Hello, travelers. My name is Grace Simmons, and this is the Random and Wonderful Podcast. Settle in and listen to stories of wanderlust and transformation as you gain tips to inspire your next travel experience. The Random and Wonderful is brought to you by the Amethyst Palaba Hut, LLC. Hi, everyone from Podcast Movement in DC. I'm your host, Grace Simmons, and welcome to the Random and Wonderful. My guest today is going to be Heike Yates, and we're going to talk about
travel, pursuing your spark. It's going to be amazing. So let's get into it. Yeah, let's go. This is awesome. So thank you, first off, so much for joining me today. I'm excited because this is like our first live, like official chat, actually. We've been kind of talking that he's doing the other we met last year. Yes. And so I'm excited to get this started. So please tell me and everyone, how exactly did Pursue
Your Spark start?You know, Pursue Your Spark started as a long history of it, going through iterations and how do I want to talk to women?And it's like in my podcast. It's like or trying to figure out the right angle of do I want to talk about menopause?Do I want to talk about other things that are interesting to women in midlife?And what I come across is a lot. Women dim their light when they get older. Yeah. YeahAnd so when you think about dimming your light, what's will be the opposite is
igniting your spark. But then you have to also pursue the spark. In order to ignite it, if you're not sure what the spark is for you specifically, you don't know what you're going to ignite. So it's like, OK, let's figure out what it is that we want from midlife. Wherever we are in midlife, and I think we talked about that, it's between 40 and 80. So midlife is not just being 50 and it's somewhere in the transition from. Perimenopause through menopause and postmenopausal just to give it a more
confined idea. And I think that's a really a time every, at least in my opinion, every 10 years I feel, and I'm 63, women go through something else has to change. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's unfortunate. I do like that there's a breakdown, though, in the difference between igniting and pursuing, 'cause like you said, you maybe. understand what that spark is, but it's so important to be able to like continue those steps of
pursuing, right?Because if you just see you have that great moment and you don't do anything to follow up, it fizzles and it goes away. Yeah. And then you feel potentially left behind, sad. Yes. And you're unhappy. And a lot of times when we look at these patterns too, divorce happens because somebody in the relationship is not happy. Yeah. And so I I feel it's a good way to really look at yourself and see, what do I need?Where am I in this
phase of life?Okay, as someone who then is coaching people on this path, how do you navigate self-doubt or hesitations when it comes to maybe business or personal?How do you lead? I would first say it's to be honest with what you really want. Okay. And that's the biggest hurdle, 'cause a lot of women don't want to really look at what the problem is. And self-doubt creeps in and we just keep thinking about
it. It's three o'clock in the morning, yeah and we're not quite sure if we can do things, if we should take action, if what happens, what is the consequence of if I do the things that I want to do. Yeah. And soThe first thing is really be honest with you, and that can go different ways. It can come through a conversation with a friend. It can come through journaling. It can come maybe on a big bike ride where you're riding through the woods and you call. Clarity. Yeah. Clarity. Yes. Yeah.
Getting clear on what it is that you want. And instead of focusing on the negative, which is our self-doubt. So quick. Yeah. So quickly to focus on. The things that you maybe need to fix versus how can I use my strengths to better who I am, where I'm trying to go. And it's so beneficial to get that initial understanding. That's wonderful. Yeah. So besides being coaches and podcasters, you and I both share a love of travel. So I am curious, do you have a story or maybe a trip that left like a
really heavy impact on you?Oh, I got a whole bunch of stories. My thing is, or has been for many years now, that whenever I have a round birthday, umm I don't remember my 30th birthday because I was in a different relationship about my 40th, my 50th, my 60th birthday. I always did something that was super memorable. So instead of getting gifts or going out to an expensive restaurant, it's about taking a trip. So which one would like to hear about the story about dancing Argentine tango?
