The Power of Authentic Living: A Chat with Annie Fonte

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everyone. My name is Wendy Manganero and I am the host of the Wellness and Wealth podcast. I'm so happy to have you find us and if you could take a moment and hit that subscribe button, I'd really appreciate it. This is the podcast where we believe when you show up better for yourself as a woman business owner, you show up better for your business. So sit back, relax and learn from the practical to the woo-woo. How did best take care of you? Have a great day, stay blessed and leave a review when you're done listening to the show. Thanks so much, hi everyone. Today's topic is live and lead with authenticity, and we have special guest Annie Fontay with us. I'm going to read some of her bio and then we're going to get right into it. So Annie holds a BS in business administration. After spending six years in banking and commercial real estate, working throughout the United States, annie received her MBA from Harvard Business School. Following graduation, she worked with the founders of TheraTex, a nationwide healthcare company. Leaving corporate America for good, annie joined Kate Grace Physical Therapy as a co-owner of the private practice sports and orthopedics clinic in San Diego, california. The clinic changed its name to Vault Physical Therapy and Advanced Wellness in 2012. Additionally, she is the co-founder of OrthoRx and she is the co-founder of SnapSaver LLC. She has also written a book called Keep your Ass in the Saddle, and she is the creator of Woman who Live and Lead with Intention. Welcome, annie. Thanks for being on the show.

Speaker 2: 1:49

Thank you for having me. I'm always up for a good conversation. Yeah, I'm excited.

Speaker 1: 1:53

I love talking about this, so this will be great. We're going to get right into it and then we'll see where the conversation goes. But I always like asking my guests what the topic means to them. So what does living and leading with mean to you?

Speaker 2: 2:06

That's a great question and first and foremost, for me, it is always being brave enough, having the courage to be yourself, and so, as I dig down underneath that a little bit, it's really wholeheartedly recognizing and accepting who you are, and that means quirk and all, because we all have those, and it also means accepting your worthiness. I think a lot of folks, men and women, particularly women walk around the world feeling like they're not enough or they're not worthy, and so allowing ourselves to step into our truth each day and showing up in the world is who we really are from the inside out. That's what that means to me.

Speaker 1: 2:50

And I can't agree more with you about the worthiness. I think that's one of the hardest things and I don't think that we think that's what it is at first. Like we cover it up with all of this, it's this, it's this, I'm that, and it's really underneath it all. It's really the worthiness.

Speaker 2: 3:06

Yes, because we all want to be seen and heard and matter in the world, and I think oftentimes what really underlies everything is generally fear, and it's that fear that I'm not enough or that I'm not worth it, or getting these conversations in our mind where we start to compare ourselves to others or just care way too much about what other people think of us, and so that gets us off the rails and we end up in the ditch. And then we get to take some time and do some self-reflection and self-awareness on how we want to truly live our lives and do the work that it takes to get back on track and live authentic and live a life that you really love and you have joy in your life.

Speaker 1: 3:49

Yeah, and so for you, I'd love to hear a little bit of your history, because I always find that there's a story behind somebody getting to that point, because, I don't know, especially culturally nurtured versus nature type of thing Many of us are raised to put ourselves second and then earning that to be more authentic is really many women's stories when they get to that point. So I'd love to hear some of your background of how you got to the point where you're like, no, I'm okay, being more authentic, I'm okay knowing. I'm worth who I am.

