The Art of Reinvention with Ellison Ward

Tonya Leigh:

Hello, hello, my friends. Welcome to the podcast. I am so excited about today's topic, because we have a special guest to talk about probably my favorite topic other than style, and that is the art of reinvention. So I don't know if you all know this, but one of the things that we do within the School of Self-Image is we have members submit before-and-afters, and we have a whole Slack channel. So every time a woman submits her after story, it pops up in our Slack channel, and we as a team get to read it. Well, one day, one popped up and, literally, it took my breath away. I was like, "Wait, what is happening? I have to read everything about this." And it happens to be the after story of today's guest, Ellison Ward.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach Tonya Leigh.

Tonya Leigh:

I had the honor of meeting Ellison in London, what was it, last month? October?

Ellison Ward:

Yeah, about a month ago.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. And so welcome to the podcast.

Ellison Ward:

Thank you.

Tonya Leigh:

I am excited for us to talk about the art of reinvention, and specifically about your story. Because so many women, I think, are going to be able to relate to where you were, and so many of them are aspiring to a version of where you are now. So let's start this off by talking about where you were when you discovered me, and I think it was before the School of Self-Image, back in French Kiss Life days. So give us a picture of what life was like for you back then.

Ellison Ward:

Before I discovered you, I had come out of postpartum depression, and going through the postpartum depression, I just got stuck. I couldn't find my way back to who I was and I wasn't in depression anymore, but I was in inactivity. So even just daily things like getting out of bed, and I had small children, taking them to school, doing the dishes, anything like that became very overwhelming, and I just wanted to sit on the couch and eat all day, and that's pretty much what I did.

And then I had another daughter. I got pregnant again a few years after that, and then my husband walked through the door and said, I'm going to be deployed to Iraq for about a year. And my oldest son was leaving for the camp, and it was me with three small children, and I thought, sink or swim, I got to do this. There's no excuse. And I couldn't think how to do it. I didn't know what that first step was. So I thought, "What do I love the most? Oh, I love Paris." We had been to Paris. My husband taken me there for my birthday. So I sat down at the computer and I Googled French Life and there you were.

Tonya Leigh:

Oh. Voila.

Ellison Ward:

And off we go.

Tonya Leigh:

That is so.

Ellison Ward:

Yeah, your story resonated with me because I'm from rural East Tennessee, you're from North Carolina. Cornbread and Champagne, right?

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah.

Ellison Ward:

We were both in Colorado at the time. You were not too far from me. I was in Brighton. I think you were in Durango at that time. And I saw your before picture with your weight loss, and it just made me think, oh, I can do this. If she can do this, I can do this.

Tonya Leigh:

I love that. It's so crazy how so much of our stories parallel, because I remember being overweight at home with my daughter, single mom, and thinking, I want things to change, but I just don't know how. I don't know... As you said, I don't even know what the first step is.

Ellison Ward:

No, the first step, the hardest step, because I wanted to do everything. I had gained over 70 pounds. I wanted to immediately lose all of that weight. I wanted to have a clean house. I wanted to be a great cook. I wanted to be a great mom. But where do you start? I had no idea. And when I found you, it was like... It wasn't a magic fix, but it was the light at the end of the tunnel. And then through you, the community, it felt like people were just holding my hand and walking me through, step by step.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. So how would you describe... What was your top feelings in your before? If we could go back and you would say, "This is what I feel most days," what would you say those feelings were?

Ellison Ward:

Overwhelmed, anxiety. Always describe it like I was treading water, just trying not to go under. And you tire out, exhausted.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. Okay. So your before is overweight, home with three little kids, husband's been deployed, son's going off to boot camp, you're feeling overwhelmed, anxious, treading water, and now, life is completely different.

Ellison Ward:

Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

Yes. So what I love to do is now tell us where you are now, and then we're going to go and look at what is that art of reinvention. What were some of the things that you did to get you from your before to your after? But let's tell everybody where you are now, and all of the things that you've accomplished.

Ellison Ward:

All of the things I do, I guess. I feel like I do everything. I went back to school and completed a degree in business administration with a certification in finance, economics, and accounting. I went to language... Well, I had always studied languages. I love languages. And we just so happened to have a language school near us, so now I go and I do five different languages, and travel around a lot. I travel so much, but I love that. And I'm studying to take my LSAT to hopefully start law school in the fall. And I'm going to take my DELF because I speak French, so why not have the French government say I can do it, and then maybe I'll take my German test, and one thing builds... It's almost like endless possibilities. Whatever I want, I can have. I just got to figure out how to get there.

Tonya Leigh:

So how do you feel today? Most days? Before it was-

Tonya Leigh:

... overwhelmed, anxious. Now it's confident? What else?

Ellison Ward:

Confident, energized, unstoppable.

