Why Waking Up Earlier Isn’t the Answer You Think It Is | Ahna Fulmer | Work Like A Mother Podcast, Episode 57

In this episode of Work Like A Mother, host Marina Tolentino sits down with the inspiring Ahna Fulmer, CEO of Early Morning Habit, health coach, keynote speaker, podcast host, and mother of four. Together, they dive into the transformative power of starting your day with purpose—not productivity.

Ahna shares her journey from a self-proclaimed non-morning person to creating a morning routine that revitalized her health, mindset, and life. With a wealth of experience in health and fitness, she discusses the neuroscience behind intentional habits, the art of stillness, and how gratitude can rewire your brain for success. Whether you're balancing the chaos of young kids or striving to find your own version of "enough," this conversation offers practical tips to help you redefine mornings and make them your secret weapon for a thriving life.

Key Takeaways:

• Why starting your day being instead of doing changes everything.
• How to combat "calendar chaos" and create intentional rest in a busy life.
• Tips on improving your sleep and creating a fail-proof morning routine.
• The concept of "emotionally intelligent gratitude" and its impact on mental health.

Mentioned in this Episode
The Anatomy of the Soul by Curt Thompson
Early Morning Habit Masterclass (use code RISE30 for $30 off)

Ahna Fulmer
https://ahnafulmer.com/
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The Renewed Podcast

Marina Tolentino
https://www.marinatolentino.com/
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Transcript

0:00

When I started my day doing, I ended up feeling even more hustled and more stressed because it's like that pressure to be productive actually was magnified. The change that revitalized everything about my life was when I started my day being not doing. It's not easy to wake up early. It's not easy, you know, to chunk out a couple journal things or just to sit and be still like that is one of the hardest things. And just listen, you know. Foreign. Today on the show I have the beautiful Ana Fulmer, who is the CEO of the Early Morning Habit. She's a health coach, a keynote speaker and a podcast host. She's mom to four kids ages 11 to 6. And we're going to talk all about new year, new habits, new routines. It's the perfect time to have a refresh and have Ana on the show. So welcome. Thank you. It's lovely to be here. I wish I was actually with you in real life. Yeah, it's already like 73 degrees, I think. Or is it how over there, girl. Listen, we won't talk about what it is here. It's like 29 degrees. Yeah, but you know, cloudy, where the things I can't wear, the things I got to wear the same thing all year round. Well, I'm excited to have you. One of the things I had asked on the pre show forum was just like, what was one of the areas of success you didn't expect and you said it was about how becoming a morning person would be the new thing and you were never a morning person. So give me quick backstory. How did you get to where you are today? Yeah, so I by education and trade, I'm a nurse practitioner. I have two masters in nursing. I got my first degree at John Hopkins and it was an adult geriatric critical care. And then I got my second degree in family medicine because one apparently wasn't enough. And then I worked in emergency medicine for 10 years and my background was one that was very inundated with medical knowledge and experience. And alongside that I also had a lot of personal experience in the health and fitness space. So I kind of toed two lines. One in the professional world of medicine, but then the other in the personal world of fitness and nutrition. So as a high achieving mom of multiple kids and several degrees, and alongside of that I also started a blog called Hammers and Hugs because I wanted to get out of the like, analytical medical mode and tap into that creative space that we all need to at times. And so I documented our family's Fixer Upper adventures. And that included our homes. We would buy a home, live in it for a couple of years, renovate it and then resell it. And we did that three times. And my husband one day joked, like you could make your millions blogging. And I said, what's a blog? I was 32 and I had no idea what a blog was. No social media. So bottom line, I started this DIY home decor website for fun. Had nothing to do with all the letters behind my name. And I really fell with it. It was digital scrapbooking. I love writing and spoke to that creative side of me, being able to share and connect with these women all around the world. But what I quickly discovered was that the only time that I had to write a blog post in this chaos that was my life was the morning when I started it. I had a six year old, a four year old and a one year old and there was no time for me. Yeah. And so what I did is I put my alarm clock back a little bit earlier because I am not a morning person. This mama loves her sleep. But I thought, you know what? I'm, I'm, I'm motivated to do this. I really want to do it and I enjoy doing it. So I did. I set it back to