Speaker 2: 4:22

Thank you for asking, and that's the lion's share of what my book Keep your Ass in the Saddle is about. I grew up on a farm in northeastern Colorado and had two brothers and spent a lot of time as a young girl on tractors and in semi trucks and doing farm girl things, which I certainly appreciate. I felt really genuine as a small child and, as with most of us, there's this layering effect of other people who will hopefully are well intended that are layering their beliefs on to us because we don't really have the resources or the worldly experiences yet to determine what our true belief system is. And, yes, I got to the point where the noise of the world and ego and my lack of certainty and my lack of clarity. Really, I chose not intentionally, but I chose not to approach the world as my authentic self and from a place of my true essence. And it was a handful of years ago that my house burned to the ground and the 12 year relationship that I was in 10 of which I knew I shouldn't be in it with this fellow was going up in flames and one of the companies I was a founder of was in a very expensive and complicated lawsuit and my dad died, and that happened all at the same time. And so when I got to the other side of those events which took 18 months to two years if we consider getting a house rebuilt I moved into my new home and I remember I had a challenge with the flooring vendor and so I didn't have flooring in most of my house. So I decided I didn't want to move furniture in and then have to move it out and put floors down. I went to Target and I got an air mattress and I blew it up and I sat on the edge of the air mattress and my dog pork chop jumped up on top of it next to me and I leaned over and I put my elbows on my knees and I said to myself any, you must get your shit together. And so from that moment forward, I decided not only did I need to, but I wanted to redesign my life, and I spent a year living in a house with nothing in it for the most part, other than the basics of what I needed, to some clothing, but not much. And I walked a lot and I read a lot and I wrote my journal a lot and I had conversations with folks that I knew and hold my feet to the fire as far as going through this transformation that I really wanted to go through, and on the other side of that, I came up with some tenants that I wanted to live my life from moving forward, and so that's my story. Yes, I was in a situation with a relationship I shouldn't have been in. I knew that and I was not being who I truly was from the inside out, because I didn't feel worthy. That was the big thing for me. I did not feel worthy to be treated well by a man, and so I chose to be in a relationship with someone that didn't treat me well. However, all four of those events were gifts in my life, and I can truly say that today, not a day goes by that I don't think the universe or God or whatever people call the entity, were those experiences and the gifts that came along with them.

Speaker 1: 7:31

I love how you said that and it never fails. It's like our biggest growing moments are from the most tragic things, that as we're going through them we're like I don't know about this, it was funny to get to the other side and you're like, oh, there was a purpose to all of this and you can be grateful for it because you can see it. But going through it sometimes it feels like there's no sense to it at first, and I am known for myself. If I didn't go through those events, I don't know if I would have been uncomfortable enough to change Like. It always takes this grand event for me to go out, and I think part of growing into an authentic cell is that you don't have to have all of those events to get there now. But when you first start realizing you're not, it takes almost the floor in your case, literally the floor not being there for that to happen. I don't know if that's in your experience. I don't have to have it get as bad as when I did for me to go. Oh, this is something I should look at, whereas before, when I first was trying to figure out my worth, it was like all of these things had to happen in order for me to even wake up enough to see that I wasn't happy.

Speaker 2: 8:46

Yeah, I think, for me at least, all those things happened for me. They didn't happen to me and there was no reason to become a victim of any of those different events. It was just one of those signs from I believe in God, like I said, the universe or source, whatever people are comfortable calling it that I wasn't paying attention and this path that I was on wasn't going to get me to where ultimately I wanted to be, as like a real cell. And yes, I agree with you, these things, these occurrences in our lives, are rarely comfortable and they're rarely easy to embrace and accept and decide that they're happening for a reason, but it is once the dust settles and you get to the other side of it. And what I will say about that, about going through challenging times like that is I've built this really strong trust callus, if you will, that I know, from this point moving forward, no matter what happens and it's part of this grand plan that I'm on, that I'm not so much in control of as much as I need to trust that it's being laid out for me in a way that's purposeful, that, no matter what happens on my way, there is meant to be, and that I will get to the other side of it, no matter how uncomfortable and sad or disjointed I feel going through the process.

Speaker 1: 10:14

And one of the things that you said while you were sharing was that you started to go to people who would hold you accountable. And I love to know because, at least for me, when I started to do that, I started to switch the people who I was with because I needed to have other people who were going to be mentors, and I think that sometimes a challenge for us when we go but we're used to this right and we want to be here but we keep going back to the same environment that we were in before we were trying to get to this next level. So I'd love to hear your experience around that. Or even like when you told your friends the muck and a furnace, the house, because even that people might ask what are you doing that for If they're not in the same realm of change?