In Buenos Aires. Or would you like to hear about my 6 for 60 in Hawaii?Oh, 6 for 60. Six for six. Yeah. Excellent. All right, here you go. So my 60th birthday is starting to roll around and my husband and we're talking about maybe going to Hawaii, you know, for a week of vacation. And then we're talking and he says, you know, I found this really cute two-bedroom apartment. It's right on the water. It's right outside of, what's the town of the big island, the big land
of Hawaii. And he said, Devil, here's what we're going to do. My gift to you are six for 60. And I was like, What's that supposed to mean? And he says, Six weeks of vacation in Hawaii. Oh my gosh. But the caveat is, we didn't take the whole six weeks as a vacation, so what we did is,We had one week where we worked and then one week where we took vacation. OK, OK, it was fantastic. So we got there. We had this really cute two-bedroom apartment. And one room was set up as his office because
my husband had to work too. So he got up at 4:00 in the morning, the one week we worked till noon. I put all my clients on Zoom. So I would sit on the floor in the living room with my laptop on a chair and we would do Pilates or whatever this person wanted to do. And the people are like, where are you?And I took my laptop and I was like, oh, look at the lights. There's the beach and like, Oh my God. And so it was great because we both continued to earn money.
So it was not no income for either of us. Yeah. And six weeks, it's a long time. Then we took the second week where we, well, let me finish the first story. So it's when we got up at 4:00, we both worked till noon. And then at noon we're like, what do you want to do?Do you want to go for a run on?The highway, you know, the street right in front of us where they do the Ironman or do we want to go swim or do we want to go for a bike ride?Because we brought our bikes. We're
triathletes, so we brought our bikes. My goodness. And so we biked the highway, you know, we're like, OK, So what we're going to do?And then we we did whatever the work I was, came home, had lunch or did the other way around. Then it was nap time and then we did whatever we wanted to do. Go hiking. We learned about the local fish market. We knew where the bread place in the hills was, that they came a couple times a week and brought their fresh baked goods.
So you always became a local. So the fish guy, the fish guy said, here, give me your number. I'll text you when we're at the shopping center so you know when the first fish is here. I'm like, yes, that's amazing. And then the second week. When we were off, we would take our bikes and we go, we sleep in, have breakfast, even though I intermittent fast, but that was like, I don't care about that. We need some energy next time, because intermittent
fasting is not restrictive. So we would drive to the other side of the island or explore other parts of Hawaii. It was the best. And on my actual birthday, we had bao bao, two balloons, one six, one oh, and we walked down with the balloons in hand. Down the street to a little beach where we, my husband and I did a little photo shoot, you know, like, ohh yeah, cute. You wouldn't believe the people. They're yelling out of their car, happy birthday, yay, go party girl. This is
great. And then we got to the beach and we're starting to do our thing. And this woman comes up to me and she says, 60. Your life is just starting. You're gonna have work on after 60. Yeah. So that's my 6 for 60 story. I that's amazing. Six weeks, first off. But I like that there's an alternative. Like you have that nice stagger, even though it sounds like when you were working, that was still super fun. Like you weren't ignoring the fact that you had, you were in this paradise,
of course. You got up in the morning and then my husband would always say. Oh, I'm going to have breakfast on the lanai, which is the balcony. But the peacefulness and the ocean and the environment is so tropical and people are super duper friendly and you know, and we did the things that we physically loved doing and we had such a good diversity on it as well. So it was not just hanging out in the beach. I mean, we went snorkeling with the dolphins. It was just
fantastic. Yeah. I highly recommend it. 6 for 60. I love it. 3 for 30. I don't care. Yeah. No, whatever it is, it should be multiple weeks of the I I think would be ideal. I know. Wow. I was going to ask actually, since you guys are triathletes, how are you incorporating?Like, are you purposeful about incorporating Wellness into your vacations or is it just a habit?Like this is just what you're doing?We are trying to incorporate. We are not going to the gyms. So we
