The Anti Perfect System for a Balanced Body with Athena Concannon

• Shifting the focus from appearance to how we want to feel
• Exploring the counterintuitive impacts of stress
• Celebrating small fitness victories can be more beneficial than chasing perfection
• Reconnecting with joy and embedding self-care into daily life

“When you’re under a lot of stress, just day to day stress… your motivation is going to be down. It’s going to be harder to get yourself to go to the gym. You’re not going to be as mindful because there’s only so much mental capacity that we have. We don’t have this infinite amount of decision making power.”

“Exercise in and of itself, although it can be stress relieving, is also a type of stress on your body. And that’s where you really have to work to find that balance of how much is too much and how much is enough.

When you say are burning the candle at both ends and you have all this stuff going on and now you’re adding a ton of high impact exercise, or maybe you don’t feel good. So you’re like, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to just slash a bunch of calories. That also is a stress on the body to go too deep into a calorie deficit. Now your body is saying, whoa, what are you doing? What are you giving me? And maybe it’s going to store more fat or stop some sort of function that it doesn’t deem necessary for today, like reproduction, horrible hormones or thyroid hormones.”

“A bad day doesn’t unravel everything. What unravels everything is letting a day where you don’t have a vegetable at all turn into 30 days that you don’t have a vegetable at all.”

“There’s a difference between, ‘I don’t want to work out today, but I’m going to do it anyways,’ versus, ‘My body is actually very tired today, and I’m here, and I did my warm up, and maybe that’s it for today, but I still did that.’”

NICOLE

Hello, friends. Welcome back to the School of Self-Worth. I am your host, Nicole Tsong, and today is such a fantastic conversation for all of you. I had the great honor and privilege of welcoming Athena Concannon to the podcast. Athena teaches women how to step away from comparison and perfectionism and to instead create a life of balance and intention, especially with their fitness and their nutrition, so they can come out feeling really confident and strong, and she is a coach who I personally know well. I love her, and she really walks her talk and what she teaches in her community. So I am super excited for you to hear about the essential pieces that women over 35 should really be looking at to support their strength, their nutrition, and living really full, expansive lives.

So stay tuned for an incredible conversation with Athena. And if you’re an Asian American woman leader who wants the execs step by step to understand the secret language of intuition, I’ve got a private podcast that gives you the complete behind the scenes on how to master intuitive communication patterns. DM me Secret to Nicole Tsong on Instagram to get all of the great details.

Okay, friends, let’s dig into today’s conversation. Welcome to the School of Self-Worth, a podcast for ambitious women who know they are worthy of an astoundingly great life. Join us weekly as we get on the right side of your intuition, redefine success, and reclaim your self-worth. I’m your host, Nicole Tsong, an award-winning journalist who left it all behind to become a best-selling author of three books and work/life balance expert, helping ambitious women unlock their intuition and step into a life of fulfillment and radical joy. Every single week, I will bring you diverse and meaningful conversations with successful women from all walks of life who share insight about what it takes to be brave, joyful and authentic every day.

Every episode is thoughtfully designed to leave you feeling empowered with tangible tips and advice that will lead you to your next breakthrough.

Athena, I am so excited that you’re here. Welcome to the School of Self-Worth.

ATHENA CONCANNON

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

NICOLE

I love the topics that you cover and what you really do and how you support women in the journey of health and nutrition. She works with women who are over 35 and I was like, oh yeah, I’m in that category, and a lot of what you talk about is so relevant. But could you tell us first a little bit about yourself and then also about your journey with your own health and being a woman who tends towards the high achiever, towards the perfectionism and how that really impacted you over time, and how you started to untangle that. I know that was a lot of questions, but, just tell us about yourself first. We’ll start with that.

ATHENA CONCANNON

Yeah, I would love to. So, again, thank you for having me. My name’s ATHENA CONCANNON. I’m a certified personal trainer, certified nutrition coach, and I do have specific specialties in pregnancy and postpartum. I do work a lot with working moms over 35 in helping them get back to finding a lot of structure and intentionality in their fitness and nutrition journeys. A lot of them want to get stronger again, feel comfortable in their clothes again after having kids, and really also just feel like they’re a priority in their own lives. Some were very active prior to having kids, and a lot identify as former athletes, maybe in high school and college, and it’s really easy to lose yourself, or that part of yourself, in the motherhood journey.

