which is kind of where I am now. And honestly, I can make a much bigger impact. I have clients all over the world now, I have clients in three different countries. And helping them navigate their lives, and their personal development, and their business development has a ripple effect on the world that I really want to have.

It was like that other “second wake-up call” was the family tragedy. It was like, “I want to have a ripple effect in the world, in the global community, and really impact people’s lives by the tens of thousands. And the way to do that is going to be beyond these four walls of chiropractic.” So I turned to the online world. I turned to the online space, and now I’m in my second year of being a business and life coach, and I absolutely love it.

KIM: What an amazing journey. Thank you for sharing so much. I knew you had moved cross-country, I knew you had been a chiropractor, but I had no idea that there had been so much. And bravo, mama, for getting out of that.

AMY CANNATTA: Thank you.

KIM: So what took you cross-country?

AMY CANNATTA: So my most recent move?

KIM: Sorry, yeah, we didn’t even talk about that, and now I’m bringing it up for you!

AMY CANNATTA: So yes, so my most recent move – for the listeners who don’t know me, I was a lifelong… Well, I grew up in Connecticut, I moved to western New York for a period of 10 years, moved back to Connecticut to my home. And I just actually left my childhood home, Connecticut, to move to Phoenix, Arizona – which is where I am now. I’ve been here for a couple months.

And honestly, if I’m answering the question really authentically and honestly – it came down to fulfilling a soul’s need to be in a place that I knew was mentally and emotionally conducive to growth, opportunity, and the lifestyle that I really wanted to lead. Which is, I’m very active, I’m an outdoorsy person, I like to hike, I like to be active. And living in the New England area, I found that very difficult – especially in the winter time – to do that. And I just needed to be in a location that sort of started to feed my soul and leave those painful chapters that had been healed sort of behind me.

And so that’s the real soulful answer. The other answer is that my daughters go to college out here now, so it made sense from a logistical standpoint to also be out here for them. So, which led to it all kind of fall into place.

KIM: Wow.

AMY CANNATTA: Yeah.

KIM: I love it, every bit about it.

If you don’t mind, I want to go back – because while I’ve shared little bits of my past as far as relationship went, I always think it’s important to let people know that they’re not alone when they’re in a situation like domestic violence. What – and I know this has nothing to do with productivity – but what would be your greatest recommendation for a listener who is going through a similar situation? What would be one of the first steps that they should take?

AMY CANNATTA: Well, you know what? I’m going to kind of talk directly to this person. So if you are out there listening – and now I’m going to put a caveat on this: I’m not a therapist. I’m a thriver, I’m a thriver after this. If you’re out there listening, and in you’re either in the middle of this, not sure what to do, how to get out of it, the biggest first step is to reach out to someone that you would trust with your life. And if they don’t know the situation already, tell them.

The biggest mistake that I made was keeping what was going on behind closed doors a secret. I kept it so much a secret that what ended up happening was, I was in the middle of taking an exam. It was our final exam week at the chiropractic school. And the sirens started sounding outside the building.

And what ended up happening was, the building ended up surrounded by basically a SWAT team, because my volatile ex was there. And he was dressed in camouflage, and he had guns, and so it was a really dangerous situation. I made the mistake – and luckily, luckily a friend of mine had kind of seen pictures of him, so she kind of knew. So she was the one that alerted the campus security and the police that something wasn’t right.

But none of my friend knew the extent of it. And in hindsight, I had a lot of guilt after that because I put other people’s safety at risk. And it was one thing to put my own – because that was what I chose, and I was – I chose the man I was with on some level, and I was comfortable with this situation. And it’s like one thing to put my own safety at risk, and it’s a whole other thing to put other people’s safety at risk.

And if you’re listening, I’m not saying you are, but what I’m saying is: Biggest mistake I did was keeping a secret. A really big secret. So share it with someone, whatever it is you’re going through right now, and have the courage to share it. Because the person that – they may not be able to directly help you, but they they can be the liaison to get you help safely.