are like, no, we're on vacation. We want to be outside because oftentimes we're either, well, oftentimes we're either on the beach or we are in the mountains somewhere. So if there's some like physical activity included, there's always hiking involved. There's it's built in. To what the vacation is. Does it look different than when normally? Yeah. I usually don't plop down and do Pilates math work. I'm like, uh, I'm just on vacation now. And that's what I recommend to everybody. It's like, don't
worry about it. Just do something. You know, if you're in a in a city and you're visiting on a city trip, right. You'll walk a lot. Yeah. That's exercise too. Yeah. And so it's built into what we do. And that's when we went to Hawaii, we're like, this is. The island where they had the Ironman. OK. And we just and he my husband took the bikes apart, put them in a container, put it back together. OK. Because I was going to ask you. I was going to ask you about those bikes later. Oh wow. So well,
you can transport them. You just need like a big suit. Yes. Where it fits in and you take it apart and then you put it back together. And he knows, thank God he knows how to do that. I couldn't do that, but. So yeah, we're we're trying out different things when we're on vacation. And so the biking was great because we could say we biked for all the
Ironman people were biking. Yeah. I mean, we didn't do the whole route, but it was just fun to be out there amongst the lava fields and biking up the road and and just enjoying the life with the locals too. So you become less of a tourist. Yes. YesAnd like I said, you know, the guy texts about the fish. We knew on Wednesdays the fresh bread was up in the in the hills or up in the hills. That's cool. You've gone from a tourist to an actual traveler, which is really neat. When you are.
Well, now I've forgotten my question. Actually, there's something you just said. I forgot. All right. What do you hope to get out of your trips?I love adventures. OK. That's was also initially. What brought me to the States? I'm originally from Germany. And what?I got bored living in Europe. Yeah, I know people. You can laugh all you want. What?But I was always saying, oh, I want to do Europe when I'm old, assuming that I would live in Germany, but I don't. So I still have a lot to see
in Europe, but that's fine. But I wanted adventure. I wanted something different. OK. You know, when you think of Europe. For an European, OK, you speak different languages in in within 8 hours and you eat different foods within a in the same 8 hours of traveling by car. Here in 8 hours, you're in Virginia from DC. Still in the same place. Yeah, you know, nothing ever changes as far as it's the same. But travel, I find it, I find it interesting to learn about other people, how they do things.
What they eat, what they drink, how they do life. That's really why I love traveling so much is and just experiencing. And even if you say I go maybe up to Maine, my husband hasn't been up in Maine. OK. And I said, you will feel it's a little different. They eat different foods. They speak a little bit different English. Yeah. And it's it's a little, it's the ruggedy water hills and all that. And so that's new and it's different. OK, OK
I do remember that question, though. I was going to ask, when did you notice that you were able to find a balance between actually fully immersing yourself into a vacation and then separating the work?Has that always been?OK, like a switch. It's like, OK, you do this, compartmentalize it, right? You do this. OK, we're done with this. Now we're going to do that. It's no turning on a computer. Not looking at emails. And you know, I have my out of the office on my phone, on my e-mail
thing. I was like, I'm not looking at this. And I told my husband too, no Slack. OK. You are not available. This is vacation. Yeah. You're not available. Unless it's an emergency. But other than that, they have to wait. Is this like a process that you had to enforce or was it something like you've always had those good boundaries?Oh, God, no. All right. Oh my God, no. I love, love, love my work as a health fitness coach and my podcast and all this. I can work all week long. I love what I
do. And I had to really, my husband actually pointed that out. He says, you know, it's 7:00 in the evening, you're still working. We started at 7, you're still at it. Like, oh, let me just finish this canva. Let me just get this done. And he says. Well, it's 7 o'clock. We want to eat. We didn't prepare anything. The same with the weekends. And I would say Sunday, I was like, oh, I just quickly, three hours later. Right.
Three hours later, I'm still at it. But he pointed out and he said, you know, your work's taken over our lives. I know you love what you do. And so that was a wake-up call for me to say, hey, I can't neglect my relationship. I can't neglect my off time. So the dealio is now that we stop the latest at six and work on the weekends only if it's something that has to be done on Monday. OK. I mean, other than that, we're not working. Wow. I'm glad he called me out on it.