That’s really what I do with my clients and help them navigate that new season of life and with different circumstances than they had prior. My own fitness journey started back in the day in college. I taught on-campus fitness classes as my college job, thought it was so great that I could make money while I was working out. So that’s where it all began. The gym. It became my ‘happy place’, and I continued working out all the time. I’d be home from college, I would be in the gym.

In my personal life, I come from a family that had mental illness, very chaotic dynamic. So the gym was my escape. Now what again started as this healthy outlet, turned into a way for me to get control, and it became a little unhealthy, actually. I would be spending a lot of time doing double sessions or going for a run and then taking a class, and it was just a lot on my body. However, I was being constantly praised for being so motivated, being so disciplined, being someone who’s so dedicated, doing so much, and that really fueled my achiever-personality. So that’s where that ties in, because I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, everyone thinks I’m the best at this, so I’m going to keep going”.

That was really at a time, too, where I think diet culture wasn’t being called out as much as it is now. Even though I personally never really had a yo-yo dieting journey, I wouldn’t say I was a chronic dieter, but I definitely let what I saw other people doing, influence the way that I thought about food and fitness and the things that I thought I had to do, in order to be healthy for the sake of wellness. So I’m going to pause here, because I’ve been talking a lot.

NICOLE

Oh, no, you’re perfect. Well, actually what you’re saying, though, is interesting to me because I feel like a late bloomer/mover. I started in my twenties, doing yoga and practicing like that. And then I wrote a fitness column for a long time, for the Seattle Times. But it’s so interesting because my perspective is such a different one than yours, because I always think about how hard it is for people to motivate to move. I think especially once you hit your thirties and forties and you have a lot on your plate, in your life, it’s like just not that high a priority.

So it’s interesting to me because I know that this other side of it exists for people where they are overactive. It’s like too much. It’s like a fixation. So I’m just interested in it just more to insert from that place because I’ve never been that kind of person. To me, it’s always like, how do I move more? How do I just get on a walk? But I’m also never doing it with the idea of, I need to be skinny or look a certain way. I just know that it’s better, literally, for my cardiovascular system, my health and my blood work. I never go in and have any issues when I’m getting blood work taken with my doctor, because I think, I am so active. But it’s interesting, it’s such a fine line. How can you be active and move, but not take it to that sort of obsessive, overdoing it kind of place?

ATHENA CONCANNON

Yeah, I definitely got there. A lot of my clients were there at one point in their lives. I do think that that can be very jarring to kind of come back and realize, oh, I actually might not need to do as much as I thought, or maybe I need to add in these other things that I’m not doing that actually could move the dial toward my physique. Goals, health goals, performance goals, whatever the goals, are more significant than, say, all the hours in the gym.

NICOLE

Right? And it is really interesting because, a lot of times, when I came into the world of moving your body more, I realised you can live your life. You can haul your groceries around, you can pick your kid up, you don’t have back pain or sciatica pain just from doing regular things. You don’t throw your back out, picking up socks off the floor, like that kind of stuff. But there is a balance, I think, of how do we do it to take care of ourselves and then not take it over the edge and again, like, hitting the goals.

But what are the goals? So maybe we should start there. How do you start to define the goals in a way, when you’re starting to release that mentality of unhealthy ways of setting goals, how do you start to set goals in a way that feels actually accurate and correct for your body, your lifestyle?

ATHENA CONCANNON

Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it can be really helpful and powerful to approach it from how you want to feel ultimately, instead of what you want to look like. And that can certainly play a part in it. It does. Let’s just pick three things. I want to feel energized, I want to feel strong, and I want to feel confident. Then you can start to create some actions that really align with that journey and not necessarily get caught up in all these nitty gritty right ways of things, wrong ways of things. You can decide what actions are going to allow me, as a unique person, an individual, to get to that place. I love creating ‘feeling’ goals and then taking the action from there.

