As vegan and plant-based business owners and entrepreneurs, we're often adapting to a new reality. This new podcast series from Vegan Mainstream is an opportunity to help you when it's time to pivot. These interviews will come from inside and outside of our community, and I hope as your host, Stephanie Red Cross West, I can inspire you and give you the tools that you need to move forward. Hello everyone, and welcome to today's interview.
I have an amazing guest with us today. I have Cindy Thompson from TryMazing, and today we're gonna talk about not only how Cindy has really kind of transitioned her business, transitioned her approach because of everything that's going on in the world, but also really how she's been helping people, how she's been a true resource in our community, as people are starting to transition to plant-based diets for people that have been curious about eating, really getting into that plant-based world, but also doing it in a healthy way. Cindy is a Food for Life instructor with PCRM. She's also a coach.
Cindy has done classes, events in the Seattle area, but as the world has changed, she's really shifted and brought a lot of that great and amazing knowledge to the online space. So I'm excited today to talk about her journey, talk about how Cindy has moved into the online space and what adjustments Cindy has made and how she's really kind of right-sized her business for the current environment. So Cindy, welcome today to our session. Thank you so much.
It's fantastic to be here. Great. So I think for a lot of people, we always want to talk about some baselines. So people can get to know you, really understand a little bit of your background.
One thing I always like to ask people is vegan. How long have you been vegan? Just so the audience has an idea of how long you've been in the world and been in this community. So I have been vegan for 10 years, and I made the transition after my father died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
And I was a professional firefighter, a fire captain, I'm actually retired now. But right after my dad passed away, Oregon State Legislature passed a presumptive cancer law for firefighters that listed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and two other blood cancers that ran in my family as a presumptive illness for organ firefighters, which basically said that if you were a firefighter and you were diagnosed with one of these 12 cancers, it was assumed it was on the job injury. So I was really scared that I had my job, put me at risk for cancer, and I didn't know if cancer was hereditary, but I needed to figure out what I could do to reduce my cancer risk. And through research, I discovered that switching to a low-fat, plant-based diet with whole grains and whole foods was the best thing I could do.
And so I changed overnight. Wow, that's such a great story because I think a lot of times people forget how much power we have in our decisions, how much power we have in the things that we can do moving forward. Yes, decisions are made, laws are passed. Things happen sometimes that we don't have control over, but the idea that we can be proactive and the idea that you were, I think, is just an amazing story.
And I think it's inspiration not only for many of us who maybe are watching this that are vegan, but for anyone out there who is curious, who's thinking about it, or wants to kind of be in that, in that driver's seat, I really hope their story kind of inspires, and your story inspires them to be proactive. Yes, thank you. So once you've decided to go vegan, once you've decided to make this transition, did you right away decide that, okay, I'm gonna incorporate a business into this, where did you get the idea of starting your business and starting with this concept of coaching, helping people make the same transition? So I, at the beginning, this was not, even in my mind as a business, I was still working as a fire captain, but my transformation was pretty remarkable, where I was very overweight, I changed my diet because I didn't want to get cancer, but what I didn't know is that I was going to get so healthier, I lost 60 pounds, I had all kinds of free energy, I started doing triathlons and Ironman, and- Wait a minute, I didn't know you did an Ironman.
I did Ironman triathlons, yeah. Oh, we're gonna have to talk after this. I'm so inspired. And so I turned into what I call an adult onset athlete, and my department, who had known me for all these years, were like, what is happening to you?
This is remarkable. And so during that process, they put me in charge of a brand new program, which was Firefighter, Wellness, and Fitness, because they thought, look at you and what you've done, please help our department. We have a new program to get firefighters fit and work on nutrition. And so that became something I did as part of my opportunities besides running fire calls, is to also work with my department to increase firefighter health.
So I did that. And then once I retired, I didn't know I wanted to be when I grew up anymore. And I thought I'd be fine with just being retired and working around the house in the garden, and after I was blogging, I'd had a blog that blogged my transition into triathlon, which was the tri-mazing blog, which tri-mazing is urban slang for three times better than amazing. And it came from, I wanted to tie triathlon and feeling amazing and found the word tri-mazing.
So. I love that idea. I love it together in three times, that kind of aspirational kind of concept, I think that's so great. Yeah, so it fit perfect.
