What if it could be easy to identify your purpose in life? 

Often we forget that staying grounded within ourselves is one of the main attributes that provides clarity in finding who we are. Self-discovery and clarity lead to understanding what our passion is in this life. VFC 2015 Fellow Alumni and Founder and CEO of Adapt Daily,  Kiki Athanas, unravels her story by manifesting her dreams and staying open to the possibilities of her business and her life. 

She shared her secrets to meditating, letting go of the pressure to find your purpose, staying healthy, and most importantly, understanding and figuring out the logistics behind her business. Catch the recap of her conversation with VFC’s Founder and CEO Scott Stirrett. 

Four Thoughts On Passion:

What advice would you have, or would you give to listeners who are looking to figure out their own passion and their sense of purpose?

1. Stop looking for your purpose. Because when we get caught up in needing to figure out our purpose and what your passion is, all you’re doing is putting pressure on yourself. Self-induced stress can lead to blocking oneself from figuring out what we truly enjoy.
2. When you’re present, you figure out what you enjoy by simply following your heart. Sounds cliche, but Kiki recently studied something called, “multiple brain integration technique.” She talks about how people can regulate their three different brains: the head, the heart, and the gut. The heart is what leads, and it’s the heart that knows where you want to go.
3. Take some moments in silence and connect with what your heart desires. Don’t worry about the ‘how.’ For Kiki: she knew she enjoyed extravagant superfoods. However, she didn’t know how that would translate into a business. How could she turn it into a career?  As soon as she stopped gripping on trying to figure out the logistics’ around how her passion could make her profitable, she released the pressure, and soon after, the opportunities showed up. 
4. Her advice is to release the attachment to the outcome and focus on your heart’s desires.

Four Pieces of Advice On Meditation:

Following up on one of the things you said is, what advice would you give to listeners who are looking to build their meditation and mindfulness practice?

1. Turn mediation into something that has your style. Don’t feel the need to follow “the rules” of mediation but rather easing into meditation in ways that make sense for you. The idea of sitting in a chair was not appealing to Kiki. It didn’t occur to her to not sit until she casually listened to an instructor mention it at the end of a practice, that if you just want to lay down and take a nap to meditate, that was an option too.  
2. There is no one particular way to meditate, you don’t need to download Headspace and commit to 20 minutes every day at a certain time. If that works for you, great. If it doesn’t, lay in bed for 10 minutes when you feel like being horizontal also works! 
3. Once you let go of the how, recognize it and lean into that.  Kiki works it into her schedule by doing it first thing in the morning, at night, and then at some point midday. For her, creating a routine made it a habit she wants to do. 
4. Explore your groove. Listening to binaural beats is something that helps Kiki ease to meditation. She loves music, and so she prefers listening to these sounds, rather than just silence or someone guiding her. She also loves aromatherapy. Create an environment of sound and smells that heightens your practice and make it enjoyable!

Four tips for a Nutrition + Health & Wellness Business 

1. Don’t worry if you don’t understand anything. There are so many moving parts to starting a business you don’t need to know it all, you just need to prioritize. You have to get consultants for that then can fill those knowledge gaps. For Kiki, it’s worth it because she can actually make claims on her products since she sells a supplement.
2. Kiki helps women who are struggling with food issues. It is something she came across all the time and did a lot of research to learn she had been doing it all wrong before she started her nutrition journey. Research, learn, connect with others to see how you shift your mindset. Then your business. 
3. On that token, be research, and market-oriented. But don’t be afraid to be thrifty, don’t be afraid to barter. When someone tells you a certain price, put on the startup hat, and you’ll save yourself some money. This is similar to how you should think about your health: you can listen to best practices, do research, start tapping into your own innate body wisdom, by actually being present with all of your meals.
   
4. Find the right partners. For Kiki, it was a challenge finding a company that was willing to rework a formula to fit their sourcing herbs. Her partner Amber had a lot of connections that she had built over her 10 plus years in the industry. Kiki wanted her companies to be clean: no sugar, and no sugar alcohols. So she found who was willing to do it at a small scale, as well as do it in a particular way.