NICOLE

So really just starting to get into that feeling of, okay, I want to feel energized, strong, confident. I say this, not to make this harder for you, but I’m curious because I actually feel all of those things. And then if you have clients who are in that place, are you like, okay, I’m good? Or is it because, I think, we are trained by diet culture, and then also something you mentioned before we got on, we’re influenced constantly by what we see on social media and what people are saying to us. Is there anything to do? Or is it, once you’re there, then it’s just about maintaining that feeling and experience?

ATHENA CONCANNON

Yeah, I think it is about maintaining that feeling and experience and keeping momentum with it. Because part of life is going to be all the ebbs and flows that come with it. Say someone does feel those three things coming in. There is going to be something that’s lacking for them. And even if they’re feeling those other things, a time in their life might come up where they’re like, okay, I do not feel this. And how do I deal without getting totally off track?

Now, if you have a baby, just to go back to that particular scenario of life, and all of a sudden your whole body is different, and you might not be able to lift how you used to lift in ways that feel good in your body. I’m not even talking about baby waking or anything like that right now. It could be just, wow, squats don’t feel good in my back anymore, so I don’t feel confident in the gym. I don’t feel strong then. What can I do now? It might be different from my previous circumstances, and that’s just one example, but that could be where, okay, the level of those things will inevitably shift, and it’s about kind of keeping yourself going and in line.

NICOLE

Yeah, that’s so interesting. Because it is like where you get injured or you have a baby, and I would imagine that postpartum journey evolves, too. It’s like how you feel in six months, a year, two years really changes, right?

ATHENA CONCANNON

Yes, 100%. And also, I would add to that, that even with different pregnancies or different kids that you have, your experience is different. I myself am living that right now. I have two children who are 4 and 18 months at the time of recording this. And my experience postpartum with my first was totally different than my experience with my second. And that can be hard to navigate, too. I felt very strong after my first, and now it’s a whole different learning curve for me.

NICOLE

Yeah. So when we’re talking about women, there’s just such a vast range of experiences, and when women are coming in, as coaches, we’re trying to talk about how do we help people in a general way, but what do you start to see for women? Like, what’s one thing for them to start to understand first? Is it like, my body doesn’t feel the way I want it to, or do you tend to work with women who already did work out before, during pregnancy, and then they’re really struggling after that?

ATHENA CONCANNON

A lot are women that were working out very active before. It doesn’t necessarily have to be pregnancy. I would actually say a life transition has occurred, whether that is having a baby, having to caretake for somebody, having a huge move or huge career change, and the dust is settling, maybe a little bit, you can come up for air, and then that is where it can feel jarring to say, how do I get back to how I used to feel? How do I get this back in my life in a place that makes sense for me now and not necessarily 15 years ago?

NICOLE

What would you say for many women around that feeling of worthiness or feeling that they are worth spending that time to prioritize and say, yes, I should be. It’s actually important for me to feel really physically good in my body. It’s not something that’s a fluffy thing on the side, but actually a priority, and important.

ATHENA CONCANNON

I think just to consider what is the alternative if you don’t feel good in your body, what is that going to cost you down the line? And what does that cost you day-to-day now, how you’re showing up at work, how you’re showing up with your family. A lot of times it can be really easy to say, okay, I just can’t do this. I don’t have the time. I have to put my kids first. But are you really putting your kids first if you end up showing up in your interactions at home in a way where you’re, I don’t know, not feeling present because you’re just thinking about how crappy you feel, or if you are showing up resentfully with your partner because you haven’t taken the time for yourself, or you just are showing up going through the motions of a job that you used to love, and now you are approaching that with, I just have to get through, instead of saying I’m here to really put in my most creative work and feel fulfilled.

NICOLE

Totally. I feel like that is so true for so many of us when it also brings up something else, which is stress, because that’s really one of the major causes for so many people to not do things, even though I find that movement is one of the greatest ways to destress, then when we’re really deep in the stress, that can be really challenging. So can you talk a little bit more about how that impacts our motivation? It impacts how we feel, like it impacts our ability to do the things that we want to that help us get that energy and strength back.

