Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where
we explore the journeys that lead to success.
I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five
Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you
insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders
and experts who will share not just their expertise,
but the milestone moments that have reshaped
their journeys and led to significant achievements.
So if you're looking for motivation, you're in
the right place. Subscribe now and discover the
milestones that mark the path to success. Welcome
to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business
and Leadership. I'm Sheila Slick, your host.
And today, my special guest is Mitch Webb. Mitch
is a nervous system and holistic health coach
who... is dedicated to helping high performers,
entrepreneurs, and individuals struggling with
chronic symptoms. He helps them reclaim their
health by addressing the root cause of disease,
unresolved trauma, and nervous system dysregulation.
Mitch's journey into the world of health and
healing was deeply personal. As a sought -after
coach, speaker, and educator, Mitch has been
featured on numerous podcasts and platforms,
where he shares insights on nervous system healing,
trauma recovery, and holistic wellness. His work
continues to empower individuals to break free
from survival mode, to reconnect with their bodies,
and to create a life of vitality and ease. Welcome
to the show, Mitch. Sheila, thank you for having
me. I appreciate the introduction. So let's start.
Yes. Your healing journey began with personal
struggles and then evolved into helping others
find their path to wellness. Can you tell me
a little bit about that defining moment when
you realized that your personal experience could
become a catalyst for transformation in others?
What did that look like? Oh, yeah, sure. I love
that question. And it takes me back to. Part
of my journey that I haven't really talked about
in a long time, you know, early on, some of the
things I dealt with, heavy metals, Lyme disease.
I lived in a house with black mold. And when
I first was starting to realize that I was sick
and found myself, very thankfully, at a functional
medicine doctor that's really going to be geared
around looking at root cause. Because the Western
medical model had just failed me at that point.
And I was obsessed with, I really dove into health
and healing and trying to understand how do I
eat? How do I move? What supplements to take?
And what's going on with my body? And how do
I manage all of this? I'm in this doctor's office.
It's like a lab. They dealt with patients who
have Lyme disease. I saw some people that were
in some really, really tough situations. It was
hard to watch. Even me at the time, with what
I was dealing with, I kind of didn't want to
even understand a whole lot of what Lyme disease
was. I didn't want to accept a label. I just
wanted to get better and understand what it was
going to take to... um to get myself there and
i'm trying everything that i'm learning on podcasts
um you know i was really into like buyer hacking
at the time um that's definitely changed but
it was what i needed in the beginning to just
start making changes and feel like feel like
i was in control in a situation that fell out
of control um but but kind of the way it happened
is i'm trying all these things and i felt like
i was the only patient in the office that was
getting better. Um, and so while I was waiting
in the, in the waiting room, you know, I just
started doing what I do, talking to people and
started asking like, what's going on? What are
you dealing with? What symptoms? It wasn't, you
know, what, uh, how you feeling? You know, what
do you, what are you trying? Like, let's, let's
chat. And, um, When people started opening up,
you know, a lot of the things that we were dealing
with, I'd say physically, mentally, emotionally,
psychologically, they were all the same, you
know, and it was cool to, you know, to have that
connection with someone else. And then, you know,
I started sharing information of stuff that I
had found. I'm like, hey, I've had that symptom
too, and this is what helped me. here's my number
and like keeping, keeping tight. So let me know
what's working. You know, I was trying to, as
I still am, uh, learning what it means to heal.
And, um, before long, I've got a couple of people
I'm texting and communicating with and sharing
information. And, um, I remember, I guess the
turning point was, was that experience and then
realizing how hard to find this information.
Uh, you know, I felt like I'd. learn something
and then I'd find out it's bad, you know, or
find out it's not right for me. And there's a
lot of fear mongering that goes on in the health
industry and just trying to sift all through
all of that and figure out what is right for
me and then sharing that with other people. And
at that time I was in the corporate world and,
you know, it was a couple more years before I
left, but I left because I wanted to start my
own thing where I could. You know, give people
good information and help them like I help myself,
you know, and save them time and energy doing
it. So just because I'm not very familiar with
Lyme disease, what are some of the symptoms?