6:30 as opposed to 7: 4:02

00 when my kids would jump on me and get me out of bed. And I loved it. And I thought I'm going to set it back a little bit earlier because I felt so productive. So I set it back a little bit

earlier, 6:15, then 6: 4:17

00. And it kept getting earlier. But what I was starting to find was instead of feeling like I was getting ahead, despite the fact that I was rising earlier, for the first time, I felt like I was still behind. And what I realized is when I started my day with this intent of doing more, that's exactly what happened. I did more. And the to do list got longer because as I dove deeper into the world of blogging and the diyer in me was now learning, oh well, now I need this and I need this. And so it's like I, I introduced this new thing that I really loved. But when I started my day doing, I ended up feeling even more hustled and more stressed because it's like that pressure to be productive actually was magnified. So it was this interesting dichotomy that was happening. I was deciding like, I'm going to be a morning person because I did love the morning. But I realized what I loved was not about the productivity Because I actually felt more stressed, being more productive, and I still had no rest. Yeah. And what shifted was in this morning time as somebody that loves Jesus, being in God's word and the time in prayer literally is life saving. And it was something that I thought, oh, morning, like quiet stillness. This seems like a great time to try to implement this habit that I always wanted in my life. But it was really hard to find that quiet time to be in God's word and be reflective and, and actually like quiet out the noise instead of just trying to fit it in while kids are watching TV and there's still so much noise around me and one kid's pulling up my arm because they need to go to the bathroom and. Right. Fill in the blank. And so I incorporated it into this time. And what I realized and what I discovered was the difference how I saw my day play out. The change that revitalized everything about my life was when I started my day being not doing. And this concept of rising earlier to be still changed every single aspect of my life and made me decide, okay, not only am I going to become a morning person, I'm going to incorporate everything that I know about science and medicine and try to create what became this holistically revitalizing habit through this one self care solution that changed all five areas of my health and ultimately my life. Mm. Ugh, that story is so good. And it makes me think of like all the things I've been through and grown through and tried and experimented with. Right. Like we read the what is it Blanket miracle morning, like all of that. But to me that's just like, more. That's just adding more. And your theory is like, actually let's do less in the morning, but still making that time for ourselves to kind and when we need it as like young moms, like kids under five, like, it's crazy time. Like as soon as they're up, they need us all the time. Like, we don't get breaks. And so you have to make that space for yourself and have that margin. But I think so often we prioritize sleep over ourselves, you know, oh, I'd rather sleep in than be awake and do something calming and relaxing. Like, we just always prioritize, like the easy thing. It's not easy to wake up early. It's not easy, you know, to chunk out a couple journal things or just to sit and be still. Like that is one of the hardest things and just listen, you know? Amen. On the flip side, we find ourselves complaining. Well, I don't hear From God or I'm not getting anything from this or whatever. It's like, well, we got to kind of look in the mirror for a second, you know. But that's such a good story. Hey ladies, real quick. If you are looking for a mentor, I just wanted to remind you that I offer mentorship to entrepreneurs. So if you're someone who has a never ending to do list and you're smiling out of control and feel like your business doesn't have a track plan, I want to work with you every single week for a month at a time. It's super simple. But I come from over 10 years of experience doing this myself and, and now I'm willing to give that information back to people. So I've mentored real estate agents, I've mentored wedding photographers, I've mentored other business owners and they've come from a place of overwhelm mostly and they really just needed clarity and a couple of action steps to move the needle. And we've seen Gigantum leaps and bounds in their business. Like I can't even tell you. So if you're interested and you want to know what that looks like, I want you to go to marina tolentino.com and there's a calendly link there to do a 15 minute discovery call with me just to see if we're a good vibe check to make sure we're on the same page. And I would love to work with you one on one to really boost your business to the next level. Let's dive back in. Totally relate and I know our audience does too, with the feeling of not being enough and not doing enough. And even when we're doing it all, it still isn't enough. Like what is the ceiling? You know, how do you help someone define that? How do we define a ceiling? Oh, how do you define the ceiling of enough is what I heard you asked. Yes, ceiling. Such a good question. One of the things that was very eye opening to me in this stillness when I made this shift to no, I'm going to actually rise to be still as opposed to do more. You mentioned how hard that is and that begs the question, why? Why