ATHENA CONCANNON

When you’re under a lot of stress, just day-to-day stress, and this is something that I refer to as our perceived daily stressors. Yes. Your motivation is going to be down. It’s going to be harder to get yourself to go to the gym. You’re not going to be as mindful because there’s only so much mental capacity that we have. We don’t have this infinite amount of decision making power. You’ll probably be less mindful about what food choice you make and maybe opt for something you didn’t really want to have, or that doesn’t really make you feel that good in the long run or wasn’t worth splurging on whatever that decision is. I think when it comes to stress, what a lot of people don’t realize is the amount of stress that can be at play that doesn’t fall into that perceived daily stressor category, like your workload or your kids or, I don’t know, stubbing your toe. The body doesn’t really differentiate between types of stressors. So we do have another category of stress, which is circadian stress. If our sleep is out of whack or anything that does affect how you sleep, caffeine intake, jet lag, night shift, working, any of that. Or if you have a lot of inflammatory stress inside your body going on, then that’s a very physiological thing happening. Now you have some perceived life stressors going on. You don’t get a lot of sleep. That likely is causing some glycaemic imbalances in your body, now your body is really taking a hit. So sometimes when it comes to stress, we don’t realize that, and then what do we do to manage our stress? (and this is sort of where I was), we add high intensity workouts and more, more, more to that load. Now your stress cup is kind of overflowing.

NICOLE

Yeah! Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think that a lot of times we perceive, especially if you’re not physically feeling good, people are trained to think,  if I just go really hardcore in the gym, that will make me feel better.

ATHENA CONCANNON

Yeah. And I think a good way to understand it is just that exercise in and of itself, although it can be stress relieving, it is also a type of stress on your body, and that’s where you really have to work to find that balance of how much is too much, and how much is enough. Say when you are burning the candle at both ends and you have all this stuff going on and now you’re adding a ton of high impact exercise, or maybe you don’t feel good, you’re like, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to just slash a bunch of calories. That also is a stress on the body to go too deep into a calorie deficit. Now your body is saying, whoa, what are you doing? What are you giving me? And maybe it’s going to store more fat or stop some sort of function that it doesn’t deem necessary for today, like reproduction, horrible hormones or thyroid hormones, then a whole slew of issues can start to happen.

NICOLE

That makes so much sense because I feel like a lot of times we don’t remember that there’s just so many types of stress. And then we think if we’re spending all day on a computer and doing that work, deep stress, and then you’re going into a hardcore workout thinking it’s destressing you, but it’s actually just adding a different kind of stress. On top of it, you’re drinking a bunch of caffeine or maybe not eating the best, and then we’re like, why do I feel exhausted? I’m working out, like, whatever that is. Right?

ATHENA CONCANNON

Yeah. I would say that a lot of the clients I work with, even if they’re coming back off of that life transition, like, in their heads, they’re up to five to six workouts a week, I want to get back to that and go home, that they end up feeling a little bit better on maybe three to four workouts a week and then walking, or doing yoga. It doesn’t mean if you’re not doing ‘an official workout’ on the other day that you’re doing nothing, and just sedentary all of a sudden. I think we go into that all or nothing mindset, and then can start beating ourselves up that we’re not doing enough. But letting something be enough, is great.

NICOLE

And, yeah, could you talk about that? I also find a lot of my women are in that ‘all or nothing’. It’s like I’m either going to do five workouts a week or I’m not going to work out. I’m like, okay, or we could work out less or just do what we can. How do you start to help women with that? How, if you have that mindset, how can you start to dial it in to help yourself?

ATHENA CONCANNON

When it comes to that mindset, I think really redefining what consistency means to you, can be really helpful. So a lot of us have just been, I guess, conditioned to believe that consistency is like doing the exact same habit 365 days of the year, in the same exact way all the time, and that’s just not realistic, because we don’t live in this vacuum or bubble. So redefining consistency as the behaviors that you’re doing more often than not, I think, can be really powerful, because some weeks those behaviors are going to be four workouts. Another week you might hit three. Another week you hit four again. Another week, shit hits the fan and you’re doing none.