And it was exactly how I felt and still feel. So I was still blogging, and I just felt like I wanted to do something. So I decided that, you know what? I did coaching and counseling as a fire captain and running the firefighter wellness program, why don't I bring this to the civilian world?
And people have always come and talked to me and asked, how do I go vegan and ask for recipes? And asked me to teach them how to do some cooking and just seeing natural. So that's the origin of how tri-mazing as a business came about. Perfect, and I think that's the key is when businesses kind of naturally find us.
When businesses or the business idea is something that you've been doing, something that you've gotten results on, and people are asking for, I think it's such an amazing place to be when you start your business. So I'm really happy to hear that that's been your journey. Just wanted to let you know, we have some people following us already saying hello. Amy's saying hello from Virginia.
Hey, Amy, Nancy is also saying hello, and Cody has joined us so far. I just wanted to give some quick shout outs anytime. So it says hello to us that we spread some love around. Wonderful.
So now that you have the business, you've been up and running. I think one of the things that many of us have been, it's been the challenge is the world has changed, probably understatement to make at this point. So maybe give us a little bit of a compare and contrast. What was your business like in January, February, the beginning part of this year?
And then what was the change? What happened and then what were some of the actions that you took in response? So prior to the whole shutdown, I was doing on in person classes. So I would have a venue and at like at a fitness studio or center, et cetera.
And I would deliver my classes there. And they were always live. I didn't record them. I didn't know how to do any of that.
So that was how I delivered the classes. Coaching, I did either in person in my office, I have a home office or I met people in their homes. But I also did have and I still have a HIPAA compliant video conferencing program called Clock Tree, which is meant for health professionals, where I would do one-on-one coaching. So I did one-on-one coaching online with people and still do all over the world through that platform.
So I did have a little bit of experience doing some video conferencing, but not to the scale that I do now. So, and then I had an online class that was delivered via email that's still running that is on emergency preparedness. So it's a one-on-one program on how to build your 72-hour kit and how to be vegan and still be able to make a 72-hour kit without spam and MRE. So.
I love it. I don't have time to dive into that today, but I love that. I hope everyone was hearing that, that you can have a 72-hour emergency kit. That is vegan.
I think that's huge. Yeah, so I had that, but that wasn't online. I did incorporate a few YouTube videos that I had recorded into it, but I was very basic, had really no experience in doing video at all. So then, after the world shut down, and it literally shut down the moment I landed from my PCRM Food for Life training course.
We were in the kitchen of court in Seattle, which is where the outbreak found, and all every venue just immediately shut. The cooking school shut down, it was fitness studios shut down, and I thought, well, maybe I could still do the classes in my kitchen. Well, that very quickly was not enough. Really, no, yes.
So I just continued doing my coaching. I had some coaching clients that I did online at that point, and I just decided, well, I guess there is an upside to this, is I have all this curriculum that I really need to dive into and learn and figure out how it's gonna fit in my business. This is, maybe this is the best time ever for this to happen, where I could learn the curriculum and have the time without the distractions of having to schedule everything. Yeah, and I love that.
I don't want to break up your train of thought, but one thing that we have been saying to a lot of people is taking this time to get educated, taking this time to learn. You know what I mean? A lot of people felt like they had to pivot or respond immediately, and they didn't always give themselves that time to really kind of learn, to figure out where and how their business should be repositioned. So they find the right answer.
I don't know, do you feel like that's, like if you had to give some advice to anyone who was in your shoes, would you recommend that they do that similar approach that you took? Yes, and this has been such a fantastic learning curve. And for me and other food for life instructors and other health coaches out there, it's been a great learning curve. The best thing about that was, is that initially we weren't able to do food for life classes online, it just wasn't part of how that program was delivered.
But as this went on, they have now allowed us to do live food for life classes via Zoom or whatever platform we use. And so fortunately, that didn't start right away. So it just wasn't available for me to do and give me space. But then it became available.
And so it went from overnight to, oh, I'm just planning and I'm just working on my business plan and updating my website and using this valuable, wonderful time that I never have to, hey, you can start now. And there was only a window at that point, a short window that we could do this in. So it went from zero to a thousand overnight. How did you feel emotionally when that happened?
Because I think for a lot of us, there was a lot of emotions we had to manage when either, like you said, it was almost like being at a streetlight where you could go green all the sudden. And I realized this was an awesome opportunity. And it was something that was outside of my comfort zone and it was a push that I needed. And what I've learned in my adult life, it was a valuable lesson from the fire service, is that you're never gonna feel ready ever for any kind of change.