is it so hard for us as women to be still? We haven't even defined what being still actually looks like. What does that mean? We haven't touched that yet. But generally we understand the idea of stillness. To be quiet, sitting and allowing our hearts and our minds to be present. That is what is so hard. And why is that so difficult? And I think you almost have to do, like the reverse work is looking at number one. What is it that is a result of us not feeling like we're enough? What is the pressure that we feel? And it basically comes down to busyness, right? Like that's what's overwhelming for us is the busyness, the calendar chaos. And so it's like you peel that back a little bit and it's, why am I so busy? Well, I'm so busy because look at my life. I'm a perfect example. I got all these masters in nursing and then I decided that I wanted to do a blog. And that's not to mention all the things that my kids are involved in. And I write fill in the blank. It's like, okay, so I'm doing all these things. Why do I feel the pressure to not only do all these things, but to do them all really, really well? Well, okay, then let's pull that back. Why do I feel that pressure? Okay, well, maybe it's because, and everyone's story is different, but maybe it's because I didn't get the affirmation that I was good at the things that I did as a kid. Maybe I had parents who were rock stars and did everything so well that I never felt like I could measure up as a kid. Maybe I am married to someone who is ahead of me in the things that I want to be doing well at. And I feel like I need to hustle to catch up to feel relevant in my own home. Whether that's self perceived or put on me, that's just in our home or the home that we grew up in. But now let's take a wider step back and look at all the influences that we are allowing into our home that are outside of it. And I would actually argue that this is as influential because not only is it impacting us, but but it also impacted our parents. Yeah, it also impacted their parents. Like the societal influence hits us in a generational impact which then shapes us and the people coming after us. But it's one that is harder in some ways to pinpoint and is actually not talked about as much in therapy as the relationship you might have had with your parents. Because it's so large. Yeah. And it's so big and we don't know how to touch it. But I'm peeling back these layers to answer this question. Like, what is the ceiling of enough? And I think it's, we have to first define what is enough. What does that mean? And then where in our life are we still not accepting enough? Yeah. And of course, why is something that we talk about in my program, Early Morning Habit. And at the heart of it for women specifically, very specifically, I think that not only do we feel the pressure to do it all and do it well, but we feel the pressure to do it looking imperfectly beautiful. Oh, yeah. Not just on the outside, but like our homes, our kids. What does it, what is the message that we're constantly getting, whether we acknowledge it or not? It's like we're being fed images. Now with social media, it's even 10 times worse. You know, we have filters to literally make us look flawless when in real life I have way more wrinkles. Right. Like I've got wrinkles. Absolutely. You know, my kids are not always smiling. My husband and I are not always doing well. Yeah. But these are that my house is rarely as beautiful as it looks in a quick snapshot. But these are the images that were fed. And even if you have the most authentic influencer in the world saying, like, just so you know, this is not always what my house looks like, we still choose to feed ourselves with those images constantly. And the pressure of a multi billion dollar marketing industry, especially for beauty, we keep propagating that need because they're feeding our insecurities. And then we keep feeding them back our money to keep feeding our insecurities. So at the end of the day, we're being hit from all sides. From how we were raised, from society, from Instagram, from within our homes, outside of our homes, and even in the church, because that still influences everything and our perception of God. So we're striving, we're busy, we're exhausted, we're tired. Because at the end of the day, at the heart of it, there is a sense of fear that we are not enough, we won't be enough. And that we're not going to do it just right, even just right for the Lord. And so what is the ceiling of? Enough. I'll say it like this, that we are so focused on striving to live right for Jesus that we are missing what it is to live loved by Jesus. That's good. And that is when we feel that we are enough. When we reverse that and rise to be still and know that he is God and allow that experiential knowledge, not just the head knowledge of it, but the experience of his love. Yeah. To become the reason that we rise, the reason that we live and we pursue what we do is to live loved. That's when we are finally going to feel like we are enough. Because he is enough. Yeah. And ultimately it's a priority shift. It's not about me. Do, do, do more, more, more. It's like he's first. Right. And then ultimately when you start to stack it the right way, everything else just trickles into place. But it's having that priority first. And so I want to hear you, like, how do you explain calendar chaos with health? Because I think we are addicted to the chaos. We all know this. There's actually a book I love by Jefferson Bethke called To Hell with the Hustle. Have