Authenticity Over Perfection: Danielle La Rose's Body Confidence Crusade [388]

She inspires and motivates women around the world to question beauty sanders and get out of their body thoughts and into living their best , most confident lives . Welcome to the show , Danielle .

You know , i've been working with women for I mean , over a decade now , and no matter if they're 20 or they're 80 , like I hear the same thing over and over again I don't want to wear shorts , i can't wear a tank top , i don't do this , i can't do this . I'm like are you freaking , kidding me ?

Like like that's really like where your , where your mind goes . Like so many of us see each other in such like a positive light , like we see them as , like I'm like , if you could just see yourself the way that I see you , like you wouldn't have those thoughts .

You would totally wear all the things , do all the things , and so , like I just kept seeing this happen over and over again .

And then even for myself , like when I was in college or , sorry , high school , i used all of my high school graduation money on a procedure to get rid of all my cellulite which , by the way , don't ever do that because it doesn't actually work . It was a scam , it was a total scam .

I , so I lost all this money , but I like went to this thing and they're like pushing these things on my legs .

It was so weird , But like it was guaranteed to get rid of my cellulite And for like I mean , i don't know , almost 20 years I didn't wear shorts , even when it's like 100 degree temperatures , like I'd be in Disney World , like when it's 100 degrees in humid , wearing pants , because I was .

I just thought something was wrong with my body , that no one should see it , no one should have to look at that . And then I went to college and I started studying sociology , so how society works and why we think the way that we think and why we take actions , the way that we do , and how we affect one another .

And I took this class and I'll never forget it , and we were reviewing which is totally your world , but marketing , right , and we were looking at advertising and back then we didn't have social media .

Well , social media was coming up but we were looking at like ads and commercials and different things and analyzing how girls and boys were positioned , what their bodies were doing , how they were using products to sell products , and everything was just sexualizing the female body and showing how they're so distorted that they couldn't even be real humans , like Barbie

herself , like she could never be a real human because she wouldn't be able to menstruate , like you know . And you look at these things and we're like oh my gosh , they're beautiful , they're perfect .

And so I'll never forget , like all of us women in the class , like we just kind of looked at each other like our minds had been blown , that like oh my gosh , like this is why we feel the way that we do it . Like the men in the class were like , oh okay , like whatever , no big deal , like cause they don't , they didn't understand , right .

And so then , like I got out of college and had to chose , i got to go on my own health and wellness journey . Of you know , i had to get back to a healthy spot for myself , cause I had gotten really unhealthy throughout college drinking six pots a day , eating McDonald's twice a day , like just super unhealthy , right .

And as I started going on that journey , i started doing everything that everyone does , right , like eating , you know , try and count calories , counting points , doing all the things that weren't really healthy . And then I decided to make a different approach to it .

Finally , and using that background , with sociology and my experiences and everything , to really go on a journey of , like , getting healthy at the same time as trying to love my body and appreciate my body And then , through that that's where now I'm here of like , okay , now I'm working with women who are just like me , who are struggling with these things , and

how are we actually going to make drastic change in the world ? And yes , it's working with older women , because we have to shift our mindset So we help the next generation . But then it's also working with little girls of like , hey , there's a different way to do this , there's a different way to look at your body . Sorry , yeah , that .

No , i'm not sorry , but that's my answer .

Can we not love our bodies where we're at right now , knowing just like our minds and our personal growth and our bank accounts ? they're all a work in progress .

That's what you preach . Yeah , and it is the same exact thing . And again , you don't have to and you share this a lot that you don't have to be on cloud nine , like jumping off the rooftops Every single day to like show that you love your business .

Like some days it's going to be like , no , i need to chill and like do absolutely nothing and I'll be back tomorrow , right , but it doesn't mean that , like , you lose love for it and appreciation for it , and so it's the same , like with our bodies of that Like you don't have .

I always tell people like you don't have to love your body today , but you can be grateful . We can learn how to show gratitude , we can learn how to appreciate it , we can learn how to like it to get to that point of loving it . It's all a journey .

That could we could technically change that thinking and save us 12 hours .

If I could get an extra two hours a week , like I could , i'll make the freaking TikToks , i'll make the posts on social media like crazy . Tell me to . And so it really is . Look , i'm just going to just throw it all out here . There's this whole world , now right , of like body positivity , which is great . I'm not dissing the body positivity movement .