And back when I was a young firefighter and there was a promotional test for the lieutenant coming up, everybody would ask me, are you gonna take the test? Are you gonna promote to a tenant? And my answer was everybody, oh, you know, I just don't feel ready. I don't feel ready.
I know, not this test. I'll take the next one or I don't know. And finally, a fire captain who kept hearing me say that, he pulled me aside and said, listen, there's a reason people are asking you. They want you to do this.
And you're never ever gonna feel ready. Nobody ever feels ready to take that next step to promote. He says, you're ready. And if you wait until you feel ready, it will be 20 years and you will be retiring without ever trying, without ever taking a test.
So do it. And so I have learned that in my business is that when people come up and ask, hey, do you do this? Do you do that? And if it fits in my business plan and it's something I hadn't considered before, I'll often say, sure, I could do that.
And then I give them a timeline. I was like, okay, I know that I'm gonna have to research this. So yeah, let's talk about it and we'll set up a time that I can start doing that. So in this example, I thought I'm gonna give myself a month.
We had professional development from PCRM that gave us some information on how to do this. I watched that video. I thought this was a video conference. I thought, well, that person made it look pretty easy.
I think I'll do it. So the next day I contacted venues and said, I'd like to start and deliver this class starting in, it was one month from that day. And I didn't tell them I had no idea how to do it. I just knew I was gonna figure it out.
And for me, that's often the best thing to do. It's scary, but you know, I also am very careful about what things I picked. I learned a little bit beforehand. I saw that there was capability there.
I had been in some zooms. I figured I was probably gonna have to get a little bit of equipment upgrade, but I also had this outstanding network to help me along. And so that's the second thing. Besides just do it and that you're not gonna feel ready, is to use the network that you have to build a network so that when things happen and you do need to adjust or move in a different direction, you have people to reach out to and talk to and say, this is what I'd like to do.
And I think you have experience in that. What was your experience? And what kind of advice could you give to me so that I can make accomplish this as well? And I had people in the vegan world.
I had people in my community network. I had people in just family network that had done stuff because you have networked people in all various parts of your life. And so I just fooled from everybody to figure out how I can do this and having a network and using that network and being a valuable resource in return is just so important. Absolutely, I could not agree with you more.
And I think sometimes people get nervous about tapping into their network sometimes. They get nervous because it can feel like you're exposing yourself because you're exposing what you don't know. And I think, you know, and I'm hoping even as people are listening today and watching today that they realize that is what your network is for. We are all in stages at points in our lives, points in our business careers and so forth where we don't know something or we know the pieces but we don't know how they all fit together, how to streamline them, how to get the most out of how to create a great online class for students that they enjoy and love.
So making sure that you're leveraging your network, that you really are talking to your network, I think is so important, especially during this time. Absolutely. And you were really helpful when we had a day where I was like, I just made this commitment. I think I talked to you the next day.
I just had this commitment. And I don't know how to do the microphone and the earphones and you had information for me that was really valuable. So I mean, it's everywhere. Absolutely, it really is.
So let's fast forward to where you are now. Let's talk about what you're doing now. Now that you've done a little bit of the equipment upgrade, you've done the digging, started to do the learning and so forth, where are you now? Are you have a list of roster of classes or how often are you doing classes?
Maybe give everyone kind of an idea of where you are. Yes, so I have two classes running right now. They're a four class series. So I'm doing two classes a week right now.
And that is the 21 Day Vegan Kickstart which is Neil Barnard's program and that's online. And that one, I'm partly in my office because some of that stuff is just the basic information. But also I pull people into my kitchen where I'm here today and do some cooking demos. And I also have a camera on a boom that shines down so that people can see my workstation.
And I can toggle in between with those cameras. I can't do it today because I wasn't familiar with your platform but with Zoom, I'm able to choose different cameras. So that's great. So I have those classes going on.
And then starting next month, I also am doing two classes a week. And I'm co-teaching with Nancy Travis out of Bainbridge Island who is another food for life instructor. And we are teaching a booster immunity series, two of those. So there's one's on Sunday afternoon and one's on Thursday nights.
