When one of your values is personal integrity, the road narrows, real quick. What does that mean? Recently I have made a handful of statements and commitments that mean the world to me. Equity and opportunity for those that deserve the opportunity regardless of race, gender, life experiences... I get so fired up about creating safe places for people to thrive. I’ve had more than a few opportunities to make decisions that impact this integral part of my belief system and ya know what, I’ve chosen to stick to my values instead of going with the alternative. Is it easy or “fun” to pass by opportunities, say goodbye or upset people to stay in integrity with my values, nope, not even a little. But you know what it does do, it’s like another squat at the end of a set when I am hitting fatigue, I know if I keep going the next workout I’ll be stronger, the muscle will break down and build itself back up even stronger and more resilient. I look at this photo and I see a woman that has weathered countless storms and chosen sacrifice over comfort. Why does this matter? Because, behind the scenes, behind my eyes is a vigilant determination to do what is right, and, I want that for you. It is so much more fulfilling to sleep at night clear minded than plot out the next move. I love not having anything to remember because I tell the truth. I share in the spirit of making sure anyone interested in the narrow path, to assure you it will not be clear of obstacles, instead... Buckle up, get a good group of people to surround you to champion the hard times and rally with, and let’s change the world, the right way, with integrity. #womenempowerment #womensupportingwomen #womeninbusiness #womenwithintegrity #womeninfitness #wifa #community #integrity

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Lindsey Rainwater is an experienced business advisor, executive coach and the founder of The Women in Fitness Association (WIFA). WIFA is the global association supporting women in their career trajectory helping them rise to their fullest potential in business and life. She is known for her work advising businesses, her original published content, additionally supporting individuals in transformational change and leadership development. Her intention is to help individuals and organizations enjoy necessary change in order to succeed.

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Connect with me

Collaboration, the action of working with someone to produce or create something. Something new that’s never been there before! Read that again, new! Brand new, couldn’t have been there before. When we work together something gets the opportunity to be birthed that was not there before. Don’t believe the lie that you have to hoard or hold on without sharing your accomplishments, totally the opposite! When you share your wins and collaborate, you give way to something brand new, that could have never been there before. Therefore making MORE for everyone. So next time you score a win, a new opportunity, look around, who can you take with you across the finish line? What first win can you give away to someone else? #womenhelpingwomen #collab #collaboration #makenewopportunities #wifa #wifawomen #womeninbusiness #womeninfitness

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Lindsey Rainwater is an experienced business advisor, executive coach and the founder of The Women in Fitness Association (WIFA). WIFA is the global association supporting women in their career trajectory helping them rise to their fullest potential in business and life. She is known for her work advising businesses, her original published content, additionally supporting individuals in transformational change and leadership development. Her intention is to help individuals and organizations enjoy necessary change in order to succeed.

A few months back I had the distinct honor of being on the Fitness Career Mastery Podcast with Barry Ennis and Shay Kostabi. They are two fabulously talented people that are supporting fitness professionals all over the world to excel in their business’s. Check out the interview, how do you integrate?

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• How to integrate the things that are most important to you into everything that you do

• Create an abundance of time in your day

• What to do when you’re feeling “out of balance”

Here’s the Complete List of Tips:

(11:30) What is the art of integration?

How to decide what is important to you, including what is “important” versus “urgent”, how to these priorities into 3-5 buckets, and then how to integrate the most important things to you into everything that you do.

(17:30) Incorporating integration into your life

Take all of the tasks that you have to get done in the day. Create your matrix of time, and quadrants of “what has to happen today”, “what is just as important but can be fulfilled later”, “what is not urgent and not important” “what is not important at all”. Take the tasks, and put them into each of those categories, and then calendar your day from there. Consider creating different calendars for each of your “buckets”.

(23:30) When you feel you “don’t have time”

Einstein time versus Newtonian time. The concept of Einstein time grows with the things that you feel a profound “yes” to. If you’re out of integrity with the things that you’re doing, you’ll never have enough time for the things you don’t want to do. So if you’re doing things that you don’t want to do, you will have a very hard time finding time to do everything.

(31:00) Make good on your commitments even if the pan falls through 

(34:00) If you feel that you’re “out of balance”

It’s possible that you’ve lost momentum on the things that are very important to you, even if they don’t feel as fulfilling at this moment in time. Perhaps you get a huge adrenaline rush or dopamine release from doing things for your new business. Are you choosing that rush over other things in your life that are equally important to you?

(40:20) How to go from big picture to day to day

How do you go from being a helicopter in the air looking down at your life to things like making dinner.