you read it? No. Oh my God. Life changing. I read it during the pandemic. Perfectly timed. But he goes through all the statistics of like just industrialization and how it's changed and just how busy our modern American lives are now. Super recommend that. But talk to me about how the calendar affects our health and well being, like mentally, physically. What does that do to us? I think we're over here trying to do gym. Right. We're trying to heat healthy. And it's still nothing is really working. Hormones are changing again. Nothing is enough. How does it really impact us? There's a time management expert, his name is Tony Crab. And he, he called this stress. He defined it the stress of an infinite world. And the way that he termed this is that especially now with access to everyone's lives through social media especially, we're being presented with the dichotomy of two possibilities. Work and leisure. And to play this out, what it looks like is we see multimillion dollar success stories lounging on a beach with their four kids and spouse. Yeah. All smiling and looking happy and relaxed. There is not, that is not meant to demean that person's success or their leisure. But his point is that we now are constantly being fed these best case snapshots where it's like we get the success story of all the hustle and the hard work, while also somehow getting the leisure and the relaxation and the play. Yeah. So there's this constant tension that we're holding. It's like we want both, but in our pursuit of living, we almost miss living entirely because we're so busy pursuing both. And I think in my own life, I mean, I have seen this is it still plays into that concept of living to do right. Whatever that is perceived in our minds, it's maybe like trying to get the job promotion. It's trying to start your own business. It's trying to become the success story. Whatever success means to you or how you were raised to believe success looks like it's the family, you know, it's. We often talk about success, as in, like, money. But, you know, for some of us as moms, some of that hustle is making sure our kids are doing great. Our kids are great. Right. Like, they don't need therapy. They don't need the school counselor. They don't need. Right. It's like, we want to make sure our kids are fine, that they're not being traumatized. Mom, I'm here to tell you, you traumatized your kids. Get over it. Right. Like, we're not gonna do it perfectly. Like, we are just not going to. And that, I think, is what that calendar chaos looks like, is. It's this feeling that we need to be filling all the spaces because there's this inherent press. We feel like we need to do it in order to do what's right. Yeah. Whatever that looks like for each of us. But we're holding intention. It's like, we can't. How do we. How do we rest and relax when we have no time? It's like, how do we actually live? It's. It's like what he's talking about. It's work and play. Yeah. Infinite possibilities that both hold for us. And now we see everyone else's realities, and so it's really hard to be satisfied with our own and thinking, oh, maybe I should be doing this. Maybe I should do this. Fill in the blank, Whatever that looks like. Yeah. And it's affecting us mentally, emotionally, socially, spiritually, physically, the whole. The whole gamut, often until we don't even recognize that it is. Yeah. No. For sure. Hey, I'm sorry to interrupt, and I hope you're enjoying this episode of the Work Like a Mother podcast. Real quick, I just want to remind you guys, if you are worried about missing an episode, you don't have to worry anymore because we are creating a weekly email that's going to go out automatically every single time there's a brand new episode. And this email is going to have everything you need to know about this week's featured guests. It's going to have all of the links and the resources that we're going to talk about in this episode so you don't have to go around and fumble through the show notes, but it's gonna be served in your inbox every single week. So if you guys want that access, be sure to click below one time in the show notes today. Sign up for that email, and then you'll never have to worry about it in the future. And bonus, if you really love this, we'd love it if you share this with a friend, give us a review on whatever platform you're listening to, and we'll continue to bring new episodes, new information that's gonna help you level up your life every single single week. I think one of the ways I think of this too is just like kind of identifying the bare minimum. Like, if I can just do X, Y, Z. My kids have a roof. They have food, they. They have safety. Right. We're doing okay. First of all, I can already relax there. Okay. Second tier. What if I just do a little bit extra? Okay. We're meal prepping. We're scheduling appointments in advance. We've got parties on the calendar. Great. We are, like, winning now. We can really rest now. Above and beyond that, if I have time, if I have capacity, I can say yes to more things or do more onto my plate. Like, especially right as we record this. It's December. Right. Like, there's so many activities moving into. I can decide how much capacity I have. I can reset my buckets. And that just allows so much freedom because when I do that, when I, like, personally reflect. Wait, what actually do my kids have and need? You know, it's all taken care of, honey. I can absolutely relax and relax a little bit. But it is hard and it is taking that step to be. To accepting what is, I