Did it affect the central nervous system? Oh,
yeah. You know, it's a tick -borne illness. Typically,
you're going to get a tick bite. There could
or could not be a bullseye rash. forms on your
body, that's usually an indicator of you've gotten
bit by a tick that has Lyme disease. Lyme was
started in Lyme, Connecticut. There's even research
that I've seen where it was engineered and it
was like a way to control a population. And I'm
not real sure of the validity of that. But yeah,
whenever I got bit by one. You know, mine was
different. I had, you know, growing up a country
boy, you can probably hear my southern accent.
I got bit by ticks all the time. And it wasn't
until I moved into the house with black mold
that it really affected me. So living in that
toxic environment of the black mold suppressed
my immune system. And so Lyme came out. Those
symptoms are very similar to mold. They kind
of mirror each other. It was a lot of brain fog,
a lot of fatigue, anxiety as well. You know,
I didn't sleep really well. And I would get lost
driving in my hometown. You know, really achy
joints. And, yeah, just feeling like crap. Well,
when you said country boy, in case you're just
listening, you're also a hunter because I'm seeing
a lot of nature behind you, your heads and other
species. So I was saying you were always out
in the woods and the wild. But the fact is, even
at home, your dog can pick up a tick, right?
So it's just insane to hear how such one little
creature can create so much chaos. No. So you
were in corporate. This happened. You met with
other people. You started a support kind of group.
And then? And then I got hit with more stuff.
I met a really good doctor that helped me with
the Lyme, helped me with the mold toxicity, detoxing.
I had heavy metals. pre -diabetic or diabetic
that could be up for debate. So there were some
metabolic issues going on. It's really the perfect
storm of these different traumas, illnesses,
accidents. I was in a really bad car accident
right after that. So I started coaching people
and moved to a larger city of Raleigh, North
Carolina to meet some more like -minded people.
And I was going to meet one of my first clients.
I got hit by a dump truck that totaled my car
and left me with post -concussion syndrome for
about a year. As I recovered from that, I got
long -haul COVID three times. So for three years,
I had long -haul COVID. It brought me to my knees.
It destroyed my gut health, hormonal health.
I could not exercise anymore. I had massive amounts
of fatigue. I wasn't sleeping. And, you know,
all the things that I had learned up until that
point, they weren't working anymore. And that
is when I learned, I read The Body Keeps the
Score. Maybe a lot of people have heard of that
book. It talks about how, you know, the body
can, when we don't process different traumas,
like I've been through with illness. Then there's
early developmental stuff and our childhood stuff
that inevitably a lot of people deal with. I
was completely unaware, so reading that book
really opened my eyes and had some really good
mentors and friends help me see that a dysregulated
nervous system is at the root cause of a lot
of these illnesses and things that I was dealing
with. When your nervous system is dysfunctional,
It's connected to your immune system, your hormonal
system. It affects digestion and rest and safety.
And when I started to really dive into that,
to, you know, working with therapists and meeting
my mentor, Irene Lyon, and learning, you know,
her course and her way of building capacity and
learning to regulate the nervous system, things
just started really shifting quickly. So it was
like a, you know, a 20 -year journey. This isn't
a short time of looking for answers. And, um,
certainly the foundational stuff of eating healthy
and moving well. And, um, uh, we're, we're exactly
that foundational. The, uh, the nervous system
is where I found the most healing. And within
a couple months of, of doing her, one of her
courses and going to therapy and doing those
things, um, you know, I started eating food again
where I could not, um, I started putting on weight.
I started exercising again, started getting my
energy back. And, you know, like I do there,
I take that and I try to learn as much as I can
and share that with other people. That's quite
a transformation. So how do you help leaders,
entrepreneurs, individuals effectively navigate
the nervous system, you know, keep it regulated
so that they can maintain personal well -being?
What does that look like? You know, for me, I
think a big part of it is reconnecting with the
body and learning to listen to, you know, interoception
is what you would call that. The body's communication
communicates through emotions, through sensations.
You know, it's little intuitions and things like
that. When we have trauma, we tend to quit listening.