(48:30) How to manage compromise on your core values

(50:30) What the Women in Fitness Association is all about

 References in the Episode:

The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

Lindsey’s Blog

“As we enter a new year and decade, it’s natural to not only go into a state of reflection over the last year (and decade) and also start thinking ahead to all the things you want to do differently and accomplish moving forward. Sometimes those to-do lists can get so long that we wind up feeling overwhelmed before we even get started, and often when we do start getting after it, we soon find ourselves feeling out of balance with what we value the most.

That’s why we brought on Lindsey Rainwater to speak to us not about finding balance, but something even better- learning how to integrate the things that we value most into everything that we do, and ensure that we’re spending our time in the most effective way day in and day out, so we can quickly reach those big scary goals that we’ve set for ourselves.”

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All of this magical content can be found on the Fitness Career Mastery Website, please support them, they are wonderful at what they do!

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Lindsey Rainwater is a sought-after business advisor, founder, writer & keynote speaker to the fitness and wellness industry.

Hello Blog, I've missed you.

Twelve weeks ago my husband and I welcomed to the world our first born son, Oliver Brysen.  I have paused my writing to turn my whole attention towards Mr Oliver and the best way I can think of starting my blog up again is to share with you my experience of transitioning into motherhood. 

Image is a screen shot of my screen

You can learn a lot about a person by looking at their most frequently used emojis. Face palm, baby, heart and poop are all highly relevant ways to describe my life via images.

Reflecting on the past 12 weeks and my experience of labor and delivery, the underscored theme for me is this: I simply didn't know what I didn’t know. I have come to realize that no level of preparation, reading, even babysitting can prepare one for the transformation that occurs when having a child.

Looking back on my last few weeks pregnant I felt prepared, I thought I had a plan, I thought through every last detail around organizing my life to prepare for Oliver's arrival.  What actually happened?  Nothing can prepare even the most prepared person for what having a child does to change you.

Lindsey and Oliver One day old, July 22, 2017

I was having a conversation with one of my dear friends a few weeks ago and he said to me "yeah, you give a shit which makes it that much harder", how simple and complex is that statement and yet it  summarizes my entire world view.

I care, a lot, and am very thoughtful and purposeful about how I do everything and is therefore making my adjustment to motherhood a grand adventure. I knew going into this transition that what I was looking forward to the most besides the incredible fact of having a baby was the transformational playground it would be: I had no idea how deep that would go. 

My experience was of an intense journey in rediscovering myself in a new way.  I have always loved my work, my relationships and generally how I show up in the world and have done a tremendous amount of work around self discovery to really know myself intimately.  I’ve always known myself to have my to do list buttoned up at the end of each day, all emails read and responded to, notifications cleared, exercise done, house clean... this is no longer my life :) I’ve never had more days in a row where “getting to it later” is the theme.

Priority’s shift, right fellow Mums? Do the dishes or feed my newborn? Oliver wins every time!

Lindsey and Oliver, Over 5 weeks old, Photo Cred. From the Hip, Nina

For the structured control freak that I’ve always been, what a shake up! Not to mention the physical changes, little sleep, hormone roller coasters, postpartum depression and a deep love that becomes the new compass for everything. Woah. 

One of my favorite mentors uses the phrase "insight follows experience" Thank you Kathlyn Hendricks for this simple yet all knowing phrase.

I chose to share with you these humble facts as a way of tipping my hat to all the mothers that do this dance everyday.  The dance of doing their work, loving their spouse, loving their children and managing to put on mascara and smile while at it all!

The best thing is that time is truly magical, it really does heal and teach us.  Over the last 12 weeks time has taught me how to begin working again, getting more done in a day, caring for my needs to be a better business owner, wife and mother.  It has not been an overnight switch flip like I thought I could prepare for, but it has been my life’s greatest teaching so far.  

Thank you Oliver, my sweet Son for co-facilitating the most transformational experience of my life.  I am the luckiest mother alive to get to be your mama, thank you for choosing me! 

Lindsey, Jeremy and Oliver, Oliver 5 weeks old, Photo Cred. From the Hip

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Lindsey Rainwater, also known as Lindsey RainH2O, is a sought-after business advisor, Founder, writer & keynote speaker to the fitness and wellness industry. For more information about Rainwater, follow her on Twitter@LindseyRainH2O

How much can you accomplish in a day?  Well, if you are anything like me you take a certain amount of pride in what you are able to do with your time and most of the time, when you want something done you simply, handle it.

In the spirit of keeping things fresh and exciting, listen to this short and insightful dialog around asking for help.

Is it hard for you to know when to ask for help? 

Let me know what you think about the audio, something new I am playing with :) 

Click here if you'd like to listen on Anchor.com instead of in this post

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Lindsey Rainwater, also known as Lindsey RainH2O, is a sought-after business consultant, leadership coach, writer and presenter to the fitness and wellness industry. For more information about Rainwater, follow her on Twitter@LindseyRainH2O