In this episode of Real Talk, KJK Student Defense Attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler are joined by Samantha Pierce, CEO of Renegade Soul.  In this episode, they talk about topics relating to health and fitness.  They discuss why physical fitness is mroe than just lifting weights, how grief recovery impacts our health and physical fitness, ways we can plant seeds to effect someone's trajectory change.

Show Notes:

(02:57 ) How Samantha is Much More than a Personal Trainer
(04:11 )  Sam’s Plan to Build Confidence
(06:33 )  Shut Negative Self-Talk Down
(08:10 )  What Age Should Kids Start Exercising
(10:08 )  What Parents can do to Get Their Kids Exercising
(13:44 )  Body Dysmorphia: What We Can Do
(17:06 )  When to Tell If You Should Cut Back on Indulgences
(19:13 )  Why We Numb Ourselves with Food, Alcohol, Sex, etc
(20:56 )  Why Numbing Doesn’t Work
(21:58 )  Grief Training:  Why We Numb Ourselves
(25:20 )  How Tragic Loss Changed Samantha’s Trajectory
(28:11 )  How Grief Recovery Impacts Our Health Physical Fitness
(31:14 )  Alarming Stats with Grief Recovery and Prison Populations
(34:22 )  How Anything Can Plant the Seeds of Trajectory Change
(36:34 )  Reframing How You View a Bad Situation Into Something Positive

Transcript:

Susan Stone: We are going to talk a little bit about exercise and wellness and the benefits that you might not think you're getting when you get up and go to the gym in the morning. And I know that. A lot of our podcast, Kristina, is dedicated to mental health as it pertains to our clients. And just that when you find yourself in crisis, you get stuck.

You think it's gonna last forever, whatever you're going on. 

Kristina Supler: And some, sometimes it lasts longer than others, but I think today we are here to talk about how to get unstuck or to use the phrase of our esteemed guest effectuate a trajectory change. 

Susan Stone: You know, when we learned about that phrase, I sound like my 17 year old mic drop trajectory change.

Yeah, we love that phrase. Oh my gosh, I wish I had coined it. Because no matter what's happening in your life, no matter how dark things seem, Until it's over, you can do a trajectory change. And I'm really excited about this guest because she's gonna teach everyone out there who's listening to this podcast how they can have a trajectory change no matter what the circumstances.

So with that, Given Invi an intro. 

Kristina Supler: Sure. So today we are pleased to be joined by Samantha Pierce, who is the C E O and founder of Renegade Soul. Sam is a master's level social worker, a certified personal trainer, and a grief recovery specialist. With her background in social work, she really brings a holistic approach to her personal training.

Sam designed Renegade to take care of black women of childbearing age in particular, and today she works with child, clients from all different backgrounds, ages, shapes, and sizes. And I have to add, I'm pleased to note that I am one of Sam's Renegades. 

Susan Stone: You are. You have joined the Renegade Supler. 

Kristina Supler: So happy to have done so.

So Sam, welcome to. 

Samantha Pierce: Thank you. Thank you. It's such a pleasure to be here with you ladies. 

Susan Stone: So Sam, you are so much more than about just squatting and pushups. You, isn't that the truth? You are about trajectory change. So could you tell everybody about how you are so much more than just a personal trainer in what you do and what you bring to those clients?

It's really incredible. It is. 

Samantha Pierce: It's a loaded question, really. When people ask me what do I do, I just look at them like, well, where do you want me to start? Okay. So personal training is what I wake up in the morning and head out the door to do. But when you said trajectory change, the reason that I say that is because your life trajectory is something that we often study in social work.

Especially when you get a person in front of you and then you just can't look at the person in front of you. You gotta look at their past and their parents' past and all those different pasts that sets them on this trajectory. But we are actually really in control. So when I'm at the gym with personal client, with personal training clients, a lot of times they come to me because they wanna lose weight.

Sure. Literally, they have no idea that I have a whole different plan for them, right? Yeah. You gonna drop this weight, but we gonna work on, we gonna work on that gut that you're trying to lose. We're gonna, build arms and muscles and legs and all of that. We are also gonna build confidence. are going to work on where you are in your soul spiritually.

Like you, you just never know what you're gonna walk into in the gym. On at any given time, on any given day. 

Susan Stone: How do you do that? 

how do you I think that 

Samantha Pierce: I'm very open as a person and the conversation. I'm never, I am never afraid of a conversation. So I don't veer away from any conversation.

Someone says, Tim, I really need to ask you this. Go right ahead. Because I'm an open book. But I think that is just where my life trajectory has me. That I've gone through a lot of hard things in my life. And instead of being quiet about it, I'm very verbal about it. I'm very open about it. And I understand, it might be too soon to even say this, but I'm just gonna say it. I understand God's plan. 

That a lot of times things happen, but it is not, to put you in a bad place, but it's to put the next person in a better place because, oh, you're ready to come and master this thing. You're getting ready to move this mountain. So that you can teach the next person how to move that mountain.

And there are people that are just watching you and they don't even need you to teach them to move, how to move the mountain. They're watching you do it, and they're already motivated. So things happen for a reason and sometimes it has nothing to do with you. So when we talk about getting into the gym and being able to talk to different people about different things and putting them on.

Programs that will not only change their body, but also change their mind. That comes very natural to me, especially as a, I'm a I, I call myself a recovering community organizer and a social worker, so that's what I am, and then I use all of that energy and personal training. 

Susan Stone: Sometimes I go to the gym and I have all this internal negative talk.

My thighs look like this. My stomach looks like that. I'm getting old. Do you ever have that internal negative self-talk? 

Kristina Supler: Oh my gosh. Every day I. 

Samantha Pierce: Every day. I think I, yeah, 

Kristina Supler: it's and it's one of those things where you feel frustrated at times when you put in all this work or at least what you believe to be hard works 'cause it isn't always right.

and don't see results. And then that affects your mind, your spirit and it can continue on through your day. So it's something I've been working on personally is how to, Hold onto those endorphins and feeling good when I leave the gym and carry that through my day and not get bogged down in negative self-talk.