think, and again, being in the present. Present. But it's really uncomfortable for a lot of us. And it's a learned muscle of how to rest and relax. Do you guys do a Sabbath or like a full day of rest every week? We do not even like the phone. The, like, phone breaks, you know, I know some people do a whole day. For me, it's the morning. It isn't every day. My phone doesn't open until 8am I have it locked down until 8am and you know what? I wanted to also speak into this. What you just said was so good. Paring it down to less as much as we can. The reality is, even for a lot of us as women, paring it down to less is still insanely busy. Oh, yeah. And so it's almost like, how do we. It's like we have to own the fact that we're busy. We live in a culture of busy. That's our reality. No matter how much I parrot back, I'm going to be busy. Yeah. Poor kids involved. Husband and I work full time. Like, we're going to be busy. Yeah. So what does it look like then, to create that intentional rest in the busyness because we were Designed to be still. And that's, for me, like, what I hear from our community at Early Morning Habit more than anything is that the starting the day, being with the practices that we have created and the strategies in place. So it is not as difficult to be still and you know what to do in that time to maximize it. The to do list doesn't change. Yeah, but the perspective of it does. And you touched on it. It's the idea of taking that step back and looking at the big picture and saying, oh, we're actually okay. Yeah. Like, I feel so anxious right now. I do. But when I take the moment to change the perspective and I step back, ooh, okay. Deep breath. Like, we are okay. I am okay. But that doesn't mean ignoring the difficulties. And that's where my proprietary practice of emotionally intelligent gratitude comes in. It is a neuroscientific approach to actually, in a systematic way, use gratitude while unlocking emotional intelligence to actually be able to rewire our brains throughout the rest of the day to do what you just said. Yeah, it's that deep breath of, oh, okay, I'm okay. Great. Pat on the, yeah, we'll be okay. But that takes just like exercise takes time to build a muscle. That takes a lot of practice because our brains, most of us, are wired for anxiety. Fear was what anxiety is rooted in, is fear. And so how do we actually rewire those neuronal pathways? Some of them have been started when we were kids, depending on how we were raised. That anxiety has been there since you were first even connecting those pathways. And so it takes a long time to rewire those so that when something comes up during the day, you have spent enough practice every morning learning to rewire the patterns of how you think, which then create the emotion, which then creates the behavior to actually, like, create that new foundation so that during the day, when that thing comes up, that disrupts your plans or you didn't see it coming, or your kids melting it, the baseline changes, which then creates that behavioral change because you have started here and rewiring how you think. So that's. That's. What you said was perfect. Uh, well, I want to hear what does your morning routine look like today? And, like, actually break me down by step a little bit. Um, and just again, it's. You're going to get to that point where you wake up and you're, like, relaxed in the morning, and you're proactive and being reactive when your kids are waking you up. So I. I'm a true believer in this, too. Getting up before my kids, even if it's just 15 minutes, it's an ability for me to have the coffee going. And then when they get up, I'm happy to see them instead of begrudged to see them. It's a total perspective. Go back to bed, child. Yeah, so walk me through. Alarm goes off. What time are you getting up? What are you doing? Yeah. So here is the very counterintuitive key. Your morning routine actually starts at dinner the night before. So the first thing we talk about in my program is this very concept because you mentioned it. A lot of us prioritize sleep, sleep, but the problem is we're prioritizing the wrong elements of sleep. So one of the first things that we talk about when we talk about morning routine at early morning habit is how to rehab your sleep the night before, which actually starts at dinner time. Specifically we're prioritizing, prioritizing high protein dinners, lean protein. Specifically we talk about the science behind that. Stopping eating after 8 o'clock. There's a lot of reasons to stop it that actually help promote better sleep. So we stop eating at 8 o'clock and then we have a whole system that I've created called the sensory Sleep Rehab System and it is a nightly checklist. And in the program we dive into the science behind it and specifically how to implement it in your home also for your children to truly help restore sleep. It's week two of our six week program and it is one of the crowd favorites because the effect effects are so fast for so many of our, our women sleeping better for the first time. So obviously if you're not sleeping well, you're not rising well, you're not living well. So before we can even talk about pushing an alarm clock back, we have to start the night before to actually rehab sleep so that when you get up, you don't feel like you want to punch somebody. Yep, that might take a little while. It took me about two years, which is why I created the program. It'll take you a lot, a lot less time. So we work on sleeping better. First for me specifically, I get up at