And one of the things that – as a domestic violence or abuse survivor, it’s not always safe for you to get your own help. Because if your abuser finds out that you’re seeking help or you’re seeking to get out of the situation, it becomes more volatile. So you need someone that can be your liaison and your go-between for the “contact the outside world” kind of thing. So if you’re out there, and you’re listening, and you’re in this situation, or you’re thinking about leaving a situation, or you just left, make sure people – at least one person knows your story.

KIM: Absolutely. I completely agree. And there are even – I know in my area here in Ohio, there are women’s advocacy groups (I don’t know if that’s the right word) but there are even groups like that that you can get in touch with. And they will ask you where they can call that would be a safe number, because of things like caller ID.

AMY CANNATTA: Right.

KIM: Thank you so much for sharing that. And I’m sure, if there’s a listener out there who’s going through it, they greatly appreciate it as well.

So you went through that and today are helping business owners and individuals improve their lives through strategies and also through your life coaching. How you having you kept – or maybe built – a positively active life, having gone through that? What type of development – personal development, professional development – did you go through? I know you said you were part of a coaching program.

AMY CANNATTA: So I’m an avid learner. That’s the one thing! I am an avid learner, I am a lifelong learner, and I’m a lifelong sponge for knowledge. So because – and I’m curious. And that’s one trait that I’m just learning about myself. And if you’re listening, and you want to be more positively productive, I say: Get curious. Start asking questions. You start asking people questions, you get curious about your own process.

And so yes, I’ve been through multiple group coaching programs, one-on-one mentoring. But I’m also an avid reader. So I’m constantly reading books – either business development, marketing, personal development. I mean, the book I just finished, “The Universe Has Your Back” by Gabby Bernstein – great book. I just started another book called “Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini.

KIM: I have that on my shelf, too.

AMY CANNATTA: Yeah, yeah. So I can’t wait to dive into that one. So I just think that it’s really – part of my own productivity process has been: when possible, turning negatives into positives, and not dwelling on the negatives so much. Because I really think, Kim, that…

I always say, when something bad happens, it’s like I say, “You know what? There’s a positive spin on this somewhere. I might not know it right now, but I might find out a year from now, or six months from now, or five years from now – oh, my gosh! That happened for a reason! Now I know the reason.” And it was for my benefit. And everything that has happened in my life – good and bad – I believe was for a reason. It’s put me exactly right here, where I am at this moment talking to you. So I wouldn’t change any of it, honestly.

KIM: I feel the same way, every bit of that. And yeah, having gone through a bad marriage as well.

(I want to apologize to you and listeners. One of our neighbors, I have no idea which one, has his leaf blower out. That’s what you get at this time.)

However – and I’m sorry to take the show away from you for just a second – but how you were just saying, everything. You know, you can take a positive spin on everything. So my husband and I were just laughing – and I’m sure we had the same memory going through our head.

When we were living in an apartment a few years ago, and our daughter who’s now three was a newborn – in the middle of winter, the person who would take care of the sidewalk would use a leaf blower at about one o’clock in the morning to blow the snow off the sidewalks. It was the most ridiculous thing! And I don’t think I’ve heard a leaf blower, really – I’m looking up my husband, and he just shook his head – I don’t think I’ve heard a leaf blower in the almost three years since we left there.

But that’s the first thing I thought of – at least the sidewalks were clear. Did a good job with blowing the snow away with the leaf blower!

AMY CANNATTA: You know what? That’s so creative and inventive, I never would have thought to use a leaf blower to clean sidewalks off. A broom, yes, maybe – but not a leaf blower. So that’s pretty engine ingenuitive of that person.

KIM: Yeah. But I guess it really matters, or depends on where you are, too, because I know some of the snow in New England. And I’m from western New York myself – I’m from Rochester – so some of that snow is just not leaf-blower-suitable because it’s that wet, sloppy stuff, right?

AMY CANNATTA: It’s the stuff when you take a shovelful, and it’s like, “Oh, my gosh, this feels like a 15 pound weight in the shovel!”

KIM: Yeah, and schools don’t get closed, jobs, businesses don’t shut down. But people – no offense to the whole rest of the country – people in western New York know how to drive in snow.