Speaker 2: 10:57

Yeah, I went to people One was my younger brother, who has always been someone I've admired greatly and who is one of the most honest and integrity filled people I know, and a few other close friends, and I said, listen, I don't want you to tell me what I want to hear. I want you to tell me what I need to hear. And I know it's going to be uncomfortable and I know I'm likely not going to like everything, but I know that I also knew that's what it would take for me to get beyond this. I had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable in order to get to the other side of this journey that I was on and, yes, it was 40 miles of rough road. Every day was not fun, but I was committed to change to such a degree that it didn't matter to me. And, yeah, I had some rough conversations and I had some folks that told me things that were somewhat surprising to me, but all necessary. So, yes, it's the commitment to be intentional and willing about how you want to feel on the other side of it, and so, whatever it takes to get there is just part of the work, part of the process in my case it was.

Speaker 1: 12:09

Yeah, and I agree with that, and I think that's a really important though bit, and that you went to people who would be able to do that, because sometimes we go to people and they are not able to do that or they're not. I have had quite a few experiences where I have people like that and then I've had other people who were well-meaning, as you were talking about, with the way you were raised. Unintentionally, we start to kick on other people's beliefs and if we're not careful while we're going through a change, it's really easy to slide into those people's beliefs again, and I always share this story. When I first started to work in social media years and years ago, very good friend love her to death and she was like what if Facebook goes away? She had had the same job for 20 years and never changed. That's who she is and she's comfortable there. But it's this knowing to go to the right people to say, okay, they're going to be able to grow with my uncomfortability, and I think that's really important to have mentors or people in your life that can do that because, again, well-intentioned people sometimes will go you're doing what? And because they're basing it on their own experience.

Speaker 2: 13:12

That's exactly right and I think it gives us the opportunity to step back for a minute and say, okay, do I really believe that, or is that something that I just accepted because it was passed down, sometimes through generations, and to be honest enough with ourselves that we can say, no, I don't, and here's what. But here's what I do believe, and have that courage once again to interrupt patterns that have been passed down for many years. And that's not easy because that can fracture those relationships a little bit, because the other person we teach people how to treat us and if the other person has seen you behave in a certain way, believe what they've believed for so long and then all of a sudden you say no, I've done some work on myself. When I don't believe that any longer, here's to what I do believe that's uncomfortable for them. So those relationships will undulate a little bit as we go through this process of evolving to our next highest self.

Speaker 1: 14:13

Yeah, absolutely, and I completely agree with you that when we start to change, it does make it uncomfortable for others because, you're right, we have said this is acceptable and now this isn't. Especially, I think, when we start to do things like setting boundaries or setting what's acceptable and what's not, and people are like wait a second, you just changed all the rules and you're like I was thinking about this a lot and I think that sometimes in our culture we forget about this, that where we are and what we're saying at one point in time in our life may be so different than to where we are in another point of our life and I always say this I'm like people who meet me now would never think that I had any worth problems or like whatever it is, 20 years ago, Because they're meeting me now they don't have that past experience. But those that have that past experience with me sometimes are really hard to keep up with the change where and it's always based on where you're meeting in that present moment, that's true, and we have to give ourself grace, because we do go through seasons in our lives, thank goodness, and nature is a beautiful example of that.

Speaker 2: 15:20

In nature, leaves fall and things become quite barren looking and hibernation takes place, and then in the spring there's renewal and whatnot, and we might even go through physical changes in appearance and as we're deciding to redesign our lives maybe we've been a little overweight we start to lose some of that excess weight and we get in shape and we decide we're going to have a little bit of a makeover and we start to improve ourselves on a lot of different dolens. And then that can get really uncomfortable for folks because they're staying not only an emotional change of who they don't recognize any longer, but then also there's a physical. You don't even look like you used to look. So that's when we really have to stand firm in our belief in ourselves and also give other people the freedom and flexibility to go through what they're going to go through in their own lives as they're witnessing the change we're going through in our lives.