Tonya Leigh:

And you lost weight too, correct?

Ellison Ward:

I've lost a ton of weight. I'm back down to where I was. Next year we're going to dial in on that. We're going to get... I don't have a number, I don't like numbers, but we're going to see what we can accomplish in a year.

Tonya Leigh:

I know you don't like numbers, but you majored in finance.

Ellison Ward:

Yeah, I don't like scales. How about that?

Tonya Leigh:

You don't like the scale numbers.

Ellison Ward:

I love money. I don't like scales.

Tonya Leigh:

Big distinction.

Ellison Ward:

Yes. Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

Awesome. Okay, so I can only imagine that someone may be listening to this and they're like, "Ellison, I relate to your before." Tell me, what are those first steps? If you're at home and you feel so stuck, you feel like you're treading water, you're overwhelmed, you've got little kids running around, you feel like life is just piling on top of you, what would you offer a woman as what are some of her first steps she can begin to take?

Ellison Ward:

I set small goals. In the original French Kiss Life, like Alyssa was going to start a business, which she did, and it's amazing, but everybody seemed to have these big goals. Huge money goals, huge career goals, and mine was literally I just wanted to change out of my sweatpants three times a week. That was it. And that was big for me. I only had maternity clothes and sweatpants. That was the only clothes I could fit into. I wasn't going to buy new clothes because I wasn't even admitting that I was overweight to myself. So I set those small goals, and getting those celebrations underneath you can build. And I think that's what I see is everybody wants to go for the big thing, but those small goals get you to the big, and then you don't feel overwhelmed. So you have to... The Dream Atelier is really great for breaking that down into very small steps, and then it doesn't seem so intimidating.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. I think about the law of physics. An item at rest tends to stay at rest, an item in motion tends to stay in motion. It's like what can you do to get yourself in motion? And I know for me personally, when you're on the sofa and you feel like you're completely stuck, setting a big goal doesn't get you in motion. It often makes you even more paralyzed. And so I love the idea of these tiny small goals that just give you a little bit of a focus so you can get in motion, so you can get your life moving again.

Ellison Ward:

Yeah. Yeah. I set the goal to change, and it was blue jeans, it was nothing fancy or anything. And then my next goal was to walk around my kitchen for 30 minutes after all the kids were asleep. And I did that for the first month, and then I joined a gym, and it built, that confidence built, and I thought, "I can do this, I can do this." And it was one foot in front of the other. And I never, with the community, they're so amazing. I never felt like my goal was any less than anyone else's goal. And if I messed up, they were there to cheer me on to get back up. And if I did it, they were there to celebrate and still are today. Probably the most incredible part of the School of Self-Image are the women.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, a hundred percent. We talk about environment, and when you have women like that around you, you really do become unstoppable. You may be down, but they're going to be right there to be like, "What are you doing? Let's get up. Let's go."

Ellison Ward:

Yeah. And go together. We're all going to march together.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. One of the things that you said that I think is so important and we don't do it enough, and that is celebration. And-

Ellison Ward:

Hard.

Tonya Leigh:

It is, especially if your brain's wired to always look for what you're not doing right, what's going wrong, what you don't have. You ask your brain to celebrate, and your brain's like, "What are you talking about? There's nothing to celebrate," but there's always something, always. And collecting those little wins, it really begins to build evidence for who you're becoming. And that's why those small goals are so important, especially for those who feel like you're just stuck right now. I love what Ellison said, just pick some tiny goals that you can start moving towards.

Ellison Ward:

Yeah, just anything. It doesn't have to be anything grand. If you want to lose weight, which I think weight loss is a huge one for women especially, but it can be just cook one meal, maybe one a day, one a week, who cares, one a month, or just go out and walk 20 minutes around your house. You don't need a gym. Just go walk, go outside, enjoy something, read a book, something, anything. And like you said, with the sofa, anything that got me off of that couch was a win. My husband called it my nest, because I would gather everything around me so I didn't have to move.

Tonya Leigh:

When you were going through this work, were you able to identify a major limiting belief that was holding you back?

Ellison Ward:

Prior to having the postpartum depression, I always felt I could do anything as long as I worked hard at it. So I think the steps kind of tapped into that. So with limiting belief, I just always have been able to push that to the side. For me, it was never what I thought. It was taking on what other people thought. If I had something and I said my goal out loud, then people would laugh or judge or think it was ridiculous or whatever. And that was more of a limiting... Because then it would make me question, maybe I'm crazy for liking that or wanting that or thinking that.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. So was the limiting belief more around I need to please others? What others think is more important?

Ellison Ward:

Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah.

Ellison Ward:

Big people-pleaser.

Tonya Leigh:

And when  you want to live a big life, you have to accept that people are going to have lots of thoughts about it. Lots of opinions.

