Expand Your Fempire Podcast #161 Transcript

From Magic to Mindset: Heather Rogers on Body, Mind, and Wellbeing for Entrepreneurial Success

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00] Caterina Rando: Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. I’m your host Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you today. I have a very special guest, a wonderful woman who warms my heart, who has become a family friend, Heather Rogers. Heather Rogers is a precision wellness coach and an epigenetics expert.

If you don’t know what that is, we’ll learn a little bit more about that [00:01:00] shortly. Heather has also been a professional magician for over 23 years. And you may or may not know that my dad is a magician enthusiast, amateur magician. And some years back I was thinking to myself, what can I possibly get my dad for his birthday, man who doesn’t need anything, used to just ask for tennis balls for his birthday?

And I could never think of what’s a great present to get my dad. Well, I had had Heather come and bring her magic to one of our gala special events that we used to do every year. She did such an amazing job. Everyone loved her. Her big smile, her intuition was off the charts with her magic. And I said, “okay, I’m gonna get my dad three magic lessons from Heather.”

I don’t even know, Heather, how many years ago [00:02:00] that was. Heather is still my dad’s magic mentor, they have performed together many times. And she is a family friend and I am blissing to share her brightness, her huge brain, her amazingness with you today. Heather, welcome. Welcome.

Heather Rogers: Thank you, Caterina. I think it’s been about 15 years since I’ve been working with your dad, Tony.

Wow. Professor Salamini is his official name.

Caterina Rando: Yes. Professor Salamini is his stage name. I love it.

Heather, you are a epigenetics expert, a precision wellness coach. Before we talk about your entrepreneurial journey, which I always like to start with, can you tell everyone what is epigenetics and why should we care?

Heather Rogers: Yes. Well, it’s interesting that there’s actually a health epidemic coming on. And do you realize that 45% of Americans suffer from [00:03:00] chronic disease? That’s half of America almost.

And the cost of this is over $3.7 trillion a year. Interestingly, it turns out, that the infusion of money from health regimes is a gain of $30 trillion a year.

So everybody’s rushing toward figuring out how to create better wellness, and our genes are our blueprint. It’s our recipe. And so epigenetics, EPA means above, above the genes.

So we’re influencing and impacting the expression of that recipe, that blueprint. And they say your DNA is not your destiny. Only 20 to 25% of our destiny is, is from our DNA. So it’s a very exciting time where we [00:04:00] can influence the expression of our DNA.

They say scientific knowledge is doubling every seven days.

It’s only gonna get more. So it’s a very exciting time for wellness. And it’s interesting that chronic disease is at an all time high. So it’s really needed. And so, so epigenetics is essentially changing the expression of your genes through wellness.

Caterina Rando: Changing. Would you say that epigenetics is the ability to impact our genes to improve our health?

Heather Rogers: Yes. Turning cells on and off. You know, upregulating, downregulating, you are the wizard of your biology in this case.

Caterina Rando: Wow, that’s exciting. Okay, now Heather, before we talk more about epigenetics, I have to ask you, because I’ve known you for many, many years. You’ve been a long time entrepreneur. I think you might be like me that you didn’t [00:05:00] have a corporate career, is that right?

Heather Rogers: That’s correct.

Caterina Rando: Okay. So no corporate career like me, entrepreneur, entrepreneur, entrepreneur. Say a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey, if you would.

Heather Rogers: Well, my entrepreneurial journey would not be complete or have really started without you, Caterina, for 20 years I have been working with you. You brought me in to entertain and then I went into your programs.

The Speaker Summit was the first one. I’ve done your platinum Thriving Women in Business program. I’ve gone on luxury retreats. You have infused in me the true spirit of entrepreneurialism, which is also philanthropy, community, and just loving. So you have infused into me what it means to be an entrepreneur, and that’s just a fact.

So you’re, you’re my coach.

Caterina Rando: Well, my friend, thank you so much for that. Thank you. And so you’ve been doing your magic for many years. I know some years back you started to really focus on [00:06:00] health. You have always been having super vitality. What made you want to embrace epigenetics as your next entrepreneurial journey?

Heather Rogers: Well, the truth is, I’ve struggled with my health. I was 50 pounds overweight my whole life until my late thirties, and I was a compulsive overeater. I used to identify as a food addict. I was outta control with the sugar and the flour and that. And so I found a system, a program that worked for me for the last 20 years.

And that’s part of why is my, the way I’ve suffered, you know, inside cravings and addiction. I wanna free other people from the bondage of self in that regard.

Caterina Rando: And so how does somebody get started to uplift their health in this particular way?