AMY CANNATTA: Yeah, true. Very true.

KIM: But anyway. Sorry for that little detour there. So you just moved, though, cross-country as a business owner to a place that is going to be more “conducive” ( Is the word that we came up with?) for in line with you be in the right mindset and in the right environment for yourself?

AMY CANNATTA: Yes.

KIM: So, how did that transition go?

AMY CANNATTA: The actual move?

KIM: Yeah. I mean, I know we’re in an online space, and you have clients all over the world.

AMY CANNATTA: Yeah, so as far as the business goes, it transitioned – honestly, it transitioned really beautifully. Looking back on the months leading up to my move… So I moved at the beginning of August, I actually drove – I actually packed up a moving truck, and the truck left the house, and I got in my car with my younger daughter, and we left for a five-day road trip.

And when we got out here, we were out here a couple of days, and the moving truck comes, and we unload the stuff. It’s funny, though – the two months prior, when I look back on it now, I go, “What were you thinking?”

Because in August I moved. In June, I launched my podcast. In June, my daughter graduated high school. Then you’ve got 4th of July, and then it was like, “Oh, my gosh. It’s like three weeks, and I’ve got to move. I’ve got to start packing.” It was kind of this crazy time, on top of like launching a podcast, because I really wanted to do that. And so that was like birthing another baby. You know how it is when you watch a podcast – it takes a lot of your time and effort and stuff behind the scenes that no one sees. I had all that stuff going on, and I was like, “Wow.” Looking back on that now, I’m like, “How did I do that?”

So I guess I say that so that your listeners – talking about positive productivity -your listeners can can glean a glimpse into “How did I do that?” I did that really by taking – it sounds cliché – one day at a time, and making a list of “All right, what are the three things I need to get done today?”

And I would usually have a list of 10 or 15 things, but I was like, “What are the three most important things I have to get done today? And then I’ll work on the other 15.” And I think that’s how I got through, honestly, all of those transitions.

KIM: Okay, so now I have to ask: What is your preferred method for list-making? Are you a pen-and-paper person, or do you have a preferred online tool?

AMY CANNATTA: Oh, I love this question. This is a great question. I would say I am a pen-and-paper girl. So what I have, I have next to my computer – it looks like one of those… I think I got it at T.J. Maxx or something. It looks like a long, skinny – it’s spiral bound at the top, but it’s long and skinny. Almost looks like you would write a grocery list on it, and it’s just lined paper, but it’s a long, skinny list-making thing.

And I keep that right by my computer, and I do that because I can see it, and I can look at the list, and I can add to it at the bottom. And then I can look at top-to-bottom and say, “Okay, I’ve got to get this done, this done, this done.” And then I check them off. And the reason I prefer that is because it’s right there, it’s right by my computer, I can see it every day, I don’t have to pull up a website, I don’t have to do any… For me, it’s simple.

I did, in the past, use Trello a lot. And I did like that, but I found myself becoming un-compliant with it, so I went back to my good old pen-and-paper list.

KIM: I love it. So what type of idea generator are you? And I am most curious about how, if you ran into it, how did you record ideas when you were driving for those five days?

AMY CANNATTA: Oh, my gosh. Kim, I love these questions. Love it! Honestly, my creativity comes at random times. And it’s funny because I chuckled to myself when you asked me the question, because I’ve said this so many times. I’m like, “If only there was a waterproof white board for the shower!”

KIM: Amy, you have to purchase bath crayons.

AMY CANNATTA: Oh, man. I’m missing out. I am missing out on some powerful tools! I’m going to write this down.

KIM: Yup. Bath crayons, made for little kids. You just keep them in your shower, and you draw on your shower wall, and then take a picture. And there you go.

AMY CANNATTA: I love it. I love it. I’m going to – I wrote it down, I’m going to go on Amazon, and I’m going to get them. Because I have the best ideas in the shower, honestly.

And I have the best ideas when I’m not thinking about ideas, do you know what I mean? Like, if I sat down and said, “All right, I need to create content,” and I looked at my blank computer screen – it wouldn’t come. My best ideas come when I’m not thinking about it.

