The Importance of Gratitude In Building A Better, More Regenerative Fu

Corinna Bellizzi December 7, 2022

Kandas Rodarte, Gratitude Geek - A Relationship Marketing Podcast

This week, Corinna opens by sharing the importance of gratitude and why she's choosing to continue that conversation at the beginning of December. You'll hear about an upcoming effort in social spaces to engage in a deeper conversation about how we can build a better future, and why she's excited to share today's episode, a guest appearance on Kandas Rodarte's Gratitude Geek.

Listen to the podcast here:

Gratitude Geek - Episode 113 Show Notes (originally published on April 5, 2022 https://momgeek.com/113-corinna-bellizzi/ )

Welcome to Gratitude Geek, the relationship marketing podcast helping micropreneurs find your micro-influencer magic. This week, I’m joined by Corinna Bellizzi.

Corinna is a natural products industry executive, mom of two young boys, and podcaster who began her broadcasting journey as a guest on many nationally syndicated radio shows. In her role as an executive, she is a pioneer of new nutrition categories, and an experienced media spokesperson. She is the host of two podcasts, Care More Be Better and Nutrition Without Compromise.

Corinna’s Unique Story
What is a regenerative brand?
How can a micropreneur build a regenerative brand?
Wouldn’t it be nice if every jar had interchangeable lids?
Social impact of apparel and nutrition
Zika Virus is in Houston
Compulsory service and the benefits of being an army brat
Fashion shows are fun
Highway 1
Business, politics and social impact
Corinna’s Moment of Gratitude

Mentions

Watch the original episode of Gratitude Geek here:

https://youtu.be/7VhTG3XD_po

Transcript

Corinna Bellizzi:

Hello fellow do-gooders and friends. I'm your host Corinna Bellizzi, and today I'm bringing to you a special beginning to December. I say a special beginning because all November long we simply focused on the things that we might be grateful for. I saw this throughout social media.

I saw it in my feed. I saw it in my email inbox that every time this happens, I'm struck by the fact that we seek to do. Only in the month of November, so I've chosen to do something a little bit different. I've chosen to express my gratitude at the beginning of December with the first episode for December.

There are many things that I am grateful for, notwithstanding my family, my job, my health, my ability to get up each day and do the things that I want to do, to be able to have the privilege to do those things, to be able to rescue the animals. Even the late edition to my family, the three Guinea pigs that I adopted for my boys.

Or to be able to sit here and think about how I'm going to be a better person in 2023, I have had the opportunity to interface with some incredible people through the course of my podcasting journey. And one of those people, she is just an amazing podcaster. Her name is Candace Rodar, and she has a podcast called Gratitude Geek.

I mean, she's obviously someone who believes what I believe that we need to be grateful throughout the year. Why else would she have a podcast called Gratitude Geek? And she's also the first podcaster, aside from my dear friend Julie Lo, to invite me on her podcast for a second time. So as I commence December and this quieting of the year, this time when we pause and reflect when the days get shorter, And when we hopefully have time with our loved ones to rest and reflect together to appreciate the value that one another bring to the table.

I am expressing my gratitude for Candace and my first appearance on her show. She asked me key questions about what it means to be regenerative, what it takes to build a regenerative. How I have integrated my personal beliefs into my professional life and what that means for me. She's a thought-provoking host and as a gratitude geek, she was so amazing in the fact that she sent me an appreciation gift after my appearance on her show, salted caramels, a little coffee, a treat for me and for my kids.

That was pretty amazing. Even a customized card, which featured me and thanked me for sharing my expertise with her community. Being thankful goes a long way to helping one another live a little better each day. And so I've been talking about this with a gal I have working with me to support my social media efforts as we head forward, and we have decided to do something a little different in 2023 as well.

So I wanted to share that with everyone as I prepare to share this singular episode with Kandas Rodarte, episode one 13 of Gratitude Geek, which will play for you in just a moment here. But the idea we are spitballing. The thing that we're thinking about doing is basically sharing each week a challenge.

