We were lucky to catch up with Courtney Richardson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Courtney thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Has Covid resulted in any major changes to your business model?

Many businesses were unfortunate and experienced great loss during the pandemic; however, I was grateful to continue my meal prep services for a select number of clients which allowed me to broaden my scope of service and how and where I do business. In March 2020, I expanded my meal prep and consulting services beyond the Houston area and gained clients in the greater New Orleans and Baton Rouge areas. This helped me to personally connect my purpose of educating loved ones on how to maximize their total well-being and become more health conscious about the things we eat. I was able to customize meal prep packages by working with a team of dietitians and offer concierge delivery options. I also took advantage of the virtual space by partnering with several large health, wellness, and financial companies to offer virtual, live cooking demonstrations to teach their employees key meal prepping and planning tips that would sustain them through these life-changing times and challenge them to make more health-conscious decisions in the future.

Additionally, I was able to bridge the gap between a family history of health issues with healthy lifestyle changes. By expanding my services to my hometown, New Orleans, LA, I was able to influence many of my family, friends, and associates to add at least 30 minutes of physical activity to their daily routine and asked them to join me on this meal prep journey to transform our lives from within. Within just a short period, many of them began to use daily exercise to release stress while others saw drastic improvement in their biometric numbers and collectively lost more than 100 pounds. What started as a family project to keep my loved ones and I connected during these times transformed into a lifelong legacy of cherished memories to build new generational traditions. In May 2021, I partnered with two of my first cousins and my sister, to develop Marion Seeds, LLC. – a close-knit family-inspired platform that allows individuals to nurture a community for generational wealth. It is inspired by kitchen tips passed down from generations, starting with our grandmother and is the essence of how to cook with love. Since food is at the core of everything I do, it was important to offer a personal touch to my services during the pandemic that would not only help improve the lifestyle choices of my clients, but also shift the narrative of my family’s long history of health concerns. Despite the challenges that arose during the pandemic, I saw many of my clients and loved ones overcome life’s hardships and a lot of it had to do with the relationships they built with their personal health, daily lifestyle choices, and purpose for living.

Courtney , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Courtney, an expert in health and wellness with more than 10 years of experience in the industry. I love to think of myself as a food enthusiast and meal prep connoisseur. I am a New Orleans native and have always loved food but decided to make health-conscious food choices after discovering a family history of health conditions. I find joy in fulfilling my purpose of helping others in need and using my passion for food to inspire individuals to live a healthier lifestyle.

I come from a background of many health issues and decided that I would become more health conscious to make sure I did not experience some of the same issues many of my family members have. My mother passed away in 2014 due to unforeseen health issues and I have made a commitment to help educate others about their health and well-being.
I work with dozens of organizations across the world to inspire and connect with their employees by implementing programs that engage in their health and well-being. I use meaningful ways to engage motivated leaders in conversations that help shape the culture of their company.

When I curated Ya Meal Prep Shawty™, it was cultivated and inspired by the beautiful city of New Orleans, Louisiana – where you can find great culture, great food, and great people. Based on these foundations, I developed health and well-being services that capture all these things through my meal prep packages, lifestyle coaching and consultations, live cooking demonstrations, speaking engagements and more. With a highly anticipated series of cookbooks on the horizon, Ya Meal Prep Shawty™ merges the joys of cooking Nola-inspired delicious and organic meals with a passion for healthy lifestyle changes through food! My goal is to always intrigue others to try a new recipe or even share in some of the inspiring healthy tips that hopefully ignite the food lover within!

When it comes to nourishing our mind, body, and spirit – everything matters. Specifically, when it pertains to what we put inside of our mouths and ears. Collectively with family and loved ones, I have created a series of live discussions around healthy living, lifestyle choices, relationships, and finances that will help get people ‘In the Kitchen with Courtney’ and live with purpose.