5: 28:30

30. To be very clear, in my program, we talk about how it is less about the time on the alarm clock and more about how you start your day. For many of us as busy moms, that does mean getting up early because we don't want to wake up with our kids. Yeah, but if you don't have kids at home or if your kids wake up later, just to

be clear, you don't have to get up at 5: 28:52

30. This can be done at

8:00. This could be done at even 9: 28:55

00, depending on what your schedule is. But the idea is you want to get up when there is stillness, whatever that looks like. You want to start your day in stillness, whatever time that requires. So

for me it's 5: 29:10

30 and coffee first. This is also a little hack that is life changing. It is. It is absolutely worth investing in an automated coffee grinder. Oh yes. I cannot believe how many people still don't have this. It doesn't have to be fresh ground beans people if you don't like. Really, I'm a coffee snob. But whatever it is, your hot beverage of choice, automate it so that it is ready for you when you wake up in the morning. I saw a direct. I'm a little bit of a statistics research nerd. Thank you, John Hopkins. But basically I saw a direct correlation. If my coffee was not ready for me, I went back to bed. It was that simple. Because when you're creating that habit and you're not naturally a morning person, the thought of having to make coffee before the sun has even risen is like, what? Stop it. I'm going back to bed. Yeah. Yeah, I gotta wait 10 minutes. You need? Yeah, like what? I forget, I'm on the. I'm already on the sofa asleep under the blanket. Like it happened consistently. So I realized, okay, nope, I need to automate. No decision making in the morning. This is one of the takeaways. We're already decision fatigued. Yeah, you need to make those early morning moments so automated that consciousness is optional. It needs to be automated. Step number one, a successful early morning routine. Stop trying to make decisions. It's not the time. So automating your hot beverage of choice maker is what I recommend. You can do that with hot water too if you're a tea person. So coffee is brewed, ready for me. I sit down and I practice emotionally intelligent gratitude through God's word and prayer. And you know, there's a whole approach to that. But basically the short version of is it I'm spending time in God's word and I'm talking to Jesus about all the things. Yeah. Praising him, crying with him, getting it all out, ending with praise and gratitude. But we hit the hard section like. 30 minutes, 15 minutes. How long are you doing that? So for me specifically, it looks about 20 to 30 minutes.

Okay, so I'm up at 5: 31:19

30 coffee

time with God and then I start my workout at 6: 31:23

15. Okay. So that's about 30. That's about 30 minutes. Um, and then

6: 31:33

15, my programmed alarm goes off on my phone. My workout space is in my office. I'm looking at it. Um, so my alarm is up here. My phone's locked but my alarm can still go off. So it makes a really loud noise. So I have to get my butt up from the family room downstairs up to my office to turn it off so I don't wake up my kids. And that's also a hack that I used. And then I do a workout. 30 minutes or less. One of the early morning habit workouts on our app. And yep, yep, a lot of our workouts are actually 20 minutes and there's a lot of reasons for that.

And then, yeah, that's at 6: 32:14

15. And then my kids alarm goes off

at like 6: 32:17

45, 7. Yeah, yeah. So to be clear, the program, that's my specific one. Mine's an hour and a half. The program you start out only putting your alarm back 30 minutes earlier and you do 15 minutes of quiet. 15 minutes in God's word. I'm sorry, 15 minutes of quiet. 15 minutes of a workout. The, the end goal in early morning habit is an hour. It's like the power hour. Stillness, strength, God's word workout. Like those are basically the two things that we're prioritizing. So again, it's less about how early you get up, it's how you're starting your day. And the workout piece is we want, we want to get it done. Fitness freedom feels so good. Yeah. It's life changing. You just get it done.