A challenge for how you can integrate some of what you might learn listening to this show, a challenge for how you might live a little better each week or create a little bit more impact. I might share some simple facts like if you fore went blow drying your hair for a week, what it could mean in energy savings, or if you just decided to.

Going to Starbucks every morning on the way to work or to pick up your kids, or to do whatever it is, the impact that you could have, not only on your pocketbook, but your ability to pay forward a little cash to a charity you might care about. These are the sorts of topics that we're gonna dig into. So I will encourage everyone who's listening to go ahead and follow care more, be better and social.

You can find it on Instagram @caremore.bebetter. On Twitter at @caremorebebettr. And also on YouTube @caremorebebetter. Typically, my episodes also have a video element, though today's will not. I want for all of you to sit back and enjoy an episode in which I'm in the hot seat for once and in which Kandas invites me to think a little bit differently about just about everything.

I think you'll enjoy the episode. And again, I wanna say I'm just so grateful. I'm grateful for all of you, for the ability to host this podcast, to connect with incredible people and to share their stories, and to hopefully put a little bit more good into the world every single day.

Without further ado, here is Kandas, the Gratitude Geek.

Kandas Rodarte: Welcome to Gratitude Geek, the Relationship Marketing podcast, helping Micropreneurs find your micro influencer magic. I'm your host Kandas Rodarte, and this week I'm joined by Corinna Bellizzi. Corinna is a natural. Industry executive mom of two young boys and a podcaster who began her broadcasting journey as a guest on many nationally syndicated radio shows.

In her role as an executive, she is a pioneer of new nutrition categories and an experienced media spokesperson. She is the host of two podcasts, Care More Be Better, and The Mediacasters. Welcome Corinna!

Corinna Bellizzi: Thanks so much for having me. It's my joy to be here.

Kandas Rodarte: I love it when I, guests have great mics. Thank you for having a good mic.

I really appreciate it. It's the little things that make a podcast you happy? So tell us your unique story. How'd you get to where you are?

Corinna Bellizzi: Well, I mean, everybody has a long story, but I think there's a common thread that started when I was born and so I'll just give the one two punch. I was born to hippie parents on a commune in southern Oregon at home, and so I feel like I was born into the natural products industry.

I was always really closely connected to food. We even, I have an early recollection of like my mom, like walking a goat into the kitchen to milk it in the morning for our cereal milk, like that sort of stuff, you know? So the type of world that I grew up in was a little bit different than most of my peers.

and it meant that like when I even moved to California later and was in this midst of everybody working in high tech, like I, I went to high school in Cupertino, California, apple computer's home like in the early nineties, right? Like everybody went into tech. I wanted to study anthropology. I wanted to be Indiana Jones.

And so I pursued that, right? Because I wanted to actually go and be an archeologist, dig in the dirt, and then realized, holy. I'm not gonna make a living doing this. , not only do professors hold onto their tenure by like their clause, right? It's male dominated. It costs a lot of money to go to grad school.

I could eek out in existence just doing like these, um, local area digs. Anytime they do a construction and find something. Or I could go to work for a while and see what. And so I went to work for a while to see what happens, and I ended up falling in love with the natural products industry. This, this industry I was born into in a way, um, developing a career in sales and marketing, and ultimately becoming a pioneer and building multinational brands.

Kandas Rodarte: Let's dig into this. What is a regenerative brand?

Corinna Bellizzi: Well, a regenerative brand is probably what most people think about when they think about a sustainable brand, right? Something that is going to be here for years to come, that isn't gonna take too much from the environment. That is something that could be around for a long, long time.

But the reality is this term has become a greenwashed term and it's not real. Most of what we call sustainable isn't really sustainable at all. And if we continue down the path that we've been on, working from this really extractive perspective, a very capitalistic and extractive perspective, we're never going to get to a point where we're able to do things like control for future damage of the planet.