And I say this to my clients, too. It’s like: You don’t have to create content for your blogs. You don’t have to sit just be like, “Okay, what am I going to talk about today?” Same thing with my podcast, my content-only episodes. I don’t sit and go, “All right, what am I going to talk about today? What am I going to talk about on Facebook Live?”

It’s just random, “This is on my mind,” or, “I’ve talked to several people; this has been a hot topic this week.” “Talked to several clients,” or… it’s stuff that I just do. You know, if you just live life, and then you look at what you’re doing and say, “What can I share about this experience that might benefit someone else?”

You have constant content, even if it’s just playing with your kids, or going to the pumpkin patch – how do you pick a pumpkin out? Do you like tall, skinny pumpkins? Do you like short, fat pumpkins? You know, what’s your pumpkin preference? I mean, there’s content there that’s either whimsical that shows your personality, or gives people a glimpse into who you are, what you do. I just think that it’s – the creativity for me, and I don’t know about everyone else, but creativity for me is just living life.

KIM: Oh, I completely agree. And I call it Chronic Idea Disorder.

AMY CANNATTA: I love that!

KIM: It comes all the time, any time especially – well, it’s stopped coming right before bed, which I am extremely grateful for, because I really am trying to avoid screens right before bed. I struggle with that sometimes, though. But I actually made these positive productivity tracking sheets. They are laminated cardstock that I use dry erase markers on, because I am a pen-and-paper person as well.

AMY CANNATTA: I like that.

KIM: Like I cannot – I have Evernote, I have Asana, but I need it right in front of me. Because those two – I’m a visual, I can’t live on Evernote and Asana, but I can look at these sheets. Just like your grocery pad – I don’t know what to call it, we’ve got to find a name for that – but your list pad. It’s exactly the same way: I need it right here. So, yeah.

AMY CANNATTA: Yeah, same. Cool, I love it. I have to – off the air, I’ll have to get – unless you want to plug it, like where… where… This is life! This is real life, people.

KIM: This is so real life. And, um, that was actually – so I don’t need “fame and fortune”, you know, in the literal sense, because I have Fame and Fortune: the cats. And they cannot get along. So I hope that’s not like an indicator of where this podcast goes! But that was Fame and Fortune, and then my dog, Penny – which somebody can read in. One of you listeners, tell me what that means, that I have a dog named “Penny” and then two cats named “Fame and Fortune”.

AMY CANNATTA: That’s funny, that’s funny.

KIM: So anyway, bath crayons. Yeah, you’ll definitely want to get those.

AMY CANNATTA: Yeah, bath crayons, and I would love to hear where I can get those sheets from you. Where can I get your sheets, Kim?

KIM: Listeners, this was not at all staged!

AMY CANNATTA: It wasn’t at all!

KIM: You can go to TheKimSutton.com/Shop, and there on there. But, yeah.

AMY CANNATTA: Thank you.

KIM: Amy, what type of daily ritual, if any, do you have?

AMY CANNATTA: Oh, gosh – this is a great question. My daily ritual, really, is I get up at 6 o’clock every morning, regardless of the day of the week. I’m actually a pretty big habit person, getting into productive habits. So for me, I get up everyday at 6:00 – and I’m not really a morning person, so – but I do get up. I don’t want to say I “force” myself; I “choose” to get up at 6 o’clock.

And it’s not a “Look at me, world! Here I am! I’m hitting the ground running” by any means. It is, I believe in starting my day because I wouldn’t say I have the most energy in the morning, I’m more energetic at this time of day. So what I do is I choose to get up, and I usually like to, to be totally honest, make myself a green tea – I’m a green tea drinker – and make myself a green tea.

And then I spend 10 or 15 minutes doing some meditation, and then I spend another 10 or 15 minutes – sometimes maybe up to a half an hour, if I have the time – writing. So every day, without fail, I do my meditation and my writing, and that really helps keep me grounded and centered. And I would say that’s pretty much my morning routine that I do every single day, day-in, day-out. That’s it.