And that doesn’t mean you’re not consistent anymore. If we can view these things as part of the track, instead of on and off the track so much, we can start to be a lot gentler with ourselves and show ourselves a lot more self-compassion, and really don’t feel like we have so much to get back to after any kind of blip happens that takes us off that perfect ideal we have in our heads for how things are going to go.

NICOLE

Totally. And it also becomes a different kind of stress there, right. When you’re like, oh, my gosh, I’m failing. I’m not hitting every mark and every goal that I set for myself physically. Then you get all anxious about it, and versus actually, that relaxation is huge and really important.

ATHENA CONCANNON

Breathe into it. My client success manager and I were just going over our client submissions for this week, and one of our clients shared that she was actually feeling so happy that she was celebrating her mindset around doing one workout instead of hitting her three, because it just felt like such a shift for her to be able to not look at that as a failure. Just imagine where your mental energy could go if you’re not always beating yourself up?

NICOLE

Totally. I feel like that’s such an important thing. How can you just not feel like a failure? And I think this is a topic in general for so many people. How can I not feel like a failure about XYZ? But what would you say for women around not feeling like a failure concerning their health, you know, the current state of their health, whatever it is, what would be that first step to start to accept it or start to own it?

ATHENA CONCANNON

What are you doing? How are you showing up for yourself? Just identify one thing. Did you drink a glass of water today? Yes. Great. You did something. We often feel like the changes, or our actions or habits, have to be these huge things, and they really don’t need to be. A little catchphrase that I use in my client community is this concept of daily definites, where we all have different ones. But if you can just name maybe one or two that you know 95% of the time you can hit daily, that’s kind of your base. That could be, like for me, it’s move my body in some way, every day. I don’t put any parameters around that, because then I feel like I failed if I didn’t hit them. If that means a 1 minute stretch on a day that’s totally crazy, I did it, and I feel successful. Another one could be one meal that has just a lot of vegetables in it. Even if the other two don’t have any, at least I’ve hit that. I think just coming up with your own definitions and your own parameters will be huge for making you feel more successful, because now you’re not living up to all these other ‘should’s’ and rules  put out there by someone who doesn’t matter to you.

NICOLE

I always find that really fascinating. I’ve had to do a lot of work myself around just moving consistently. But then if you have a day like I had, we’re recording this around the holidays, and I had a cookie party with my friends. I ate bagels and cookies all day yesterday, and two to three tomato slices. And I didn’t move that much. I did a few squats in my office, and then that was the extent of it, and I was just like, whatever, Nicole, you’re fine. You don’t have to be upset at yourself for how that went.

But it’s interesting how ingrained that can be to now call that a ‘bad day’. I didn’t do everything I was supposed to do to balance my day. And instead of just being like, oh, it’s a fun, celebratory day, and I just get to have it be how it was. It was perfect. It was great.

ATHENA CONCANNON

And if you think about it from the standpoint of, okay, say you have a day where everything does go, ‘right, or good or perfect’, whatever you want to say. That one day is not going to push you to the direction of, okay, now, I am at my best. I’ve hit my goal, just because of that one good day. So neither does a bad day unravel everything. What unravels everything is letting a day where you don’t have a vegetable at all, turn into 30 days that you don’t have a vegetable at all, just because you’re like, okay, well, a bad day happens, so now the rest of the month is off. That’s what is going to actually move the dial more in the direction you probably don’t want it to.

NICOLE

It’s like the bigger picture of consistency, but not the perfectionist consistency, just simply making some improvements every day.

And it’s so funny. I’m like, man, it’s so hard for humans to do that sometimes, you know? We really struggle with that. I do, too. Because I like to weightlift, my weightlifting coaches say this, and we’re kind of on a hiatus for December, it doesn’t matter how often, it’s just doing it. Come in, and even if it’s a crappy lifting day, just come in and lift, and it can be light, it doesn’t have to be anything good. But just the fact that you showed up is going to be more helpful than not. And I was like, oh, yeah? And that’s what is getting me there, even though there’s no class, okay, I’m just going to be here. Even if it’s just 30 minutes of whatever, it’s better than not doing it. But it’s hard. It’s hard for me, too, you know? It’s hard for us as humans, I think, to remember that, because we just want to be okay, all or nothing, instead of the long term gain, you know?