And what we're ultimately doing is it's like we're borrowing from the future. We're borrowing from our children and our grandchildren, the resources that they will need to thrive. And so, A regenerative brand is one that takes that into consideration and that seeks to give back more than it takes. That would do things like consider paying what a fair value is for a specific ingredient, even if it's not what it's, they could get it for, let's say.

Right? So you might be able to buy a pound of coffee and processed for $3, but you should be paying six. And so, you know, just from that kind of raw material perspective, when you're getting everything from that base level, Communities can rise up so that they get to a point where they're not just always extracting and extracting two because they're just trying to get by.

So what we do is we try to look at the whole picture. What does the life cycle of a product looks like? What happens after it's been sold and consumed? So like, take for example, a bottle of a supplement, right? Typically it's in a plastic bottle. That plastic bottle bottle used to be told as recyclable, right?

You could go and you put this in your recycle bin and it's gonna be recycled, but that's not really the truth. The truth is that if it's recycled, it's down cycled. It's down, cycled into something that's lesser, and eventually that cycle stops. You can't actually recycle it anymore, so it becomes microplastics.

It's in your waterways. Full circle is really more the space that we wanna get to. So instead, you might consider buying a supplement in a bottle, this glass, because that glass bottle is inert and that glass bottle can be recycled and it's not going to damage the ecosystems and it can be reused even as a vase if you really want it to.

Right? So there's all, like I use a coffee cup for my pen jar. It's got a broken handle, but it does the job right? Like little things like that. Think differently. And so what I'm in the midst of right now as a project I've been working on for the past year and a half, you know, having built these very successful omega-3 brands in the fish oil space, I have transitioned to working in the plant-based space and harnessing the power of algae.

Algae produces oxygen as a byproduct of its existence. You feed it co2, it's carbon negative. So if we can go to this particular source and develop ways to, to extract its nutrition without negatively creating more, you know, pollutants and everything else, if you can do that right, then you've created something that actually does give back more than it takes, and that can provide sustenance for humanity.

So I think that's really where our headset has to be. Now, if you're applying this to any Tom, Dick and Harry business outside the world of regeneration, you really just wanna think about the full life cycle of what you're doing and paying a fair wage for people along the way that are part of that progress as well.

Kandas Rodarte: Paying the fair wage is important, so, I think it was this morning. It might have been last night. I was, it was last night. I was putting some food away in a jar. I, I sore my food in glass jars and I was really frustrated because I couldn't get my reusable lids to fit on this jar. I actually had to find the original lid for the jar.

And I just think that the, that the manufacturing around the globe could make a huge difference in, in this regenerative, you know, branding thing. If every jar. Had an interchangeable lid no matter what company manufactured the product. Right? Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that be nice? Because I mean, I can't be the only one who uses jars for food storage.

Hmm.

Corinna Bellizzi: No, you can't be, I mean, even a ball jar, there's like numerous sizes of the neck, right? Uh huh, like they have the wide neck and then the more narrow neck. And I've found that I get frustrated because like, oh, well that one got slightly rusted, so I had to recycle it. It's made of metal and that's recyclable.

So it goes in the bin. Everything's okay with that. Get a new lid now. It's got a good seal again, right? But I like to repurpose things like my pasta sauce. Jars and those lids aren't replaceable. So it's the same story. Um, you know what a lot of people do now is they go to beeswax, um, laced cloth. Which you can actually make in your oven yourself.

You don't have to go and buy these. So like let's say you have some old sheets that get a tear in them or something, but it's still perfectly good fabric. You can cut 'em into squares and just like lay it in a glass pan with some beeswax, put it in your oven for, I don't know, 20 or 30 minutes, it melts it.

And like, yes, you have to clean the pan afterwards, and that's a little bit of a pain, but you literally get your own beeswax like cloth that you can then use to seal something and it only holds up for so long. Cuz then the beeswax starts to crumble away and, and you do it again. Like you just put some beeswax in there, put it back in the oven and like happens all over again.

So there's all sorts of like YouTube tutorials for how you can do this that can be watertight as well as airtight because the bees wax essentially operates as a sealant, much like you would if you were. With, um, beeswax or with any wax, really?