A lot of people that I work with, we tend to
intellectualize. Meaning we're going to squeeze
our, it feels too much from the neck down. And
so we disconnect from the body. We squeeze ourself
up into our head and then we try to think our
way to safety. That's what I was doing by, you
know, trying to take the next supplement, do
the next detox, the next restricted diet, the
more punishing workout. You know, these things
could be sold to us as hitting the peak of health.
But what I found is I got more controlling and
more restrictive and I quit listening to my body
and I was relying on, you know, external resources.
I'm looking for somebody to heal me. I was looking
for the perfect diet, the perfect, you know,
all these things, supplement exercise. And that
pursuit of perfection is a losing game. You know,
I don't think. perfection exists. But it's a
response to trauma that says, I have to control
these things and create this perfect reality
to get what I want. And I just wanted to feel
good. I just wanted to be the best version of
myself. And so I had to quit listening to all
of this. And I started relying on media and listening
to my voice. And that's what I do with my clients
now. So I take decades of of the basics and health
and wellness. And while I'm teaching, it's me,
the person where they're at. It's not telling
them what to do. I used to, you know, want to
do it my way. And that's not how this works.
It's really your way. And you can't do it your
way unless you can listen to the body and respond
instead of reacting to every new shiny object
that you think is going to fix you. And so so
we start to build that relationship with the
body while making sure we're doing the basics
of, you know, really into a nutritional approach
that's going to be right for the client. That's
very individual. Whether someone has people that
I work with, they're going to have gut issues,
they're going to have fatigue and these different
systems, symptoms like autoimmune disease. The
gut issues, the anxiety, and applying a good
diet that's supportive, not restrictive, is going
to make a huge difference in these scenarios.
And so we're just kind of checking the boxes.
Are we getting sunlight? Are we moving properly?
Are we punishing ourselves through exercise?
And then we go into the body. What's going on
in our body? Maybe we've disconnected from that
for so long, we start to listen. ultimately following
our own impulse is what gets us out of the hellhole
that we've found ourselves in from suppressing
our body's intuition and wisdom that's always
coming through. Society teaches us to disconnect
from that and to not listen to it. So it's a
coming home to the body. So if someone, a leader,
an entrepreneur came to you and said, I'm suffering
burnout, what would that initial session or perhaps
an exercise that you would send them to practice
look like? Well, I mean, in the beginning, we're
just going to we're going to get real clear on
where you're at and what's going on and what
you've tried up until now and just building a
relationship, understanding. Where are we trying
to go? You know, starting with the end in mind
and getting realistic and clear on how we're
going to get there. And I used to really take
like a shotgun approach and try to do everything
at once. And now I'm really listening to the
person, trying to meet them where they're at
and understand like what's the low hanging fruit.
So someone that's burnt out, you know, depends
on if they're ready emotionally. or uh ray at
all energy wise to to go into some of the it
just depends on where they're at some people
are going to need uh the foundational stuff with
nutrition and exercise and um always conversation
and working through you know what's coming out
uh the different mental and emotional type of
things that we deal with as humans on a day -to
-day basis um but you know someone someone that's
in burnout obviously needs to learn how to rest
And for those of us that are perfection, people
pleasers, all or nothing, sleep when our, you
know, that's our society, sleep when you die,
burn the cane on both ends. You know, that's
hard. That's a different gear. And, you know,
we're going to titrate is the word. We're going
to go really slow. And maybe we're going to take
a minute to feel our butt in the chair, notice
our breath, you know, be in our environment,
use our. different senses, whether that's auditory
or visual, to be in the environment. A lot of
times we're, I know if I'm burnt out, if I'm
feeling that, I'm usually projecting something
I'm afraid of into the future, thinking the worst
possible thing, or I'm ruminating on something
that's happened in the past. And so recognizing
those tendencies, that takes a lot of work to
continuously be thinking their way to safety.
And often, you know, the only way to get to safety
is trusting that we're going to be OK and being
here now, you know, being in the environment.