ATHENA CONCANNON

Yeah. You’re building the power of showing up for yourself. You’re building that habit. And even if you drive to the gym and you just do your warm up. I think there’s a lot to be said about if your body’s not feeling it, and sometimes it’s not, there’s a difference between, I don’t want to work out today, but I’m going to do it anyway, versus, no, my body is actually very tired today, but I’m here, and I did my warm up, and maybe that’s it for today, and I still managed that.

NICOLE

Totally. I used to always tell myself, and I still do this sometimes, where I’m like, you’re going to go, and you’re just going to do 15 minutes and just see how it feels. Then it almost always turns into a full workout, and it’s fine. But that’s the only way I could get myself off the floor and get in the car, you know?

ATHENA CONCANNON

Yeah. It’s time to go, like, bargain each step.

NICOLE

Totally. I do. That’s how it’s given me the habit of just going anyway. But it is kind of funny how you have to bargain with yourself sometimes, just to make something small happen, to get into that consistency.

ATHENA CONCANNON

Yeah, absolutely.

NICOLE

Well, what would you say for women who are struggling with this? They’re like, okay, I’m just struggling to feel good, connected in my body, healthy and energized. Any of those things that we’ve been talking about, what would you say for them is the first thing for them to do, what would be the main tip to start with?

ATHENA CONCANNON

I’m going to answer this in two ways. One, I’m going to give you a very specific answer. I would say to just start walking. It is the most accessible thing. You don’t have to think, you can just go out and do it. If you’re struggling to feel good, you’re probably also just going to be struggling to think about what are all the things that I need to do to start feeling better, and to take it one step at a time. One thing at a time. You don’t have to cross every t and dot every I.

The second you decide, I’m going to make a change for my body, and I had to pick one habit to start with, I would say get out there and go for a walk. It really makes everything feel better. But then once you can prove to yourself, okay, I have a couple of weeks of getting out there and getting that walk in, I don’t know, five days a week under my belt, whatever your goal is. I don’t even like to give numbers sometimes because someone’s like, oh, I didn’t do that much. Pick your goal with it. Prove to yourself you can do it.

And then you add in the next thing, there’s no rush, that’s the thing. We can feel like, oh, we’re so behind, or I should be doing more, but maybe the next week. Okay, now I’m going to add the drinking water on top of the walking, and pick these things that are big rocks, but they make a difference, even though they seem like they’re not a big deal. Then onto the next thing. Step-by-step, one thing at a time approach.

NICOLE

I love that, because I think it’s so easy when we have stress, that we get really overwhelmed by the whole, oh, I have to do that. I have to do this whole plan. I have to put this whole three month plan into place, and that feels really overwhelming, versus what if I just took a 15 minutes’ walk today, then just see how I feel afterward, and then maybe tomorrow I can do it again, then maybe I’ll drink some water, too.

ATHENA CONCANNON

Then once you have that in place, you will feel better. It’s going to be more than you’re doing. Whatever you’re picking, you will feel better. And then it’s time to look at the next step of it, but really also trying not to get distracted by all the stuff out there, and stick with the basics. The basics are called the basics for a reason, and it’s because they work. I would say that the most fit people you know, are probably doing the basics on repeat, over and over and over.

NICOLE

Like that repetition of you just have to do them. I’m just listening in for the next question for you, Athena, because I love this. I feel like I’m just curious, too, if you tackle work with women around their identity and the challenge of that identity, if that comes up for people around, like, I’m a person who works out, I’m a working mom who works out, I am any of those things, if that comes up for a lot of women and they struggle with who they are physically, if that is something that you tackle?

ATHENA CONCANNON

I personally, myself, even relate to this right now, trying to find who I am in this new season of life. For me, with two little kids and being an entrepreneur, a lot of my clients will feel a little disconnected from, I guess, their past selves and struggle to bring pieces of that into their current life. So as part of the holistic approach that I take with our community, where it’s not just workouts and it’s not just nutrition and what you’re eating, but self-care kind of being the other piece of it, with the stress management and all that. It’s also trying to find what does bring you joy now? And maybe we can’t do that specific thing every day, but how can we bring in some elements of it into our week?