Kandas Rodarte: I feel like I've been living under a rock. I did not know about this.

Corinna Bellizzi: Yeah, I, I don't know. It's something I picked up. I really don't like the ones that you buy. Because I just feel like it's wasteful. And eventually I have like even, you know, like a men's style button up shirt that I like to wear and they get tattered. And what do you do with it? It's like if I send it to Goodwill, it's got a hole in it, it's just gonna end up in landfill.

But it's a pretty fabric and I could cut it up and use it for something like that. And. You know, easier to do.

Kandas Rodarte: I don't get to talk about this very often cuz this is not the kind of podcast that I have. It's a business podcast. But I watched a documentary recently about what happens to donated clothing.

Oh, that's terrible. It's literally in our ocean washes up on beaches in Africa and it's just, it's just, it's mountains and mountains of clothing along the beaches of Africa. I can't remember the country, but it's. Don't donate your clothes. People .

Corinna Bellizzi: Well, if you think about, I mean, if we, if we just change our mindset and we start to think about everything we bring into our home as our responsibility, then it shifts your buying patterns, right?

Because like if you say, I'm bringing this into my home, but I'm gonna have to dispose of it in a way in which I know it's going to go to its best life. I certainly keep my clothes beyond their so-called wear point. I mean, it goes from being like wear out clothes to pajama clothes to Hey, I'm gonna paint in this, or whatever.

Right? Um, but that's because like so much of the clothing we wear isn't something that would really buy secondhand. Right. Yeah. And then another thing, um, to really kind of keep in mind, like. Sneakers as a, for example, I go through a lot of sneakers because I, I go for a lot of hikes, a lot of runs. I used to run marathons.

Those days are over cause I have bunions now. Yay. But I found that a local shoe shop that actually specializes in running shoes, they recycle the shoes into tracks for, um, high schools and colleges. So they take the. The rubber and they repurpose it for that specifically. And so I always take my used shoes and I take them there because otherwise they would end up in the trash cuz there's no real way to otherwise recycle them.

And then there's this other company called TerraCycle where you can actually get a box from them and it's like a pre it's preformed box that you fill and you buy by size and anything that you put in there, you just ship back to them and they will find out a. To recycle or reuse the materials that are in it.

Even things like a comforter that you might have, they'll figure out a way to reuse the batting inside it. It may become, um, the architecture of a cushion that ends up then later being resold into the marketplace. And so I think it's powerful to. Think about how we can really make use of the things that we buy.

You go to our local communities to try and capture items that might not be in their first use. If it's something that you don't need new, like furniture is a great example, right? Um, and then really kind of just think about when you have to dispose of something, taking more responsibility. . I used

Kandas Rodarte: to work for a sporting goods, a chain of sporting good stores, and we were building a new store and we put in, um, flooring.

This was, this was 20 or 25 years ago. Oh. I've been married for 25 years, so this was 25 years ago. , um, holy crap. Uh, and it was flooring that was made from recycled shoes. It was, um, a partner with partnership with Nike, uh, cuz Nike was one of our vendors. Um, and it was just really, it was really cool then. I mean, that was 25 years ago that these, this and the technology has really come a long way.

I, again, I'm gonna, I'm just, you know. Yeah. I'm a documentary addict, so I watched another documentary about a woman in Africa who has developed a way to recycle plastic into road pavers. So you, she, she churn the plastic into bricks that can be used to make roads. I mean, it just, the, there are ideas. We, there are things that we do not know today.

That are gonna be standard across the board in the future. Yep.

Corinna Bellizzi: And someone's people are melting them into bricks to make houses from. So that's happening too. Like these are all things that can be done with plastics, but we have such a mountain of plastic to work through that there's, there's just too much in existence today and we keep making new virgin plastic at the same time.

There are technologies that are coming out, a couple of which are detailed, and Paul. Book regeneration where they're able to make old plastic, old plastic or recycled plastic, like new. So it's like virgin plastic, but the technologies are very new. They're not out there yet. And so it's just a matter of like what's in science phase versus what's in actually manufacturing phase.