Speaker 1: 16:17

Yeah, and that's the thing. It's knowing that it's OK and giving yourself permission to know that not everybody is going to stay on the journey with you, like that it'll be OK. And I think that's part of it is like this I find so many times, when we're coming from this point of lack or kind of like impassionate point of view, where we're like really hard on ourselves, give yourself permission to have it be OK that you may not keep everybody in your life.

Speaker 2: 16:42

It is a season, it is a complete season and that's OK, yeah it's kind of as I talk about in my book and some of the workshops that I do with folks it's not until we meet ourselves where we are that we can take ourselves to where we want to go. So we have to accept how one shows up in the mirror, how one feels on the inside and how relationships are feeling all those kinds of things, and say that's OK, where you are now. I know this is not where we want to stay. We're going to move through a lot of different steps to get to where we want to go, but here's the starting point. Ok, accept it and then we'll improve from there.

Speaker 1: 17:23

Then be able to compare yourself to yourself as you're improving, which is amazing thing to be able to do. That's the place to really be. I'd love to know from your experience and the women that you work with, what are the morning signs when somebody's not living authentically, because I think sometimes we think we are and then something happens and then we might find out that's not really where we need to be.

Speaker 2: 17:46

I think there's a couple layers of that. Categorically, some feelings one might feel is resentment or anger or stress or fatigue, depression. Some of the actions we might experience or one might experience when they're not living concurrently is we are people pleasers. We spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to others. We spend a lot of time in distrust of others. We ignore our gut. We look for an escape of some sort. We're looking to soothe our feelings. We make decisions based on fame or acceptance or money or something other than what truly feels good from the inside out. I think too often times when we're not authentic, we're just going through life, living through the mechanical functioning of getting through our day, versus really being intentional and being aware what's around us. Maybe we take the same old route to work every day, we park in the same old parking spot, so we get really entrenched in the lack of authenticity and just our daily living from a functional standpoint.

Speaker 1: 19:01

Exactly, I think. That happens slowly and then you sometimes wake up to it. It starts as a little thing and then you're like wait a second, something's really off. It takes a little time to realize that all of those things may be going on because you are so used to doing it that way too.

Speaker 2: 19:16

Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1: 19:17

Yeah, for you, as you meet women who are going through these things, what's one thing that they could do? What is that one step? We don't arrive there, in that place. As you said, it was a journey for you for almost two years to move out of it. What was the first catalyst of being able to go? Okay, I want to be able to change. What was the first thing you were able to do? Would you suggest somebody doing to move?

Speaker 2: 19:42

Yeah, I think that's a great question. One of the first things I did was I determined what my values were. I think oftentimes we don't even know because we don't sit and ask ourselves the question. What I mean, or my definition of value, is what's most important to you in life. I like to go through an exercise in some of my workshops where there's 75 to 100 words on a piece of paper and their values, focus words To go through and circle all of those words that resonate with you, that feel right in your gut about. Yeah, I like that. I would like that as something to be most important to me. Then determine what your top three are. I'll share with our listeners. My top three values are number one, integrity, number two, appreciation and number three, abundance. And so what that becomes is it's a GPS system, it's a guidepost for us making really good decisions moving forward in our lives. We can ask ourselves the question, depending on what type of relationship whether it's a personal relationship, being a friendship, a spouse, a partner, or a business relationship, or even so much as going and doing a certain activity you can ask yourself the question if I do this, if I enter into this relationship, will it be an alignment and satisfy my top three values. And if the answer is yes to all three of those values for me, I can be assured that's a pretty good decision for me moving forward. But if even one of those values are not satisfied, in entering into that relationship or doing that thing, I take a pass on it, because my experience has been when I say oh yeah, it's not quite, but it's close enough that it usually doesn't work out well. So I think getting really clear and really certain about what's most important to us in our lives is a great first step to starting down this path of authenticity and living from a place of integrity moving forward.