My workouts come in three or four days a week, and those are usually kind of scheduled in the middle of the day, when I have my most energy. I know some people are morning workout people, some people are evening workout people. I like to kind of break up my day in the middle and do my workouts, but my morning routine is always the same.

And I encourage people who are listening who want to be more productive to put yourself first. Because it sets you up for this mindset of, “I’m my number one priority,” and not in a selfish way. But especially if you’re a nurturer, or you’re you’re a coach, or you’re in a field where you’re giving back to other people, or you’re a mom and you’re giving your kids or you’re giving your husband – or if you’re a guy, and you’re the breadwinner, you have to take care of yourself too.

And not a selfish way. It’s setting you up for being even more productive, and by taking care of yourself and putting yourself first. Because if you don’t, over the long haul, I’ve seen women – because I work primarily with women – with chronic problems as a result of not putting themselves first and not taking care of themselves, which leads to other chronic physical ailments. And I see that all the time.

KIM: Or mental.

AMY CANNATTA: Primarily both. And sometimes, one causes the other. So sometimes stress and fatigue end up causing neck pain or back pain, and it’s really the the mental cause versus the physical cause. The physical symptom, the pain, comes and then they’re like, “Oh, where’s this coming from?” Well it’s probably years of chronic high-achieving and not putting yourself first at all for a period of years… I mean, it’s a complicated recipe, but I see it a lot.

KIM: I had never thought of “chronic high-achieving” before. That’s a really interesting thought, and wow. Yeah.

AMY CANNATTA: You’re talking to one! So I’m a recovering chronic high-achiever, so it’s like I know the symptoms. And I’ve spent really the last – since this family tragedy, I would say the last four years – besides developing my coaching business, really just diving into how I tick.

And dialing down, figuring out where the high-achievement drive came from, and doing personal development around that, figuring out that it came from a lack of self-worth and a lot of other things – just to give some examples – and then dialing that down and saying, “You know what? I need to put myself first.” So that’s where that comes from.

KIM: Amy, what would you say is the difference between high-achieving and high-performance? Is there any, to you?

AMY CANNATTA: Mm, that’s a great question. I have to think about that for a second. I guess I would think that, I mean, to me…

And it’s funny, because I’ve talked to – I don’t know if you know Yasmin Annal, she’s a high-performance coach. Talk to her about this topic.

And I think for me – I mean, and I’m just sharing my opinion – the difference between high-achieving and high-performance: High achieving, at least for me when I think of it, I think of it as coming from an unhealthy need to fill a hole, an emotional hole, or maybe a self-worth, or whatever the hole is that really, honestly for me, it was a bottomless pit that would never be filled until I dealt with the real issues.

So the high-achieving kind of comes from – I would say for me, came from an unhealthy mindset place. I would say now, who I am now is way more “high performance”, because I come from a totally different mindset, which is: I’ve got to start my day taking care of myself mentally. Which is why I do the meditation and the mindset work and the writing – my writing is my outlet for my creativity. It’s one of them. And then taking care of my body physically.

High performance doesn’t mean working 16-, 18-hour days. High performance means, I think to me, living life in a healthy way as balanced – you know, balance is like a “white whale” to me – but being as balanced as you can. That means having fun, that means on the weekends – I’m not on Facebook on the weekends. I turn off social media. Because when I come back, I’m at a more “high-performing” state versus a “high-achieving to fill a unworthiness hole”, I guess it would be. So I would say that’s the difference for me.

KIM: I agree, absolutely. And I’ve been in programs before that I felt were pushing the “high-achievement” mindset, and then I’ve also been in programs that were going for high-performance. If any of you listeners are looking for a great podcast on high performance (and Amy, I’d love to see if you have any others that you would recommend), but I actually recommend Brendon Burchard’s “The Charged Life”, it might be. I’ll put it in the show notes.

But actually, this – Brendon Burchard and his podcast and his programs was probably one of the biggest kicks that I needed. Because I went through probably two years of sleeping three to four hours a night, tops. And it clicked, after you said it, about how it did affect me physically, and then that turned into the mentally. So I get now, I can totally see that. But yeah, I would definitely check out his podcast.