And then in July, right now I have your body in balance which is a program on balancing your hormones and improving your health to regain your life. So it's anything from fertility and PMS to erectile dysfunction to thyroid health and even environmental impact on our food with environmental toxins and such. So that starts July 2nd on Thursday evenings. And that actually would be posted later this afternoon on my website at the event pages, try mazing.com slash events.
So you can find more about that class. And then I had some more, I started early soon or easy with the class that I could deliver from my office. I didn't know how to set up in my kitchen yet. And so I thought I do know how to work for my office.
I've been doing video conferences one on one. But so if I have the class, which is the 21 day kickstart, it's all lecture based and video and video. So I didn't have to worry about that I didn't know how to be in my kitchen. And then when I decided, well, I really think it's important I have some cooking demos and I didn't know how to switch from an office to my kitchen or to make a transition like that.
That's when I, Nancy and I reached out together and said, well, let's co-teach. That way one of us can be in an office doing the background and running the videos and the other person can be in the kitchen. And that gives us experience of being both in office and also being in the kitchen. And also gives us time to learn how to do that ourselves when the time came.
So like, yeah. Learning together, collaborating, partnering, you know, because sometimes people feel like they've learned it all or know it all before you start. And the idea when you go partner, if someone you can bounce the ideas off and also like you said, you can all split the responsibility as well. Exactly.
So that made both of us feel really at ease. So then in the process of that, then I got to where I feel comfortable to do all of it in a single session. But the networking with the Food for Life instructors has been amazing. So we started a subgroup, Facebook group where we would practice doing our Zoom.
So what happens is you don't have an opportunity really to practice with a fake class. It's live. So we would put on there, hey everybody, I'm going to do a practice cooking class on Wednesday afternoon at three o'clock. Here's the invitation.
Join me if you can be there. I want to test my lighting or I want to test how the sound is when I run my induction burner. And so you get six or eight people, sign up, they'd show up. They're all friendly people.
And then you can ask them, how does this look? Is this too loud when I run the Vitamix? And you get really great feedback. And it's better than having my husband do it.
He has no clue. He's like, oh yeah, that's fine. But people that are doing this also as a business and have that same critical eye. And, you know, I'm worried about that they love you in the one or figure feeling.
So nothing like a safe space. So they can be honest and give you some really important feedback that you need. So, but out of that was a fabulous accident where we thought, you know, we should do this. We could do co-teaching together as a big group.
So we came up with a program that's called So Many Cooks in the Kitchen. You can find us on Facebook at So Many Cooks. And it's a collaboration. We have the Love and Sign Off by PCRM where we do cooking demos.
And we did our first one this last Saturday. We've had five, I think almost 5,000 views on that. We did a Facebook live stream from Zoom. It was fantastic.
There were 12 instructors and we all talked about beans. So everybody had a different spin and information on beans. And we're super excited as that, I'm super excited to announce that the plant-based network has actually picked it up. And they are now also going to stream that and air that on the plant-based network.
So we have more of them coming up. So on Saturday, June 6, I think that's the date we're gonna have. You'll have to check our Facebook page, which is that So Many Cooks. We're going to continue our trip around the power plate and move from beans to vegetables.
And so we'll do that same format again with all of the instructors that are available that day. And this is something that we never, I don't think we would have done if it weren't for the COVID shutdown. There's nothing would have encouraged us to do this. It wasn't even a possibility.
And so out of this disappointment of the world shutting down, it created this synergistic event with all of us with energy and a need to create something that will surpass the shutdown. This is something that we will continue to do because we can see what benefit it has and what outreach it has for everybody in the Facebook world. And also to help us get practice and to get our names out there. We're promoting cross promoting everybody's business.
And it's just a happy accident that we feel about. That's what I love about really these positive and great stories that are coming out of what, how we've all been responding and reacting to the shutdowns, to the idea that we can't do and run our businesses the way we have before, or even like you started in the beginning of this interview that you weren't recording your session, your classes. You weren't doing any of that kind of process before. And now you're at a place where you're able to not only record, you're collaborating, you're doing sessions with multiple instructors around really the country and maybe even potentially around the world.
Actually we are around the world. Yes, we have instructors from Italy and from Great Britain and all kinds of stuff. So it is a worldwide collaboration. Yeah, and I think that is a piece that I think can not only inspire many of us, but also help remind us that there's still good things happening in the world.