Speaker 1: 21:43

Yeah, I love that, and I just want to follow up with this quick question, because I think this is really important, as we talk about authenticity and you said it's whether it's in a personal relationship or business, but they can be a combined value system. Sometimes I think that we have to separate out, like how we act in business and how we act and which is what we're talking about is really is like we are one person and authentically showing up the same or being who you are in each of the occurrences, and so I'd love for you to talk about that, like for us just a few minutes, about how do you combine those two, because I think a lot of times so we feel like there's needs to be like I'm a mom over here and I'm a wife over here and I'm a business person over here and I volunteer over here, and how do you bring those integral value systems into everything you do?

Speaker 2: 22:34

Yes, I appreciate that question very much. I think it. For me. I would say that it doesn't matter the column you're in or the container you're in. The values are the foundation that you're building each of those relationships on. So yeah, being a mom or being a business woman or in the volunteer arena, the question still stands in this relationship, am I living up to what's most important to me in life? Because what's most important to us in life is cast over the net of any of those containers or categories or columns that we find ourselves in as we go through life. So, whether it's a personal relationship or a business relationship, or even deciding if I wanna go out to dinner, I can ask myself that question and always get a good answer for myself. So, instead of showing up at it feeling like we need to go to a mass parade party and put on a different mask depending on what audience we're playing to, I would submit that, no, we just be our genuine self all the time, and it doesn't matter who our audience is. They will appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 23:41

Yeah, I love that and I think that there's so much behind that, because I think that's what we do. We go oh, this is my role here and this is my role here, and it can really make us feel like we're not in sync as a person. And the other thing that I have to say which is I love how you say it for values, because when I worked with the spiritual coach years ago and I'll never forget for the first time as she was teaching me and I didn't know that it was worth that I was having issues with and she kept saying, well, what do you want, wendy? And I'd say I have no idea. I had no idea. It was such a foreign question to ask myself, well, what do I want? Who do I want to be? I don't know if somebody had asked me that prior to. I don't know if I wasn't listening and I really had to work backwards. So I love that you're doing it through values and saying, okay, what are my values? And then I can build upon that, because sometimes, if you've never really been given the choice or you don't know, you've been given the choice to ask yourself what you want. It's really a hard question to start with.

Speaker 2: 24:46

Yeah. And then those values you can take it to relationships and you can say, okay, are all of the relationships I'm currently in, whether it's a friendship or a family member or a work environment situation. You can ask yourself does this relationship, is it congruent with what's important to me in life? And it doesn't mean you have to break up with somebody or leave a company or never talk to a family member again, but it gives you the opportunity to tweak how you behave in those relationships so it does meet your value system and in some cases, yeah, you do need to break up. It's a damn good idea to break up, because that's not a healthy situation for you to continue to stay in. And it becomes more obvious the more practice we get at holding our commitment to really embracing those values and using them as a filter for all the decisions that we make in our lives.

Speaker 1: 25:44

I love that. I wanna thank you for coming on the show. I know you have a offer for our guests, so I'd love for you to share with everyone what that is, and I will have it in the show links along with all your contact information. But if you wanna share about your offer, that would be great.

Speaker 2: 25:59

Well, thank you for allowing me to do that. Yes, I teach a weekend workshop and I also teach a year-long course, and if any of the listeners are interested in learning more about those, they can go to my website and it's anyimfontecom. And if you decide that you want to participate in any of those programs, I'm offering a 20% discount to all the listeners of the podcast.

Speaker 1: 26:23

Great. Thank you so much, annie, for coming on with me. This has been a great conversation. I really appreciate it and I am sure my listeners will too.

Speaker 2: 26:31

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 26:33

For my listeners. If you love what Annie said, please make sure you leave a review and subscribe for our next self-care talk. Have a great day.