Ellison Ward:

Lots of opinions. And when you come from a small town, you have to fit inside of a certain box. 

Tonya Leigh:

Listen, I know that one really well.

Ellison Ward:

That's right. That's right. And I used to, I can remember I was like 13 or 14 and I went to the grocery store was like 30 minutes away from our house and I bought a September Vogue Magazine and I was so excited about the September Vogue Magazine, and by the time I came home, someone in town had saw that I had bought it and called my grandmother to tattle on me that I bought it. So for Christmas that year I got a subscription to Vogue Magazine.

Tonya Leigh:

Aww.

Ellison Ward:

So I always-

Tonya Leigh:

From your grandmother?

Ellison Ward:

Yeah. Yeah. She was really encouraging. She thought my brother and I could go see the world and we could do all these things, and now we are, and because she believed it. She taught us to believe it.

Tonya Leigh:

I'm telling you, just need one person in your life that offers you a possibility that you never thought would be possible. I remember a mentor saying to me one time, "One day you're going to make a million dollars," and I just laughed. I was like, "What are you talking about?" Because at the time, I was working as a full-time nurse. But just hearing her say that I'm like, "Ah." But I think about so many people are surrounded by people that aren't offering them new possibilities. One of my favorite podcasts ever recorded was called The Necessity of Exposure. I don't know if you remember that one. But it's important for us to expose ourselves to new people, new ideas, and new possibilities, or else we will never go beyond what we currently think is possible. And so just hearing your grandmother say that opened up that possibility for you that you're now living out, so how incredible.

Ellison Ward:

Yeah, and she did that. She got any kind of book that she could, so we read everything, or she would read it to us. And she was constantly saying you have to go. It doesn't matter where or what. If you want to go, go live life. Don't stay here, go live life.

Tonya Leigh:

So you were probably having a lot of internal conflict when you were on the sofa,

Ellison Ward:

Everything I knew, I wasn't myself, and I couldn't figure out how to get back. And another thing was I kept looking to the past, because I knew that was what was normal, that's how comfortable it was. I couldn't find my way back to the past. It never occurred to me to look to the future until I started doing the work with you, because I always thought, "Well, if I can just figure out what I was doing back then, I can do it now." But it was too much at that time. There was a lot of brain noise you had to work through.

Tonya Leigh:

So when we think about that bridge from your before to your after, are there any certain tools that you can pinpoint were the most useful for you in helping you create where you are today?

Ellison Ward:

Well, we had different ones. We had the Slim, Chic, and Savvy and we had Modern Day Icon, which I think needs to be brought back. But we had the Dream Atelier, and now we do the Self-Image where we pick our goals is pretty much the same thing. But that key class with the Self-Image is everything. And then you can run it through the Dream Atelier. That's what I do. I run it through the Dream Atelier and the Habits class and then I just start to stack. And I've done it for so long that it doesn't take me as long. There's so much information and so many great classes in there that I think it also gets a little overwhelming when you first come in.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah, we're going to work on that. That's what we're working on behind the scenes right now.

Ellison Ward:

You. I mean you really have to dial in what your goal is and just pick one.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah.

Ellison Ward:

And maybe it doesn't take you a year. Maybe it takes you three years. Who cares?

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. There is no hurry.

Ellison Ward:

There is no hurry.

Tonya Leigh:

I think that's the hardest thing though, because it's what you were saying earlier. You wanted to lose weight, you wanted to have a beautiful home, you wanted to be the perfect cook. You wanted to probably have a great wardrobe, all of the things, and that just causes us to have such scattered energy. We end up doing nothing. And so when I tell women, I'm like, "Listen, we're going to pick one thing." Sometimes they want to fight with me on it, and I'm like, "Listen, you're going to thank me later." Because who you become and creating that's going to affect everything else in a positive way.

Ellison Ward:

Everything else. I picked losing weight, so that helped me become a better cook because I wanted to cook healthy meals, and it helped me become a better mom because we all sat around the dinner table to eat those meals, and then I had more energy so I could play with them. And we saved money because we weren't eating at restaurants. It really has an echo effect all the way through.

Tonya Leigh:

That's such a great example. I love that you just laid out how that one goal affected all of those areas of your life. And even with the more energy, you went on to learn new languages, go back to school. That's so good. So good. So I'm curious, what is your next after story? What are you working on now?

Ellison Ward:

I don't know. I really want to do a deep dive next year into my health and my style, and I just want to see where that takes me. And I'm waiting for the planning class in December. I have a framework how I want to do that, but I'm not going to assign, I want to weigh X amount or look a certain way. It's just if I go all in with my discipline, which is a core value of mine, then what is it going to look like at the end of the year? And I'll measure it because you have to be able to measure it. You have to be able to tell if you're making progress or not. And I'll do that by saying, I want to go to work out 21 times in one month, or I want to cook three new meals a week or something like that. So it's still measurable, but there's no definite I want to weigh a certain weight or anything.