There's still great things that are happening because of some of the challenges that's happening. And also, like I said, things that may be happening that would have never come about if it wasn't for the shutdown and they may live on beyond it. So I'm really hoping that anyone who's watching, anyone who knows someone who's considering going plant-based is plant-based already, once they're up their game, that not only do they take a look at the work that Cindy's doing with Try Amazing, but also check out the Facebook page, so many cooks so that we can get the message out there so we can help, so we can really help people during this time when a lot of us are maybe cooking at home more than we've ever cooked at home before. Some of us who've been resistant to being home cooks and we love takeout, but maybe this is a time for us to start to cook, to start to reconnect with our food, or maybe some of us who are just a little shy and didn't have the skills in the kitchen.
You know, being able to tap into resources like yourself and being able to tap into the sessions that all of the food for life instructors you're doing together, I think it just really helps people. It just helps people along this transition journey and I'm really excited that we had a chance today to kind of talk about it and share your story and tell everyone about how you've pivoted, how you've changed and how that change and that pivot has really turned into an amazing story. So I don't know if you have any final words, we're wrapping up a little closer to almost half an hour for our session today. Do you have any final advice for anyone out there who's maybe in this challenge in trying to pivot and then also anyone who is looking for cooking classes who's looking for coaching, looking for support, how they can make sure they tap into you as far as a resource, they attend your classes and more.
I don't know if one of them just has some final words. Absolutely. Well, my word for advice for anybody who's in my shoes of having to deal with the world shut down is to try something new. Take this as an opportunity rather than a defeat.
Look at where you can be online and then deliver that because it's maybe something that will change your business into a different direction for the long term and give you another option. You could be teaching on vacation, whereas you couldn't do in-person classes because you would be on vacation. Maybe you could take some portable cameras with you. So I think that it just gives you a lot more cross-ability where you have another platform, another way to deliver what you do.
So that would be my advice. And then again, like we said earlier, do it when you don't feel ready. You're gonna get there, make it reasonable, set good deadlines for yourself, educate yourself and reach out to your network to make that happen. So that would be my advice.
And then for getting ahold of me, if you're interested in one-on-one coaching or cooking classes, I am trymazing.com. It's on the bottom there. You can link to my events there. I have a blog that publishes every week with information and recipes.
And then classes that I have coming up, starting May 31st, I have Smart Cooking to Booster Immunity. That's online and that's with Nancy Travis. We're also running a second edition of that starting June 3rd, which is on Thursday evenings. Same class has a different title.
Cooking to combat COVID is exactly the same class. You could actually jump between the two of them. There's four classes each. And then starting in July, on July 2nd, will be your body and balance and that information and to sign up for those classes.
We'll post later today. And then so many cooks in the kitchen. If you look at our Facebook page, we'll have another live stream starting June 6th, or you can catch us on Plant Based Network when that comes out. I'll post that on my website.
And finally, if you're looking for any food for life instructor classes online, because there are hundreds of us that are teaching online classes right now, you can go to fflclasses.org, that's foodforlifeclasses.org, or you can go to pcrm.org and go from there to find it. But you can get a list of all those classes that I just described and the classes that other good for life instructors are teaching as well. Absolutely. I'm so glad.
Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for making everyone aware of the work that you're doing and also all the amazing food for life instructors out there. I mean, like you said, there's just an amazing group of just instructors and just with different perspectives, different styles. I mean, I feel so honored to know many of you and had a chance to chat with and help and support you guys out there.
So it's been really exciting. I'm so happy for all the people that joined us live so much. It's great to see all these names, Nancy, Coley, Diane, Tiffany, Amy, it's good to see you as well. Anyone who is watching this after the fact, hey, Neda, hopefully I've been out there correctly.
It's good to see you as well. If you're watching this as recorded session, please post in the comments as well. If you have any questions for Cindy, I will make sure that Cindy gets some people question for me. It will make sure we answer it as well because we want to make sure that we get these interviews out to everyone to not only inspire them to move forward, but also support them.
If you are looking for cooking class, if you're looking for coaching, we definitely want to make sure that you're aware of the amazing talent that we have in our vegan business community with individuals like Cindy. So Cindy, thank you again for joining us. Thank you everyone for joining us live and watching this either as a podcast or on our YouTube or Facebook. And we look forward to chatting with everyone again really soon.
Thank you so much.