AMY CANNATTA: And that’s where – you know, Kim – that’s where all my work as a chiropractor… Like, that’s why I said, “Everything I learned has led me to this point,” because my experience as a chiropractor and really studying, being really fully invested and spending time.

Like I’m not a high-volume – I was not a high-volume chiropractor that saw people every 10 minutes. I would see people every half hour to 45 minutes and really study and dive into what was going on. So my background there is what – I mean, I was doing research on my patients for 10 years, which has led me to kind of connect the dots between the mental, emotional, and physical health, and how that manifests in the body as the physical symptoms.

And it’s quite interesting, because the more I study, it’s – many of the stressors that we have manifest the same way over and over again in people, which is really fascinating. So it’s like, for example – a lot of money/financial issues get tied in with, I see it in 9 out of 10 people, it causes low-back pain, versus neck pain. It’s more towards the low-back, I don’t know why, it’s just a pattern that I saw clinically.

So that’s where I started connecting the dots between – and even in my own self-discovery, curiosity – that’s why I said in the beginning, “Get curious.” My own self-discovery process was being curious with my patients, getting curious with myself, “How is pain related to stress, and emotions, and mental stuff?” And it’s kind of like, “Can one affect the other?” And the answer’s “Yes.”

KIM: I hadn’t really thought about that – or I guess I should define what I haven’t thought about. You said “financial stressors” can affect the lower back, or stressors in general?

AMY: Well stressors in general, but when I ask patients what specific stressors – because people say “stress”, so yes, stress in general affects the physical body.

But when I started asking more specific questions, “What kind of stress are you under?” and they would say “Financial stress,” I was like, “Okay.” So I started putting the pieces together – and not everyone, but I would say nine out of 10 people, nine out of 10 patients – would have some sort of financial.

Because the lower back – and I know this is kind of going off topic a little bit – but the lower back and up the pelvic area is our foundation. It’s like the foundation, it’s like everything, our whole spine, our head, and everything sits on our pelvis and our sacrum right there. It’s like, everything’s there.

And because it’s our foundation, a lot of people – I mean, money is tied in with your foundation, as living life – we need money to survive. And so I see a lot of correlations there, and I’ve seen it with men and women. It’s not gender-specific, it’s stressor-specific with financial stress, or worry, or things going on. And it’s lower back, just about every time.

KIM: Wow. I have one last question for you, Amy. Do you have a nightly routine that you follow?

AMY CANNATTA: You know, I don’t. I have my morning routine, I have my gym routine, I don’t have a nightly routine – and maybe I should! Maybe I should.

KIM: No, but it’s good to be up close about it.

AMY CANNATTA: Yeah.

KIM: Well, I have enjoyed every moment of talking to you, and I thank you for being here – and for rolling with the punches through the leaf blower and the cats!

AMY CANNATTA: Well, thank you for having me.

KIM: Yes. Where can listeners find you online, and connect, and all the good stuff?

AMY CANNATTA: I primarily do a lot for my business page, Dr. Amy Cannatta. So on Facebook, you can find me there, or you can follow me (Amy M. Cannatta). And I also have a Facebook group called “The Vibrant and Vital Entrepreneurs.” It’s for women business owners who want to help support each other and be a positive place – that’s not spammy – to support one another growing their business. And then I have a website. Amy Cannatta – that’s AmyCannatta.com.

And if the listeners want, I have a freebie if you go to my website: AmyCannatta.com/RR, they can download – I have a “How to Be More Resilient”. And so I share in there – it’s a guidebook and a workbook – kind of how I overcame all the obstacles in my life. And I created a framework called DREAM, which is an acronym for the steps to take to lead a more resilient, productive life.

KIM: That’s so awesome. I will be sure to put that in the show notes. And listeners, you can find the show notes at TheKimSutton.com/PP046. Again, that’s PP046. Again, Amy, thank you so much for being here today. I have had a blast.

AMY CANNATTA: Thanks, Kim.