And um, when we go through and we recycle things, there's always an ecological and environmental. To that too, because typically heat is required. Where's the energy coming from? You know, typically also they might release some pollutants or create more carbons. So what is the impact of that? So I mean, really, again, thinking about the things that you have for durability, buying clothing that way, or even choosing when you're a company to create something that's more marketing oriented.

Create something that is. And that will stand the test of time. You know, don't buy the $5 t-shirt that was made on the backs of somebody else that you can get for the cheapest, uh, baseline price. Just because, you know, because somebody paid for that. They paid for it with their lifestyle. They paid for it with their livelihood ba they paid for it by being underpaid and undernourished and in an environment that isn't healthy for them or their families either.

And so if we think about that and we think more about. The world that our grandparents lived. Like really where things were manufactured to last and where people had pride of ownership, where they might even have gifted that KitchenAid mixer down to their children and their children's children. I mean, I have one of those KitchenAid mixers, you know?

Um, then I think we can actually be in a space, in a world where regeneration isn't just this ethereal concept. It's something that we've ingrained in our society and into our business practices so that we aren't just willing nilly with the money we spend and with the things that we buy and this consumerist kind of world.

Kandas Rodarte: I'm wearing a pair of Birkenstock that are probably 20. Five, 30 years old. Right. I'm wearing them right now. I'm sure

Corinna Bellizzi: they're very comfortable. They, they are. Well,

Kandas Rodarte: I don't wear 'em in public . They never leave the house, but they are, I mean, they've got that negative heel and so they're just really nice to stand.

Um, you stand on it, but these, they probably cost me $250 back then. Wow. Which, I've paid $10 a year to own me shoes. Right. Wow. Right. Yeah. Cheers. Yeah. Well, and then I'm also thinking about, um, I had this, I had these two identical sleeveless shirts. They were, uh, really high quality knit, super comfortable, very well made.

You know, they, um, I don't, I'm not a seamstress, so I don't know the terms, but they had like, along the scenes and Oh yeah. And then they had those little hooks so that you, you hook it along your bra and so it doesn't fall off your shoulders. Mm-hmm. , um, I swear I wore these shirts for 15 years. They were $99 each.

I wore 'em for 15 years. Right. So I totally agree with you. If you spend just a little bit extra money, you get a lot of more wear out of something, but it's also timeless. Pick those timeless

Corinna Bellizzi: designs. Now I just wanted to share a story though. I'm wearing this shirt. This was actually a promotional shirt from a Vitamin Angels, um, event that they hosted in New Jersey.

I think about 10 years ago at this point. Um, it has an embroidered logo in the bottom right corner, but you know, when I'm wearing it for something like this, you wouldn't see it, right. So I'm like, whatever. It's a black shirt. It is microfiber, right? But it's black. It's simple. It goes with a lot of things.

And if I'm gonna be doing a c like this, I dress it up with like something, like a scarf. This one was made by my mother-in-law, right? So it's like, it just makes me feel like I'm with. The faith and love of people or the experience that I have, like, yes, I remember the only day I've ever golfed in my life.

I did it for charity. I did it with the Vitamin Angels, and I ended up with the worst blisters on my left hand because I thought like, really? Who needs this? Like glove, like I'm not gonna buy it. It's just like a $40 for one glove, right? I learned quickly why you needed the one glove, but it was the only time I ever golfed.

You know, I wouldn't have used it again. .

Kandas Rodarte: So Vitamin Angels, is that the company that you're, is that your company,

Corinna Bellizzi: vitamin Angels? No, no. They are an not for profit. What they do is they, um, have a, a basic mission of ending infant blindness and now infant mortality that's nutrient related around the world.

And so they go to communities around the globe and make sure that the mother gets sufficient nutrition. Vaccinations and basic healthcare prenatally. And during early infancy they've been able to end infant blindness and they're now on track to end nutrition related infant mortality as well. And so it's just a company I believe a lot in, and they, um, are not for profit.