Heather Rogers: Well, it’s interesting because the old model [00:07:00] is a disease model. We focus on the disease, try to fix the, treat the disease.

The new model is a systems model. We integrate the whole body and the whole brain and the whole being. So to begin, we turn our gaze away from cause and from disease, and we turn our gaze toward the system. And then we ask ourselves questions like, “what do I not want?”

This is the first thing I ask my clients, “what do you not want?”

And they’ll say, “I don’t want diabetes. Like my uncle, he’s losing limbs.” Right? And then that’s their why.

And I say, “what do you want?”

They say, “oh, you know, if I could wave a magic wand, I would be ripped. I would be vital, right?”

And then, and then I say, why?

And they answer and everyone has a different reason. And then I ask ’em, what would that look like? And, and ask yourself like, how would you know [00:08:00] when you’re there? You know, lay it out.

Someone once said to me how much would you pay if you could add 10 more years onto your life right now?

And we all know the axiom, super wealthy people would give it all away to have their health back because they can’t do anything without their health.

That’s a short answer to the beginning of the question.

Caterina Rando: I heard a quote recently, a wealthy man has many goals. A sick man has only one. You know? And I guess the point being that if you don’t have your health, there’s nothing else that you want. Right?

Heather Rogers: You know, and so we’re here to crack the code to thriving by design, and we do start with the body.

Caterina Rando: You mentioned that there’s three areas to focus on. Can you give us a overview of those three areas?

Heather Rogers: We start with the body and we, we see ourselves as a dynamic whole in [00:09:00] concert with the world.

And we bring ourselves back into balance through simple modalities: eating non-processed food, getting enough sleep.

In my free monthly zoom call, I talk about the nine hallmarks of aging.

And I won’t talk about them here ’cause they’re a little technical, but we address those and make sure we get enough sleep, that our nutrition is in alignment, that our stress is down. So these are ways that we start with the body.

Caterina Rando: And you know, Heather, one of the things I talk about is five pillars: speaking, selling, serving, strategy, and self care. Because really, like you said, if you’re not getting a good night’s sleep, you don’t wanna sell anything, right? If your health is bad, you don’t wanna sell anything. And my quote, I was wrong with my quote, I said it was a wealthy man.

It’s actually a healthy man. [00:10:00] Oh, a healthy man wants many things. A sick man wants only one. So that was my, I misquoted my quote that I heard somewhere. Anyway, but my point is, like in business, when you’re feeling great, you do want to do many things. You do wanna create a lot of things, but if you are not having vitality, it all seems like too much and we get overwhelmed.

Okay, so first thing is our body. What’s next, Heather?

Heather Rogers: It’s the mind. And you could also call that motivation. You know, if there’s no, why? There’s no drive. So our “why” is our fuel. Some people, they wanna be able to lift their grandchild up. Some people it’s 70 wanna be able to carry two bags of groceries.

Some people wanna be on the dance floor looking like, you know great. Right? So really be in touch with your why.

[00:11:00] Most people are, are running away from a negative why, but not all. In fact, people ask me who my ideal client is, and at first I thought it was people who needed this, and that’s not.

The people who really most need this work, their mindset isn’t ready. The people who really wanna work with me are the people who are already biohackers. They’re already deep in the wellness conversation, but they just haven’t figured the genetics piece.

My specialty is interpreting their genetic report.

So I can look at all their different SNPs and I can look at how they relate to, like for me, insulin resistance. I had high risk for insulin resistance, which was interesting because I was addicted, you know, to sugar, and I was, I was on a beeline for for diabetes. But because I stopped eating flour and sugar 20 years ago, I epigenetically changed the expression of my gene. So that’s a really good example.

So the second piece is the mind.

And the third is the “being” but it’s [00:12:00] wellbeing. And you can think of it as the method.

We can also use the three words, mindset, motivation, and method.

And method is when you hop on my zoom tuneup call and we talk about tips and tricks for wellness. Give you some frameworks to play with and see which one sticks for you.

Caterina Rando: My friend, give us some tips and tricks right now.

Heather Rogers: Oh my gosh. well, there’s, so, there’s so many. Well there are many women in your community who were all getting up there, right? I just turned 56, I’m not afraid to say. And one thing that really helped me was looking at my genetics and seeing that my estrogen levels were gonna drop and that I don’t create, testosterone does change into estrogen to some degree once the ovaries stop producing estrogen.

But mine, mine don’t produce as much. So I needed hormone replacement therapy. So I take a progesterone at night and estrogen in the morning and I’ve [00:13:00] had no hot flashes. I’m haven’t had the moods and other women I know do.