And that's a process. And what that is, is building
capacity to be here now. You know, certainly
those protective patterns of people pleasing
and thinking the worst possible black or white
type stuff that served us at some point that
made us feel safe. And so, you know, recognizing
that as a protective mechanism from likely a
stressful situation we didn't have the capacity
to deal with. We want to build our capacity to
be here now, to be with that and to, you know,
as you say, it's getting the lessons from these
experiences instead of repeating them over and
over again, because that's really what's going
on. We're holding. Trauma in the body is this
unsafety that we feel comes from a past experience
that was overwhelming that our body feels like
is happening all the time right now. And so it's
a process, you know, it's slow. It requires co
-regulation, like, you know, in a setting where
client feels safe and supported. And yeah, we're
building safety and meeting the person wherever
they're at one step at a time. So you do this
through one -on -one coaching? Is that your service?
Yes, yes, one -on -one. I've had people ask for
group coaching. It's something I'm interested
in in the future. I really enjoy getting in and
building a relationship and working together
on a really customized level. I think everybody
is so different to make a blanket statement.
is really hard for me. And, you know, I like
getting in and doing the heavy lifting, if you
will, and teaching the client to become their
own medicine through the one -on -one journey.
So what is your next milestone? My next milestone,
I mean, it's putting this together in an offering
and growing the business. I've been doing so
much of my own personal work, and I think it's
one thing to intellectualize and to have the
knowledge and to understand it, and it's a different
step to embody that. And that's what I've been
working on and tend to attract clients that are...
uh, in, in similar situation that I've been.
And so now it's, how do we, uh, how do we take,
you know, years of, of learning? Sometimes it's
hard for me to, uh, to know where to start sharing
because there's so much information and that's
where I love to meet the client because it's
about them. It's not about what I'm sharing.
Um, but it, but it, my next step is learning
how to put this information out there, attract
the clients and, uh, help the people that, uh,
that need my help. So if you could put a number
on the amount of clients that you're looking
to help, what would that number look like? You
know, gosh, that's a great question. I feel like
we're getting into business coaching now. Well,
that's my two cents for you so that I can help
you make it more concrete and set a goal for
your month. I would love to, you know, just say
I don't like working with more than 10 people
at a time. That's a little bit too much. The
health coaching is very different than this nervous
system coaching. You know, so if we're talking
about like 12 months from now, I would love to
see 50 clients. That would be awesome. Great.
Well, now you vocalized it. So that'll help you
visualize it and make it happen. You have 12
months. In fact, 50 people. And you got this.
Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate that. There's a
lot of that. I don't know if you get into energy
and in my mentorship, all these ladies are introducing
me to like human design and horoscope type stuff.
And if you're into that, there's a lot of this
manifestation, creation, action, energy. And
so it fits right into what I'm feeling. So I
appreciate that little help there, a little tip.
Well, I love it. And I always love learning.
Like I'm all about continuous learning. And every
time I meet a guest, I learn something new. With
the energies I've had, one with my chakras, I
was like, well, what do those colors look like?
And she said, you're yellow right now. I'm like,
yellow. I was afraid to ask her, what does yellow
mean? But she started explaining and somewhere
there, she either used the word intellect or
something. I was like, oh, just stop. Chill.
It looks like you made my day. You're saying
I'm in telly. So that's the only thing I heard.
But I love learning. So anytime I can, I... Yeah,
it's great to be seen, right? Yes. Thank you
so much for joining me today. Absolutely. I appreciate
the opportunity to share. And where can the listeners
find you? They can find me on MitchWeb .com.
It's my website. I'm on Instagram at KMitchWeb.
And you can find me on Facebook and LinkedIn
under MitchWeb as well. I've got a little free
download for your audience to kind of start to
unpack a little bit of this nervous system approach
and how we can start taking some baby steps towards
capacity and regulation. So if you don't mind,
I'll shoot that to you if you want to share that
in your show notes or something like that. I'd
be happy to put whichever link you want on the
description of the show so that we can all download
it. I may download it myself and learn more about
self -regulation and the central nervous system.
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, thank you all
for joining us on another episode of Milestone
Moments in Business and Leadership. Until next
time.