They're based in Santa Barbara. I've worked with them in a variety of capacities over the years from a sponsorship perspective. For every bottle of a supplement I would sell, they would get a quarter or something like that as our cause partners. And we also, when I was leading the charge at Nordic Naturals, we had, um, participated in this program called Thrive to Five, where we would essentially provide educational and also nutrient resources to people in different communities so that they could thrive through the age of five.

And um, that was a really, Initiative to take on. I was invited to go with Vitamin Angels on these field trips where they would actually go to, um, Haiti or to Honduras or Nicaragua or you know, the Dominican Republic or into Peru. But it never worked out with timing. Like I always had some business thing I couldn't do or I was pregnant and I didn't wanna travel where there was Zika virus or whatever.

You know, it's like life sometimes intervened, , you think, really think about that

Kandas Rodarte: Zika. We don't have to worry about that here in the usa. We don't have to worry about our kids being born without a brain.

Corinna Bellizzi: Yeah. You know, if you're in Houston, like there's, there's been some Z virus there too. And I actually, at the time when I was pregnant and my boss didn't know, worked for a company that was Houston based, I was like really trying not to go to Houston.

Kandas Rodarte: But, um, I didn't know that I used to live in Houston. I had no idea.

Corinna Bellizzi: Yeah, it's just, you know, it's, the bugs migrate, they migrate with people, they get in airplanes too. And so I don't know if you had the experience of traveling internationally, but I've been as far, um, east as, uh, what was that country?

Anyway, um, this is like off in Asia and I remember the flight attendants coming through at the beginning of the flight and spraying on the plane, and they're spraying bug killer on the plane before they take off. I was like, this is really gross. Like, I don't like that they're doing this, but I understand why, you know, because it, you

Kandas Rodarte: know, the passengers could have brought it on with their shoes.

Corinna Bellizzi: Exactly. Or it just travels on your clothing. You have a mosquito on your shoulder that you don't see and you get on the plane, you. Yeah,

Kandas Rodarte: I haven't been, I haven't been in an international flight since I was a teenager. Hmm. But I have traveled, I have traveled a lot, uh, just not since I was young. My dad worked for the military.

So one of the benefits of being a military brat is that you get to see the world and meet interesting people. Definitely do. Yeah. You get to meet interesting people. Um, I, this is completely, uh, controversial, but I kind of like the idea of. Oh, what's the word? Compulsory service. Not just, not just military, because compulsory service can also be, you know, AmeriCorps or Peace Corps or something like that.

Mm-hmm. . But the idea of every single American having to spend two years of their lives learning how to serve. Other people not just being, you know, selfish, which is what a lot of us are. Mm-hmm. is, is, it's an interesting idea cuz I really do believe that. I, I never, I didn't serve, but I've been a volunteer my whole life.

Um, you know, I, I give just like you, I give back with service and um, um, but I really think that my experience is a. Kid who always had people around me with different cultures, different backgrounds, different ideas. Okay. So we have, um, a couple of things in common. I wanted to be an anthropologist when I was in college.

I went to college to become an anthropologist. Didn't happen. And I have been, you and I share this. I've ed a fashion show, . I've also been, I've also been a model in a fashion show, and I've been the behind the scenes person that makes sure the models get out. Right. So my favorite thing with the fashion show was not being a model, not being the mc, but actually being the person who made sure the models looked good when they walked out on, on the floor.

Oh, yeah. I don't know that support, that support, but it, you know, it just seems so, um, I don't know, it's just people think, oh, we fashion show. But it's actually a lot of

Corinna Bellizzi: fun, so it is a lot of fun. Well, and mine was a little racy. I don't know if yours was, but, um mm-hmm. , my, my girlfriend, um, Shannon Collins, um, and her husband Ken, they own this, um, this sex shop in Santa Cruz called Camouflage.

And so in the front is all lingerie and costumes and feather boas and, and some dresses and fun stuff. Like some really nice like, Pretty fifties style, but newly made dresses. And then in the back was all the racy stuff, right? And so, um, they did a fashion show every Valentine's Day in Halloween. Those were their two biggest peaks of the year.