So that’s a tip. You could take a Dutch test that really focuses on hormones. And find out what you need for that. And boy, boy, you know, that’s a huge one.

Another thing is my genetics show me that I am high risk for what’s called sitosterolemia. When we eat vegetables, vegetables actually have fats in them, and my genetics over absorb the fats. And there have been 23-year-old excellent athletes who’ve dropped dead running because they had all this fat in their cells because they were over absorbing the fat from the vegetable. So I now know what to look for the bumps, and I know there’s only one medication that can help, but because I know my genetics, I can look. So that’s just one.

But for you individually, the quick wide sweeping tips are: no more processed food if you can. Or if you do eat some processed, [00:14:00] like I do, I have a chocolate smoothie every day, but I add to it a really thick amount of combined veggie smoothies, all greens that I prep ahead.

And so that’s my processed food credit for the day. And the rest, you know, is fruits, vegetables. So that’s a really important thing.

And get your sleep.

I can offer different people sleep stacks. Like I, I talk to ’em about what they need and the sleep stacker is like what you need. No blue light at night. You know, the room temperature. There’s all these things you can do.

Some people melatonin is good for at night. Others, it puts ’em out for days. For me, I can’t take melatonin.

Caterina Rando: My chiropractor said melatonin is a steroid. She told me not to take it for that reason. And that’s the thing. You know what I like about this, Heather, is we hear these things. Like melatonin is perfect example.

And we think, “okay, great. I’m gonna try this, I’m gonna try that.” Well, all these things are not one size fits all. [00:15:00] Everything is not right for everybody.

And I love the technology that we’re at this place, that we get to look and see what is right for our personal body, our personal genetics. Because health and wellness is not one size fits all.

I know for me, I need at least eight and a half hours to be blissing the next day. You know, some people it’s seven, some people it’s nine. And so to know all of these things for ourself.

And the reason why I wanted to have you come on Heather and talk about this a little bit is because, as you say, you know, myself and my gals we’re getting up there and I was talking not too long ago to a new friend. She’s 75 and for the last 20 years, she’s been taking ladies to Italy for a retreat.

And I love that because as I look 15 years down the road, [00:16:00] whether I’m in business or not, my intention is to be in business as long as I’m above ground to be serving ladies. But that takes vitality.

And the sooner we can put attention on uplifting our vitality, and I use the word vitality, but it’s all aspects of our health, wellness, and vitality.

A vital mind, a vital body, and, also you mentioned about the lifting the groceries and lifting the, the grandchild. You know, strength and fitness is also very important for women as we get older too.

Any super tips in that area, Heather?

Heather Rogers: You know what? Your father is the model. He is 92. Yes. And this man, he’s, he’s the perfect model.

He, lift tiny weights at night. Yes. You know, two pound, three pound weights. They’re doing resistance training because age is a battle to maintain muscle [00:17:00] loss. We know that that’s point blank. Like we lose muscle. And he walks every day. He eats pure plant-based. I think he’s a wonder.

In fact, he is purchased my full total package kit. So we’re gonna look at his environmental detox, his sleep, his nutrition supplementation, his athletic performance. So that’s, you know, the resistance training every day.

 One book I highly recommend, it’s called “Built to Move.”

Heather Rogers: And it’s wonderful. It talks about, sitting is the new smoking, which you’ve talked about, right? But it gives you wonderful tips on nutrition and movement and breath, all these innovations. So that’s one thing.

But I do wanna add one thing about what exciting times we live in.

Now, let me just say ’cause people are talking very seriously about reversing aging. Reversing aging is a very important conversation now with AI and, and everything. And I’ll tell you the truth, that it’s basically split into three camps.

A third of the scientists and experts think you can reverse aging. A third think that’s ridiculous and a third are not [00:18:00] decided.

But that used to be just science fiction and now people are seriously doing it. They’ve able been able to reverse aging in skin cells in a Petri dish. that’s happened.

Wow!

They’re able to bring back hearing by affecting the hair follicles in the ear. And this is five, six years ago, they have taken one liver, cut it into 19 pieces, and they’re growing new livers for people. It was animals and now they’re doing it in humans growing new livers.

So it’s an incredibly exciting time to where it is the age of miracle and wonder, and to keep that in our mind.

And I’ll let you chime in to this comment. I wonder what you think of this? And that is I am rigorous with saying nice things into my head and just leveraging my brain every second to make the most of it and to be happy. Tell me how you do it.