However , this is Danielle's theory . Danielle's theory is that we have gone from back in the day thinking about our bodies and how they should be smaller . Right , they're supposed to be smaller , we're supposed to look this way . Now we're just being told that . Now , right , social media visibility .

We see it everywhere that now people are showing their cellulite , they're showing their stretch marks and they're showing their wrinkles And they're like love your body . And that's great . That's really cool And because it makes us feel like , ok , my body is normal . However , all that it's doing is making us think about our bodies . Nothing has changed .

We're still literally just consumed and thinking about our bodies , whether it's good or it's bad . We're just thinking about them . So if we're spending 12 hours a week thinking about our bodies , we're not spending 12 hours a week building our business , showing up on social media , doing the things that we want to do , and so even if we take six hours away .

So my goal for everyone , especially entrepreneurs , is how can we get to a point to where we don't need to think about our bodies as good or bad ? They're just bodies and they're just there And a lot of us to do the things we want to do .

So we're thinking about them not a positive light or negative light , just not at all to then save us those 12 hours a week , right ?

I just put a post up and the thing that people I think there are people that obviously don't want to get on video because of aging , and I've noticed myself , even like noticing that about myself , like I noticed because I think sometimes in the real world , when we're not an entrepreneur , you're not on video all the time , right , but when you notice , like this ,

so we have this evolution right And we grow , but we also we're getting older and wiser , and so , like , i'm even noticing things about that , but I see so many people who won't even attempt to get on video because they're not where they want to be . Yet I hear people talking to photographers .

Well , when I get where I want to be with my body , i will get my picture taken . Like , how do we get out of that as entrepreneurs , knowing that in order to grow our business , visibility is key ? we're going to build more like no one trusts Like , but how can we become more confident with ourselves to show up more on social media and some capacity ?

Here's the thing What we have to also remember is I'm realizing that so much of life , okay , yoga , okay I know I'm gonna get back to your point , but yoga , right , everyone says I'm gonna go do my yoga practice , even if they're like the best top yogi in the world . I don't do really yoga , so like I don't know the terms .

But the yogis of the world that are like the gurus , like the main ones , they still say that I'm gonna do my yoga practice . How come in the rest of our lives we're not practicing ? Yeah , we get to practice showing up and being visible . We get to practice self-love . We get to practice working out . We get to practice If nothing has to .

You have to figure it out by tomorrow , and so all that to say that I just believe that everything is a practice , so it's a journey . So every single day it's a new choice of how can I practice body gratitude today , how can I practice showing up as my authentic self today , how can I practice being visible today ?

And so it relieves some of that pressure Now for showing up with your body and when we have , like some hesitations , one of the questions that I always ask myself is who does this benefit ? Who does this stop benefit ?

Because when we get down to business , right So when I go through my power methodology with my clients , we have to become aware of where our thoughts come from , because you weren't born that way .

You weren't born lacking confidence , you weren't born thinking that your body was wrong , like it actually doesn't make any sense at all that we would even think that cellulite is wrong because it's freaking science And women's bodies they're fat underneath just looks different than men's , and that's why women have cellulite and men don't .

But we haven't been taught those things . We literally just are growing up in a world where we're just told these things are wrong . You need to fix these things , and it's over a $550 billion industry , the beauty , fitness , health industry . That's literally . Their job is to sell you that you should be insecure about these things .

My cellulite doesn't affect my health . My wrinkles don't affect my health , unless some doctor ends up telling us that they do . But so far , from my understanding , they don't affect my health .

They don't affect my heartbeat , they don't affect my lung right , and so I ask myself every single day who do these thoughts when they creep in , like , oh my gosh , i shouldn't show up today because my body , like I don't feel like it doesn't look good today . I just ask myself who do those thoughts benefit ?

And it's not benefiting me to have those thoughts And it's not benefiting me to not show up . It's really benefiting the outside world that wants me to be quiet and be silent and to shrink myself , because it benefits them . And so people might not like this , but I think it's okay to get angry . I get angry all the time . I'm like man , this is dumb .

Like I'm not gonna allow them to win today , like you're not gonna let me sit , i'm gonna sit back because you want me to think something's wrong with myself . So screw you , i'm gonna show up today , and if other people don't like the way that I look , i mean , okay , you don't have to put my belts .

So , five things that I actually do almost every single time before I get like even today , like on a podcast or I , you know , want to do TikToks because , again , even people who say like , oh , i'm so confident and like here's how to be confident , like I can preach confidence all day , i can help you love your body , but at the same time , i'm working on

myself , just like I know you always say that right , like , yeah , work in progress , you're always learning about visibility , and so I'm a work in progress and always on the journey of practicing self-love , body appreciation .