And so I ceed for one of them last minute because they had a cancellation and I had experience doing that sort of thing, you know, in media. So I'm like, well, how hard can it. The thing that made it really hard was that one of the models was actually someone I worked with, um, professionally. And so he was, um, he's a big wave surfer named Shane Desmond.

And so he's like, he competes every year at Maverick's and Nordic Natural is the company I used to work for and lead, um, sponsored him. Right? So he comes out wearing nothing, like almost nothing, right? and I have this cue of the. That I'm supposed to say. So why you say and, and Shane is wearing not

Kandas Rodarte: much

Corinna Bellizzi: It just, I mean, it was hilarious. It was a very, you know, just, I, I went with the humor of it and just made it into like something kind of jovial and silly. But it was, um, one of the most nerve-wracking moments of my life because it's like you didn't have the realization until the person's coming out.

You're like, oh my God. That is

Kandas Rodarte: hilarious. That is so hilarious. Some of my best memories of being a teenager are in Santa Cruz. I didn't tell you that. I didn't tell you I'm from

Corinna Bellizzi: California, did I? No, you didn't. Where are you from? I

Kandas Rodarte: grew up in, in Castroville. Do you know where that is? Yeah, I do. Mm-hmm. . Okay.

So, uh, I grew up in Castroville, which is the artichoke capital of the world. I always tell people Marilyn

Corinna Bellizzi: Monroe. Right, exactly. She was the first

Kandas Rodarte: artist show queen. Um, and my sister was runner up for artichoke queen one year. So, Normally tell people I'm, I'm from Monterey, because, you know, Castroville is such a, it's a blip, it's a little blip, and

Corinna Bellizzi: literally it's surrounded community.

Kandas Rodarte: It's, yeah, it's surrounded by strawberry fields and artichoke fields. Mm-hmm. and then, you know, but, but just a little. Tiny smidge way is Zyndowski Beach and Santa Cruz is really quick drive. Monterey is quick drive, you know, and mm-hmm. . It's right along Highway One, which is the most beautiful highway in the United States.

It's the most, yes, absolutely. So I, I had a. I had a Volkswagen Rabbit convertible. It was a rabbit, not a caba, it was a rabbit convertible . And I would drive up and down with the top off. And my favorite time to drive with the top down was at night with the stars above me. And oh yeah, just, uh, and because in California, you know, you, we, there are seasons.

It's warm and not so warm. Those are two seasons, right? Yeah.

Corinna Bellizzi: Warm and not so warm. That's

Kandas Rodarte: warm and not so warm and I, you know, I would just drive at night with a top down and just, oh, smell the ocean breeze. I, I do kind of miss living in California. Is there anything that you would like to promote or share, or is there a question I didn't ask you that you wanna answer?

Corinna Bellizzi: Yeah, that's a question I love to ask in my own podcast because I feel like sometimes that's when you get the biggest bread breadcrumbs of joy, so to speak. You know? Um, what I will say is that I am just in love with podcasting. I think that it is an incredible way to get your voice into the world. It's also a great way to practice.

Kind of what your message is and get to know what you want your future to be. And so if anybody listening has ever thought, you know, huh, I wonder what that would be like. I'm, I'm currently supporting that journey for people. And so I, um, started a second podcast called The Media Casters, um, which has also become a community and us.

Pseudo production company, we're actually helping people launch their ideas into the world through both podcasting, publishing, writing books, and also through public speaking. Um, I'm gonna be speaking at podcast in a couple months time, so anybody going to that if you are going. Please come see me. My partner with Media Custers, Julie, Logan, and myself, are gonna be on stage talking about the power of community and how you can leverage community to grow your street, credibility, your audiences, and really build a foundational support system to be able to not go it alone because it's my belief that none of us should have to.

So if people want to listen to my podcast, That would be awesome. I love my care. Morby better show. It's my first baby in the world. Um, the media casters is my second baby into the world of podcasting and um, yeah, it's, I'm even launching a third soon in the nutrition space. So I get to talk about everything I know in nutrition, which will be fun.