Tonya Leigh:

I think that's a beautiful way to look at it. In fact, I'm going to be refilming the Self-Image method in a couple weeks, and one of the things that I've been thinking about is the difference between outcome goals and process goals. And I don't think it matters which one you choose. I just think it's important that you have a goal that you understand, am I making progress? And so what you just described is what I would consider a process goal, meaning this is going to be my process. I'm going cook 21 meals, I'm going to walk a mile a day, whatever it is, and trusting that process is going to give you an outcome that you are pleased with. Equally, you could say by the end of the year, I'm going to weigh 20 pounds less or have 10 pounds more muscle, whatever. I just think it's important that you have a goal, one that excites you, one that's true to you, and one that belongs in your future.

Ellison Ward:

Yeah, and one that, for me, one that I can make a visual to see, because I have to keep that goal in front of my face. So when I was working on the degree, I would write a post-it note, college graduate. When I sit down to write my goal for next year, I will have to be able to do a vision board or something, which is kind of a weird thing because I don't have a weight or anything. So I don't know. That'd be-

Tonya Leigh:

You have a feeling, I'm sure. You have a feeling.

Ellison Ward:

I'm 53 now, so I feel like setting number goals and going through perimenopause is completely ridiculous because it's kind of like puberty. Who knows what's going to happen. But I think it's the energy feeling that I'm for. I want to be able to... Maybe I decide in six months I want to run a marathon or something, but I just want to be able to be in the best shape of my life. My end goal is to have that picture taken on December 31st that people use in every situation. When someone calls your name and they open up the camera roll, that's the picture they show.

Tonya Leigh:

I love it. What do you think your biggest obstacle is going to be?

Ellison Ward:

My husband.

Tonya Leigh:

Okay. Say more.

Ellison Ward:

Yeah, we can go eat out. It's fine. You don't have to go to the gym today. That kind of thing.

Tonya Leigh:

So how are you going to handle that obstacle?

Ellison Ward:

Go anyway. Make good choices. I don't have to be on plan 24/7, but make good choices.

Tonya Leigh:

But I think this is an important conversation for the art of reinvention, because as you're reinventing yourself, the people around you again are going to have many thoughts, many ideas that they're going to offer you.

Ellison Ward:

And you have to learn how to be flexible.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah.

Ellison Ward:

It's going to be my birthday in April. I'm going to want coconut cake, and I'm going to have coconut cake.

Tonya Leigh:

As you should, and you should enjoy every bite of the coconut.

Ellison Ward:

Every single second. Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah. It's like the three D's. Either don't do it. You can't really delegate eating coconut cake. So if you're going to-

Ellison Ward:

No.

Tonya Leigh:

... eat it, delight in it.

Ellison Ward:

Delight in it.

Tonya Leigh:

There's no upside to eating something and beating yourself up while you're doing it. None. So that's exciting. I love this for you, and if I know anything about you, Ellison, December 31st, there's going to be that picture of you.

Ellison Ward:

Yeah, it’s going to be a knockout. Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

You're already a knockout. I love everything about you, your energy, just what you've created. Just again, when I saw your after story, I was like, "I have to have a conversation with her. I want to know the nuts and bolts of how she did it." And I want everybody to hear, it was actually the tiny steps. I think that is the takeaway from this.

Ellison Ward:

Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

It's like I don't-

Ellison Ward:

If I can do that with... I think I had a 16-year-old, a 8-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a nine-month-old, and juggling all of that by myself in the house.

Tonya Leigh:

I always say, if you want to master your life, master your day. And I don't know something about that statement that's like, "Oh, I don't have to master everything. I just have to look at today and what are the little things that I can do today that's going to have a positive impact on my life."

Ellison Ward:

Set your priorities. Make sure you get those done, and everything else is icing on the cake.

Tonya Leigh:

I love it. Awesome.

Ellison Ward:

Yeah.

Tonya Leigh:

Well, I am so grateful for you, and I'm so happy that you came onto the podcast to share.

Ellison Ward:

Thank you for inviting me.

Tonya Leigh:

You're so welcome.

I think so many women can relate to both your before and your after, and so please keep us posted. Maybe one year from now we can do this again and celebrate your new after.

Ellison Ward:

Yeah. Oh, that would be so motivating, right?

Tonya Leigh:

Yeah.

Ellison Ward:

To see where it leads.

Tonya Leigh:

Awesome. Well, thank you.

Ellison Ward:

Thank you for inviting me.

Tonya Leigh:

You are so welcome, and I'll see you inside the membership.

Ellison Ward:

All right, thanks. Bye.

Tonya Leigh:

All right. Take care. Thanks everyone. All right.