So , with that , almost every time , i do five things before I when I need to create quick confidence , and so I use my five senses and now I'll probably forget them , but right , like taste , so I drink something , so I have my drink here that I always taste , i listened to things , right , so I use what I can hear , whether it's a motivational video or it's

Britney Spears or it's whatever . I listened to something , i watched something . So , whether that's I have a picture here of the girls that are in my program . That's just a constant reminder of like you know why I do what . I do So and I use smell , so I use an essential oil before I do anything . So I use the five senses to do those five things .

See , essential oils , they're great , but yeah , but I do those five things And I think of it as like a ritual . You know , like LeBron James , every time he goes out to the court , if anyone watches basketball , you know he puts the powder and he , like throws it up in the air .

There's some football players they have to be the last one kneeling on the field before you know the game starts , or they have to do a certain thing . Or I know this one guy who puts his wedding ring , like in a certain shoe . So there's like these rituals that athletes do to get into the game .

So if we want to get into the game of confidence , to show up on social media , to show up on , you know , creating videos and doing the things for our business that we need to do . We have to be willing to try new things and to create those rituals that will help us feel a bit confident .

Now , that's just putting a bandaid on it right , like we get to do deeper work to figure out where they sell the powder from and why we struggle . But those are quick things that I do every single , almost every day , to just step into that confidence in those moments where we don't want to show up but we need to and want to .

Back then I laughed and said there's no way she's lying , she's telling us to make that feel better , but she's actually telling the truth because , as somebody who is on video all the time , i get a little butterfly , i get like I get the nervous energy Even , like I even told Danielle today was going to be easy because it's all about her .

Like I still got that nervous energy like before I get on video . And you know what . I think this is important to know . I think , yes , sometimes it can be confidence , but also you care so much about the work that you do that you want it to come across to your audience in the way that you want to deliver , and so I think it can be both and .

But understand that not everyone is jumping out of the womb right With put a camera in my face , i'm on video for life . Like , not everybody is like that and that we all have . You know , especially as an introvert , we struggle with these things And they're all things that we get to work on .

So even if you're scared or you feel like you have a confident issue and you can't get on video because of confidence , you will always be working on that . It's not something again that we just like never work on again . Right , it's personal development . We work on that every single day .

Yeah , i mean , you just have to be lying because you have to be somewhat hesitant of anything or showing up . We're humans , like , of course , we're afraid to be . You know , and I know everyone's like , oh , don't care what other people think , we're freaking humans .

We care what other people think , and if you don't care what other people think , i think there's something wrong with you . Like , you're , like , you know , like I have to be concerned because you should like care about other humans . Now , we shouldn't care to a point to where it changes who we are .

But then also like , don't beat yourself up over that , because you're a work in progress And there's a reason why you're at this point , and having those thoughts and just getting upset with yourself about it isn't going to help you Right At all . So we get to figure out how to , just how to move forward and move through that .

Like for you , you might kill it , but then in three years you're going to look back at that video and be like , oh my God , that was so bad , i'm so much better now And that's the only way you improve . You know , it's just like .

I don't know if you guys have ever watched Danielle like in any of her TikToks or Reels , but you got to go follow her because she is an amazing dancer . But I'm sure when she started dancing back in the day , she fumbled a little bit and she got better at it and she got more rhythm . So we all are a work in progress , for sure .

And people will always ask me , like , do you know how do you do it ? I'm like , let me be honest , I wasn't born this way . I was born to be a dancer . Like , I've danced my whole life Like , and I still haven't given up on the dream of being Britney Spears' backup dancer . One day she'll come back and I'll make it happen .

But like , so comparing yourself to like one and two dances like I do , like that doesn't make any sense . Like , your passion , your purpose , what you were born to do , is different than me . Like that's you know . So I think we always you know and this is a dumb example but people always say how can I get my hair to look like yours ? Like you can't ?

I was born this way . Like this is how my hair is , like I don't put anything in it . I don't like I could show you how to curl it , i guess , but your hair is different than mine . So again , that's that whole comparison thing of when we're showing up and trying to get visible .

We have to stop trying to do it like everybody else , because some people were born that way And some people spent 10 , 20 , 30 years perfecting that thing or learning a new thing . To where it might take you 10 , 20 , 30 years If you I know you say sometimes you have two left feet . So like , if you have two left feet , then you know .