Then that has a trickle-down effect. That, in and of itself, is going to make you feel more confident, probably, that you’re doing the thing that you like to do, or you have some other aspects of satisfaction built into your day-to-day. Maybe you won’t be as likely to nose dive into the cabinets looking for sweets at night, if you have that built in. So I think that, yes, a lot of people do struggle with identity, and we have to work to find how we can create that for ourselves now.

NICOLE

So powerful. It’s such an important thing. I feel like as we change and evolve in life, that we’re able to really identify, know who we are in those different times and phases. Amazing. Well, Athena, what is the best way for people to find you or to reach out to you?

ATHENA CONCANNON

The place that I am the most on is Instagram. My handle athenaconcannon, my full name, my website is achieved with athena.com. And in 2024, I will just put this out there, I am actually starting a podcast. So that’ll be coming.

NICOLE

So exciting. Awesome. Well, it’s been such a joy to have you with us, and I appreciate it so much. Now we get to do the most fun part, which is our rapid fire questions. Are you ready for this?

ATHENA CONCANNON

I’m ready.

NICOLE

They’re really easy. What was the last thing that you watched on television?

ATHENA CONCANNON

What did I last watch on television? Oh, we watched a Christmas movie last night, and now I’m going to forget the name of it. I forgot the name of it.

NICOLE

It’s okay. Christmas movie. That totally works.  Okay, what is on your nightstand?

ATHENA CONCANNON

I have some lotion. I have my glasses case. I have a coaster and a lamp.

NICOLE

And then when was the last time you tried something new, and what was it?

ATHENA CONCANNON

In work, I just actually tried a new Facebook ad. That’s not that exciting from a personal kind of standpoint, but it was the first thing that came to my mind. So that was cool, and I would say on the personal front, the last time I tried something new. I guess I need to try some new things.

NICOLE

Well, I was laughing when you talked about the Facebook ad. I was like, that’s why we are entrepreneurs, right? That’s our hashtag.

ATHENA CONCANNON

I’m like, that was new. That was exciting for me.

We hosted Thanksgiving. That was new.

NICOLE

Oh, that is new. That’s a big thing to host Thanksgiving, with two little kids, too. That is exciting. Awesome. Did you do anything different? Like, have you never made the whole turkey in the deal?

ATHENA CONCANNON

Yeah, we had just never hosted the whole meal. Although I can’t take too much credit for that. My husband is the cook in our home. But I did the table setting and got all the things. The sous chef.

NICOLE

Yes. Oh, so fun. Okay, last one. What are your top three most used emojis on your phone?

ATHENA CONCANNON

Oh, I love this question. I will often use the one that’s like the upside down smiley face. Kind of like, oh, things are a little crazy. The one where the eyes are, like, bugging out. And the muscle!

NICOLE

Muscle, of course. I love that the emoji ones are always very revealing. I like hearing what people use for their emojis.

ATHENA CONCANNON

So I know it probably depends on the week, too.

NICOLE

I feel like mine change frequently and I’m always having to research for ones I haven’t used recently. Like that head melting one. I like that one a lot, too.

ATHENA CONCANNON

That’s a good one. Or who you last were texting the most. That could probably make a big difference.

NICOLE

Exactly. Who are you talking to?

Well, Athena, thank you so much for being on School of Self-Worth and for sharing your wisdom, and those of you who want to follow her, follow her on Instagram. Find out more. Athena, thank you so much for sharing with all of us today. We’re so grateful to have you on.

ATHENA CONCANNON

Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

NICOLE

Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode. Before you go, don’t forget, if you are a high-achieving woman who wants to uncover your biggest blind spots preventing fast, intuitive decisions, I’ve got a 72-second assessment for you, so make sure to DM me quiz on nicoletsong at Instagram. Thank you for being here and for listening, we read every note that we get from you about how the podcast is making a difference in your life. Please know how much we appreciate each and every one of you. Until next time, I’m Nicole Tsong, and this is the School of Self-Worth.