Yeah. Which is not easy. I didn't even want to make coffee at 5: 33:06

30 in the morning. Ladies working out before the sun is up is also like, forget it. Who are you? But it is possible. I'm living proof. As is our community. No. 100%. And when you surround yourself with like minded people who are also going through it, it will make it so much easier because you're not the only one. Amen. Your whole house is sleeping and you're the only one up. It's so easy to be like this is too difficult and going back to bed. But when you have 500 other women going through it, you're like, yes, we're all doing it together by ourselves. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And the added component to that is there were two things most reported as barriers to women's success in health and fitness goals. And it was motivation and accountability. And the accountability piece is something that I really worked to incorporate into early morning habit because this is not easy. It's not. We've established that it's hard. It is hard. And so one of the things that we have is we have an adoption fundraising program. So what that is is when you enter into Early Morning Habit in the six week program, a portion of that investment is given forward to a mom raising funds to bring her son or daughter home through a fundraising platform called lifesong for Orphans. But how much is given forward is dependent on how you show up for yourself over that six weeks. So you track the mornings that you got your workout done and it just has to be done in the morning. That's an honor call. Yeah. And that you started your day in stillness. Wow. So you track those two things. So where we reward progress, not perfection. So a portion of it goes forward no matter what. But in order to get the full reward, you have to do at least 80% of the five days, five days a week. And it helps. I have women that are like, you know, I was not gonna do it today. And then I thought about Joanna Rich and the little girl she's bringing home from Taiwan. And the thought that like, this could make all the difference in how much I could forward. And I got my butt up and I did it. It makes a difference because women, we are so generous and we want to serve people. And so we're trying to reverse that idea of like, our strength is our weakness. We're serving everyone else and we're exhausted. So how do we keep that a strength instead of a weakness? And that's, that's how we're doing it. That's a great idea. That's so good. What do you want someone to do who listened to the show today? They're curious now. They're like, yes, I need this in my life. New year, new me, I'm gonna do this. What should they do after this call? Well, you have, you have two options. Depends on how ready you are to come hang out with me at Early Morning Habit. But one, there is a free masterclass that I offer. It's 60 minutes and it's called Rise Renewed. And what we're doing is we are offering you free training. There is so much value in it. Just in this 60 minutes to give you three of the most powerful sleep tips that I teach in the sensory sleep rehab system. How to sleep better. We talk about the motivation piece. How do we overcome motivation? Because again, if you're not a morning person, it's really, really hard. So how do you actually create a fail proof solution to overcome the lack of motivation that you will absolutely feel at some point. We talk about that and then we dive into emotionally intelligent gratitude and how to actually be still. What does that look like? So that's for those of you like, I just want to check it out. See, see what, what she's like. What's. What's her vibe? What's this program teaching? And I'm happy to give you the link to that free masterclass and then otherwise. Earlymorninghabit.com is our website and we would love to have you join us. It's open enrollment at any time on the app and we'll. We'll see you there. That's so good. Yay. I'm excited. So we'll have all of that in the show notes below so people can click through. And then I end up every episode with a fun rapid fire. So what is your Starbucks order? Ooh, nitro sweet cream. Yum. Yup. Cold. What do you make for dinner if it's last minute? Super, super last minute. Frozen pizza from Costco. There you go. Cheap ball. What's your favorite department of Target? And do you have a favorite designer. Shoe? Although I say that, but I don't buy shoes at Target. Buy the clearance rack. The clearance rack of clothing at Target. Awesome book. Or a podcast you'd recommend. Book Rapid fire. This is me not. This is me not firing rapidly. Can you think of a book that would, like, change the game for your mindset? Yeah, I was just trying to think of a mindset one. Yeah, actually one of my. This is also a lot in line with what I teach, but he said it in a very different way. Anatomy of the soul. Oh, I haven't heard of that one. Okay, fantastic. Yay. Anatomy of the soul. Cool. TikTok or Instagram? Instagram. Awesome. And what's your handle? My name. Ana Fulmer. A H N A F U L M E R. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Anna. This was so much fun and I'm so glad people are going to discover you and just hear all the things because I know we are always about New Year's resolutions and they kind of die out by two weeks, you know, but this is really changes that are permanent. Like, we can't go through motherhood tired and overwhelmed. Like, it's going to be a miserable ride. We got to be in the present. And so this is one of those. Pieces we have to have in the puzzle, you know, to really just beat us and be the best version of us. So thank you so much. Yeah, thanks, Marina. It was an honor. Yeah. We'll be in touch. Thank you.