If you want to be a professional dancer , yeah , it might take you 10 , 20 , 30 years . So it's time to get to work in practice if that's really what you want , but if it's not , stop trying to do the things that other people are doing if it's not your thing .

So Colton and I spent two hours learning the choreography for this dance for 15 seconds . Mind you , 15 seconds . I was dying . It was still so bad . I just like it wasn't my thing . And I think once I did that and I was like I just spent two hours my life to create 15 seconds of a video . This is so not me . Like , why am I not doing face to cam ?

Why am I not talking ? Why am I not doing my thing ? And I think it's like sometimes the reason that we're not confident about something is because we're literally not standing at our own authenticity . And when we are standing at our own authenticity , that actually breeds more confidence in the thing that we're doing .

And I think I had to realize that back in 2020 that I didn't need to be dancing . Like I will move , but I am not doing choreography . If it's anything more than like hands and pointing , i'm not doing it . It's just all there is to it .

That word authenticity is just thrown around so much , and people have this idea of what that means , that they're showing up not authentic , because they think being authentic means you have to like wear , you know like , color your hair bright pink , or you have to you know like I don't know , wear some crazy outfit , or you have to do some dance , or you have

to , you know like all these things , and it's like you know . We got to get real about . What does being authentic mean ? And , like you said , it means not spending two hours learning a 15 second dance , right , yes , and for me , it's opposite .

Like , turn on some music , let me do the dance , i'll learn it in 10 minutes and I'll get it going , and then that feels authentic to me , where , when I'm talking , it's a little different . I'm like that's not really me , like I need to be like shaking my butt and then I'll put the words over it . I'm like here's the tips and strategies .

So we're just all different And that's the beauty of this world , in that everyone can be successful , yeah , in their business and being visible if they're true to themselves .

Oh , never , i know I have an opinion about this , so I just threw that in there .

So for me , i think the most important thing that visibility has done is never want to allow me to be myself , like with dancing , like I have found that getting visible in that way has felt really good to me and made me feel good , but also allowed me to get the message out .

I sat with this thought and this message of women loving , appreciating their bodies and helping them understand where those thoughts come from , since I mean , i mean really since like 15 , 20 years I've been thinking about this , and so visibility allows me to share that message and get it out to more humans , with the goal of actually changing the world , rather than

sitting here with my thoughts .

Is there anything else that you want to leave my audience with or just remind them about before we leave this episode ?

And when you can step away from the mirror and you can step away from those negative body thoughts and you can step away from body thoughts in general , you can step into your business , you can step into your message , you can step into your power to live the life that you truly want to live .

Because , at the end of the day , no one is going to comment on how many stretch marks you had , how much cellulite you had . Nobody freaking cares . Here's the thing . When I teach my fitness classes , i tell every single , almost every time I remind them nobody's looking at you , everybody is looking at themselves .

So do not worry about whether you're moving the same way I'm moving . No matter what you're doing , how you're moving , it doesn't matter , because if you're worried about other people's judgment , they're worried about themselves . Here's the thing When we talk and say certain things , when a woman says , for example , oh my gosh , i look so fat today .

What I hear is , oh my gosh , am I fat today ? then We all , psychologically what other people say and share same with like your business . When we're sharing stories and our transformations and all the things , when we do that , we instantly put ourselves in other people's stories . We instantly have those thoughts of our own .

So all we're doing when we say those things is we're harming and hurting the little girls in our lives and the other women in our lives , making them think that they are less than and the most important thing about them is their body .

So my challenge to you is that you watch the words that you use and you choose to focus more on who you are and who you want to be and the message that you want to share to the world , and we think less and talk less about our bodies .

I think my name now is Danielle Nicole LaRose And Yeah , we're tiktok , i'm still there is Danielle Hobele , so come find me there and hang out All right , and then do you have a gift for my audience . Oh , i do . Thank you for reminding me . So the healthy lifestyle launch planner is a quick planner with 10 strategies .

If you're looking for a way to , you know , just kick off your health or make healthier choices that are actually healthy , aligned with the idea of Loving and appreciating your body and taking care of it . Um and so you can grab that at the link . Apologize for the ding , but yeah that's that .

I think it's going to serve and support so many entrepreneurs , and I'm just so blessed that I had an opportunity To interview you on here and cannot wait for everyone to hear all the things that we had to say about visibility and authenticity And confidence and body image and all of those things , so I think it's going to land really , really well .