It's the first one related to my actual day job, .

Kandas Rodarte: This morning I was ta Okay, first of all, thank you because I think I stole your, that question from. Oh, hey. I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure I stole that question from you and it's going into my regular rotation, so thank you. Yeah, it's good actually, I like it. I had to have, because I picked it up from somebody, so it must have been you cuz I, you know, , um, I really did enjoy the, the episode of Care More, be Better that I listened to it was with, um, Peanut butter in politics.

No bacon in politics,

Corinna Bellizzi: sex and bacon. Sex, bacon, sex, bacon and politics. Abby Green, she's incredible. So, I mean, this woman is like a dynamo in the world of politics. She really just is passionate about helping people get the vote out and working on campaigns. Um, and she's also a lawyer, so she's. Like a very good educational background.

Really smart, really good sense of humor. So, you know, she has a podcast called Sex, politics, and Bacon. And sometimes sex is, you know, talking more feminism and equal pay for equal work. And sometimes Bacon is just talking about what dishes you like, or the fact that she named her son Bacon so well, that's, That's a funny name.

And this is middle name, but still that's, that's something you know. Well, Francis

Kandas Rodarte: Bacon Science, right? That's right. You could, you can have any spin on that. It was a really good episode. I enjoyed it.

Corinna Bellizzi: Um, I actually, it was fun. That was a fun one. I loved that episode.

Kandas Rodarte: I really wish I could talk about politics.

Um, maybe I should start another podcast. Wheres. Politics, .

Corinna Bellizzi: Well, I could help you launch that. And, um, , you know, it's, it's one of those things where I think that sometimes keeping your shows as pure as possible is important. Um, but, you know, people wanna hear your voice, they wanna hear from you. And, and I, I, Certainly have a challenge in even talking about politics on my podcast.

Cause I think sometimes it can be polarizing and you can alienate people. So the, the running thread that I tend to bring in every time I do talk about politics on my own podcast is to really invite people to open discourse because I think disagreement is healthy and we have way more in common than we ever have separate.

So even if you're on opposite sides of an. It's, I think, important to hear one another out and understand perspective and respect one another's viewpoint instead of, you know, just automatically kind of just choosing to butt heads with one another. And I think if you can take that approach while talking about political issues, then suddenly, you know, you've opened yourself to having a more kind of freeing conversation.

Sometimes there's things you're not gonna agree on ever. Right? They're gonna be like deal breakers for you. And that's okay too, right? It's trying to wrap.

Kandas Rodarte: I always like to end the same way. Thank you for letting me steal your question about. Tell us something that you want us to know that I haven't asked you yet.

Cause that's being added to my rotation of questions that I ask and really, I only have three now. I was two and now it's three. Um, but I always end with the same question, so tell us. Who or what you're most grateful for? Share your moment of gratitude.

Corinna Bellizzi: Honestly, I'm most grateful for my body, for my ability to be in this world today, to move around with freedom and to have the ability to go out into the great outdoors and experience nature.

I think that's the thing I'm most grateful for. It's enabled me to bear children, run marathons, travel the world, walk innumerable miles. And see perspectives from other spots in the globe, so I'm very thankful for that.

Kandas Rodarte: Thanks for joining us this week for Gratitude Geek, the Relationship Marketing podcast, helping Micropreneurs find your micro influencer magic.

Be sure to check the show notes at gratitudegeek.com, episode 113 for links to all the groovy resources mentioned today. And of course, to connect with Corinna Bellizzi. And while you're there, why not subscribe to the show on Audible, iTune, Stitcher, or any of your favorite podcast players? It's easy and would mean the world to me.

Our theme music is Track 14 by Rev, Brock, and Soly. I've been your host, Kandas Rodarte. Join me on my mission to spread gratitude, so seeds of appreciation and harvest, of bounty of generosity and highness. Stay groovy, my friends.

eco PERSONAL CARE