Caterina Rando: Well, I wanna tell you how I do it, my friend. And also I wanna tell you my favorite thing, terms of [00:19:00] the “sitting is the new smoking” is I have a vibe plate under where I sit.

And because sometimes I’m in, you know, conference for the day. I run my vibe plate for at least 10 minutes, if not 20 minutes every hour with my feet on it. And that improves your circulation. And, then when I work out and I lift my weights, I do it standing on a vibe plate, and that also is a vibration plate. And that’s my other favorite thing to do.

And yes, my 92-year-old dad that you mentioned, he is on top of all the health situations and he has taught me many things that it’s not enough to exercise every day, you gotta move every 20 minutes, et cetera. So, this is definitely something we all wanna put our attention on.

Heather, yes. Making a choice to be happy and making a choice to be your own best voice in your ear [00:20:00] is essential.

And something that you may not know, Heather, is that when I was a kid, my dad was a Toastmaster, and so he would listen to Nido Qubein and Brian Tracy, and most importantly Earl Nightingale, the motivational audio tapes.

And that’s how I got moving towards my work was because of my early influence from my dad. And I decided to be a coach when I was sitting in my therapist office in my, I guess early twenties, and I was talking about how effed up my life was. It was kind of like I had an out-of-body experience where I saw myself complaining about my life and that’s when I decided, you know what, this is not my future. And so that’s when I hired my first coach to help me.

And you know, there are many [00:21:00] paths that lead to Rome and there’s many paths to wellness. I think that people get discouraged and disappointed you’ve heard, heard it many times, “i’ve tried everything.” Right?

Well, the truth is that the person you are today didn’t try everything.

The person you were before tried everything or different things.

There’s always another possible solution.

So I’m very excited for what you’re doing because I think that you are what’s the word? Early adapter, if that’s the right word, or early adopter to really bringing this, and pretty soon this is how everybody’s gonna look at it.

So instead of just going to the drugstore and grabbing something, we’ll know what’s the right solution for us, because we will know about our personal epigenetic makeup or our gene makeup.

Heather Rogers: I’ll share one cutting edge thing that’s happening right now that I’m plugged [00:22:00] into, and this is right now happening with one company on earth.

And what they’re doing now, they’re working with the government, they’re working with big hospitals. They’ve created a platform to where they can look at your genetics and then they can look at the medications you’re on and see how your medications intertwine with each other with your genetics and how your medications affect you with your genetics.

And this is a whole new ballgame. And these, these are the people I use the platform with. Very, very cool people. So my ear is close to the pulse of what they’re doing, so I can bring that to you.

Caterina Rando: And I know that they’re doing also looking at people’s individual genes with cancer research. Yes. And to see what’s the best cancer cocktail, for lack of a better term, for people based on their personal genetics.

Heather Rogers: Yeah, True Diagnostic is doing that. Genetic age testing company. They’re, they’re ones to watch.

Caterina Rando: Fascinating. Well, Heather, I’m sure people are gonna have many questions after this, [00:23:00] and I wish we had all day to chat about epigenetics.

You know, I’m in the business of helping women grow their business with their speaking and their selling and their retreats.

And as my years continue to go by of doing my thing, the health aspect of it feels more and more important to me so I can run around the world when I am 75, run with all my ladies.

And so if people wanna learn more about all this, how can they connect with you? And we will put more information of course, in the show notes, but let’s give them a quick report on this.

Heather Rogers: Absolutely. So epigeneticscoach.com is my website, but you can email me heather@epigeneticscoach.com and I can send you my free life plan toolkit, which is a great starter to codify and clarify what you want and where that lands with your health. Then I do have these the last Wednesday of every month, a free community zoom call.[00:24:00]

As you know, Caterina it’s good for the ladies to gather and they get a lot outta it.

Caterina Rando: My friend, be sure to personally invite me to that as so I can get it on my calendar. Bing, bing.

My friends. I hope that something we’ve discussed today with Heather has prompted you to give some thought to what you can do to have more vitality in your body and your mind so that you can bliss and thrive more in your business.

By the way, if you haven’t joined me for one of my upcoming free workshops, we have them on speaking, on mindset, on masterminding, on all kinds of hot topics. For the woman who wants to thrive in her business, connect with me at Caterinarando.com.

You can also get our free gifts there at Caterinarando.com/links.

Heather, I’m always blissing to be with you. I look forward to watching you perform again with Professor Salamini [00:25:00] in the future. I’m looking forward to you keeping my 92-year-old dad fit and healthy for years to come. Thank you for being with us today.

And everyone go put some attention on your health so you can bliss and thrive more in your business and your life.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.