Yeah. YeahI would have not. I didn't think of it as work. Right. Because you're enjoying what you do. You're in it. I need to end this podcast episode really quickly. 4 hours later. Oh, OK, cool. OK. Because I'm always, I know sometimes, like you're as a coach, right? You're able to give some people advice, but you yourself can kind of be stuck into the process of it. And so I'm always curious, like, at what point do you
realize?I should take my own advice and sort of like you said, compartmentalize or set those boundaries. So, OK, that's really key, definitely. And I'm glad that he pointed it out because I'm sure I would have burned out big time at some point and our relationship would have suffered, my health would have suffered, but I didn't see it. So I'm glad somebody said, hey, did you notice? And I'm like. No, I'm I'm not doing this. But then I had to be honest with
myself, and I did it. Yeah. So it's like, we call out our clients, you know?It's It's not calling out, it's sort of lovely saying, hey, did you notice?It's accountability. Yeah. YeahYeah, are you loving yourself? Are you doing, you know, paying attention to your health?Yeah, exactly. How, like what is one of your favorite wellness practices?So if you were to, yeah, a good way for you to like decompress. Okay. What's your go-to?It used to be running. Okay. So about three years ago, I
started having severe knee pain. I mean, I've been a runner for since, I'd say 2008, so for a while. And I got into running and every now and then my knee would hurt and I'm thinking, oh, you know, I just ran too much and I did a lot of running. You know, I did marathons, I did ultra marathons and things like that. But my knee is kind of getting cranky. But at some point my knee was really, really bad. OK, so I went to the doctor after all my own, like trying to fix my knee things.
I said, OK, let's see what it's at. And so I have severe arthritis in one of my knees. OK. And at the point the doctor said, oh, you should make an appointment now because we have a three month wait for a knee replacement. I was in so much pain. I was like, Please sign me off. My oh my gosh is 30 months. And I said, I have three months. I was like, No, it's weight. So I went to a friend of mine who is chiropractor, but he does other techniques too. And so he looked at my gait. He looked at what
exercises we can do. I stopped running and he says, Just eliminate impacts. Right. Right And it's now over two years. over two years, that I have not gotten a knee replacement. I have managed my knee pain with biking and swimming and strength training and Pilates and stretching. And so far, knock on wood, I am not getting a knee replacement, but I had to replace my running, which was my go-to for de-stressing. I missed it so much. I said, what am I going to do?I
identify being a runner. I know people identify with something you're part of. Like I was part of the Montgomery County Roadrunner crew and I was one of their coaches. They were, they were my gang, they were my people. And suddenly I had nobody. It's just me and my lousy knee. No, no, like me, you let me down. And so, but I know I've heard other people feel that way too. You get let down by your body. And you don't know what to do. Umm So I said, all right, I
love biking, so I bike more. And I started embracing swimming, although I'm a really not good strong swimmer. I mean, it takes me forever to get from one side to the other, but it doesn't matter. It helped offset the stress on the knee. And so it didn't become my go-to to de-stress. My go-to is now hiking. And I'm hiking. Really fast. My husband's like, you could almost run this. But it's it's like, OK, let's go. I want to work out. Yeah, I really need
this. And then has helped me transition from missing my running and helping me decompress. Because as a runner, I always say, you put your shoes on, you go out the door. After three miles, all the world's problems are solved. Yeah. For the non-runners, I get it, but wow. So whatever it is you do, I mean, biking, I always feel, is is a little more dangerous when you're right on the roads. You have to really pay
attention. Yeah, and you can't-- And you can sometimes space out and go, yeah, I'm just going to whatever I'm thinking about. But yeah, so that's-- Wow. When you're hiking, are you, is it just local?So in Maryland, or are you like going to different locations?Well, we have two of our favorite locations. One is the Rock Creek Park. I love it. We're literally 10 minutes drive from there. The park is beautiful. It has
all kinds of different trails. And sometimes we go out to Gaithersburg, who also has, it's a hidden agenda with that one. It's part of the extension of the, I can't think of the system, but it's part of the Appalachian Trail. Partially, but it's it's near Gaithersburg where the Quince Orchard High School is for all the people that are local. And there's a trail that goes in either direction, like all over the place. And I can't think of the name, right?Muddy Branch Trail.