Since expanding my services throughout the greater Houston and southern Louisiana region, I have embarked on a new adventure to help transform lives. Now working alongside my newlywed husband, I am an executive producer of several media projects including a top Apple podcast called, Off da Fence with Finch – a podcast that helps enhance the lives, finances, careers, and relationships of our audience to help them scale and climb over life’s hurdles. Now based out of Los Angeles, CA I’m excited to announce that I have also began offering meal prep and consulting services to clients in the Los Angeles area and it has been a full-circle experience to expand my passion for cooking and love for helping others to the West Coast. This experience has embraced a space that welcomes healthy conversations around lifestyle changes and puts things into perspective – from the inside out.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I have always manifested a life of building generational wealth for my family through lifelong partnerships and I am elated to share that the journey has been nothing short of amazing. As I briefly mentioned a few partnerships I embarked on during the pandemic with family members – there is one that stands out. I remember meeting my husband years ago, then as just a friend, and was so intrigued and inspired by his tenacity and the vision he carried. When I first laid eyes on him, I said to myself, “that’s somebody’s husband!” Little did I know we would become lifelong friends, partners, and business owners. When we reconnected and decided to choose one another as lifelong partners, it was an almost immediate decision for the both of us. Our passion for empowering individuals and living out a purpose of healing – whether it’s through food or the words we speak, aligned perfectly. If you have ever met someone who makes you laugh all night long and shares the same vision as you to help transform the lives of the people you encounter, all the while looking good doing it – you can understand my love and joy for my husband. One thing I most enjoy about working alongside my husband is how organic it feels to walk in purpose with the one you love. I will be honest and say that it is not for the faint heart to work and live with your business partner. It is very important to establish healthy boundaries, practice work-life balance and more importantly, spend time figuring out who you are as a person and finding your WHY. We vowed to put each other first in everything we do and that takes selfless effort to do so because we understand our purpose with clear vision. We work well together and spend most of our time truly living the Southern California dream as we both migrated West from the South. I am looking forward to sharing our story and journey more in our upcoming series, Smiles & Sandwiches, so be sure to follow our productions studio on Instagram @itsfinchstudios.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

It’s funny that this question asks about a lesson I had to unlearn as I spend most of my time trying to help others maneuver through life’s lessons. One lesson I had to unlearn was how to stop sending my representative and start showing up as my authentic self in everything I do. Some of you may relate to what it means to send your representative and others may not, so I will make it plain. Sending my representative means that I would be sending a version of myself that was pleasing for others even if it meant I was not fully present. In other words, I would be pouring into others from a half empty cup. I realized that if I truly wanted to make an impact and help myself and others, I would have to start showing up as myself and be present. I will be honest; this was one of the key things I had to do to understand my role as a healer, a wife, a friend, and business partner. I have learned that we spend so much time trying to figure out life that we rarely take the time to be present and ask ourselves why we do the things we do. Moreso, I recognized that we rarely ask ourselves where we learned to do the things we do and if these things are beneficial to our overall growth and purpose in life.

During the pandemic, I was on the brink of a mental breakdown, and I realized it was because of how I was showing up for others and not for myself. This reality hit me hard, and I had to make some big adjustments if I wanted to truly walk in my purpose and be present while doing it. Growing up in a religious background made this difficult for me because I was always taught the concept of putting others first. On a deeper level, I was taught to be strong and not show my weak points or it would give people the opportunity to take advantage of me. But what happens when you show up for others and not yourself? What happens when you start to give more attention to what others are saying, thinking, and doing and you forget to live in the present moment and just be. I’ll tell you – you can lose yourself. As a health and well-being expert who has a passion for taking care of others, putting others first has always been my motto. But as I unlearned this concept, my approach at serving others became little different. I recognize that my purpose in life is to serve, and it’s a daily choice. So, like everything in life, I make choices that are conducive for my healing, growth, and lifestyle. I choose to wake up with joy to serve daily, but I make a conscious effort and priority to spend time in deep meditation and reflection first to make sure my cup is full before pouring into others. This is how I remain true to self and true to serving others.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.yamealprepshawty.com
• Instagram: @yamealprepshawty; @marionseeds; @itsfinchstudios