And there's a whole trail system out there for anybody. Wow, okay. But we're combining this and I don't get paid for that. There is an Italian deli. Near Quince Orchard High School on in Dart on Dartstown Rd. Gemelli, they have the best Italian Subs. The best. I love that thing in a Nagento. That's a wonderful recommendation for food. Yes. So Google Gemelli's and the trail is not far from there. You can work off the pasta. I like that. And they have really good Italian Subs and real Italian food
and wine and what pizza. They have really good pizza. But I was like, my husband was just mentioning it the other day and he said he didn't say we haven't been to the trail in a while. He just said we haven't been to Jigmel this in a while and we can go to the trail at some point. Sure, there are so many unique places. I think I've always gotten excited about traveling outside of Maryland and just checking all these other places. But there's so many little hidden spaces in
Maryland and. I am enjoying discovering them. Like, hey, we don't necessarily have to leave, right?I can spend a weekend and just check out these little locations. Even if I'm not hiking, they have wonderful trails that you can just walk along and just spend some quiet time in nature, which is so healing for the soul. And we have so many around we just don't know about. Yeah. And there's on the, I think it's called the REI app.
Oh, OK. It's a free app where you can download it and you can get all the trail systems in Maryland. I think even other places, but I'm not quite sure where you can just say, you know, this is a beginner trail, this is a more advanced trail or this. I just want to do 3 miles walking. I like that. And so it's difficulties, which is what I like because not everybody wants to go hardcore And I was like, yeah, but you want to do something good for your art. Do you want
to?You know, I always say, you know, when you walk, you get a little bit of a butt lift because you're using your your butt ski a little bit more and your legs are stronger. Get those calves looking right. Heck yeah. That'll look good. Exactly. So as we wrap up, we are here at the Podcast Movement. Have you heard anything that has maybe helped or that you're going to take away with you for your business?Or maybe something that you heard and you've decided to not do
anymore?That's a good one. Oh, there's there's some good Nuggets. I think what I learned more than anything is that there's a big industry that supports us podcasters. We don't have to grab them all. We don't have to buy all of them, but they're there for us at our disposal. So we're not alone when it comes to difficult technologies. and programs or even time constraints. You know, it's like you have an a podcast episode and you don't have time to
transcribe things. Right. You know, there's help for us there and you just have to find connect with the right people that generate for you what you want the way you want it. And the other thing that just came out of the keynote speech where the speakers were talking about, Is podcasting dead?And they said, Look at all these news. All these executives are saying, yeah, podcasting is dead. But they're like, podcasting is
alive and well. Stay consistent with your episodes and your production, just like you are with your health and wellness. You don't get any reward or any more people or get healthier if you're not consistent with your episode. Let your audience know. When you're publishing. So if you're publishing episodic or you do every week or I do every other week on my podcast, they need to know so they can wrap their head around it and want to have the right
explicit essence. But stick with it and don't give up because somebody said podcasting is dead. Yeah, I like that. That's pretty good advice. We got went to this last year and I think the lesson that I learned was having conversations. I think I've gotten a little bit more out of it. Like you said there, you don't know what other people are interested in or like what skills they have or maybe the tools that they know that you maybe
never heard of. And so I've been getting a lot out of like, OK, what are you doing with your podcast and how is that contributing to your business?And it's been, well, this is only like our second day. And I'm like, OK, I'm feeling pretty full. I'm loving this. I'm like looking at my schedule today. I'm oh, I'm going to have this league and talk to someone later. I'm going to attend this session. Oh, let's see what they're doing. And
it's it's really fun. It's also, I think for us, being solopreneurs, it is a feeling that we're not allowed. Oh my gosh, right. That there are others that suffer the same as we. Yesterday I went to a roundtable or brain date discussion with the leader of them was somebody from NPR. And I'm talking about, you know, the challenges that I have growing my podcast. And then he talks about his NPR situation. And I looked at him and I said, you're so big, you
have the same problems we have. And he said, just on a larger scale. So I was like, I'm not alone. Even the big guys have trouble. We're all learning. We're all growing. That, I think that's absolutely incredible. Well, thank you so much for waiting here. Before we finalize, do you have any questions for me?What made you want to start a podcast?I like storytelling. And so I wanted to make sure that I have a place to, like, keep a collection of stories
and podcasting kind of became that. So instead of me just recording little voice notes and telling my friends, I was like, well, let's just see if somebody else wants to hear. And it started with the friends that I have and of course, and then randomly someone would be like, if I was not consistent, Grace, where's your next episode?And I was like, oh, oh, OK, sorry. I mean, thank you, but sorry, you know?And so I think I kind of got into that, but it was just that storytelling.
I've always loved to tell stories. And now when I get to do interviews, I get to hear other people's stories. And just like one of the speakers yesterday was talking about how talking to someone and like you are learning their story, getting to know them, and you kind of fall in love with people, like the person or the people that they are, the history that they bring. I enjoy all of that. So podcasting has been like. I don't know,
it's been a really fun gift. Do you have a favorite story that we have time to tell?I can tell you about my skydiving story. That's it. That was actually, so my skydiving, my cousin was graduating from law school and her gift to herself was she wanted to go skydiving. And I was like, sure, why not, you know?And we get on this plane and I'm just trying to like keep my wits together. You know, you're like too nervous to realize that you're nervous,
didn't click. until we got up into the sky and we're leaning out and you're like tandem, so you're strapped with someone else. And they open the door and like you know the first people hop off. And I was like, oh, sign me up for this. Why am I up here?You know But of course, you're way too late to back up. So we get on the edge and you just fall out of the plane. Forward to backwards. And you're falling backwards, 'cause you have to do, there's like a little banana thing. Yeah,
I don't. I don't know. I may have blacked out. You just just fall forward, right? And then I remember just screaming for like what felt like 5 minutes and I had to take a really deep breath and then continue screaming. I was like, I think I'm good. I'm why am I still screaming?I think we're fine. And I was able to like, you know, get the tears out of my eyes and just look around at everything. And it's just gorgeous green, that beautiful blue lakes. You can
see some farm like we're in Florida. So it's just a beautiful blend of like color and water and the sky was blue and they open up the parachute and now we're just gliding. And I remember just being like, God, this is so nice. I am so grateful to be here. I am enjoying like it was a wonderful conversation, a moment of just being like, I'm so happy to be alive and I appreciate the life that I have, so. Yeah, that's that's like one of my favorite stories. I love it. Thank you so
much. Not that I would jump out of that. I'm like, I'm a phobia with height, but. Okay. But I admire the the bravery of you to to be willing to do that. It was incredible. It was incredible. Yeah. That's like the only word that she and I could come up with. Like, we just, it was life-changing. See?Absolutely. That's what adventures are all about. Yes. Yes And travel, right?And travel. Yeah. And traveled from high up to down. I sure did. Look, kicking and screaming.
Literally. OK. Well, thank you so much, Iggy, for joining me today. I am so glad that we're able to have this live session and get this chat. like finally make our official interview. That's exactly right. I mean, we've had like our personal interview at bar and at whatever else, at the golf course. So I'm glad. Super. My pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hey there, Grace here. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and gained some useful
takeaways. Thank you so much for listening and staying until the end. Don't forget to rate the show or share it with some friends. Have a wonderful week, take care, and remember, be bold, be curious, be ready to tell your story. You never know who needs it. Bye-bye.