We recently connected with Kristyn Granahan and have shared our conversation below.

Kristyn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I recently saw a post by a woman sharing how she got on a relationship-matching website in her 40s, bought a farmhouse in her early 50s, quit her career in her late 50s, and started an online hustle in her 60s. She called it her four midlife reinvention leaps.

When Lyme disease robbed me of my 20s, I felt like I lost so much of my prime. Those should have been the years for fun, exploration, and self-discovery. Instead, I spent half of that time sick in bed, accumulating over $100k in medical bills, while the other half was spent searching for a maintenance level that would allow me to engage with life consistently.

I’m grateful for how far I’ve come in my health, and posts like this remind me that many prime years are still ahead. After all, prime is a mindset, not just a number.

Engaging in this mindset, I’ve been taking risks along the way, from starting a virtual assistant business from my bed as a way to make money while I was in the heat of Lyme treatment, burning it to the ground to going into corporate work, to my current risk of starting a meal prepping business after a recent layoff.

Lyme disease taught me that we often believe everything is important—until we get sick and realize that health is the foundation of it all. Without it, everything else becomes far less possible. By learning to dial back the weight we place on things, I’ve found it easier to take risks, whether big or small. Through each risk, failure, and success, I’ve learned that each risk or pivot doesn’t need to make sense to anyone but you.

So take the risk and embrace your prime, because it gets to keep getting better.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was living my dream and making my way as a female lead in the culinary industry, preparing for the Culinary Olympics with Team USA when I got sick with a case of mono that lasted for 9 months. I had to quit the team and my job, moving back home with my mom because I was too ill to function.

Doctors couldn’t figure out why I was still sick after two years. Eight doctors, $30,000, and a whole lot of self-advocacy later, I was finally  diagnosed with leaky gut, then Lyme disease. This experience inspired me to launch my health coaching business, to help others who are fighting to be heard and taken seriously by doctors. I was also put on such restrictive diets that had I not known how to cook would’ve felt like an “air and water” diet. Now I get to teach others how to cook food they can enjoy, even on restrictive diets.

Through my health journey, I’ve learned the importance of health and boundaries. Along with medical healing, I also left a toxic relationship, set new boundaries with my friends and family, and focused on healing both physically and emotionally. By March 2020, I reached Lyme remission, relaunched my business, and now help people reclaim their health through intuitive energy work, culinary education, and integrative nutrition. To lean into my culinary roots, I am currently working on launching a private chef and meal-prepping business in Northern Colorado.

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

One of the biggest lessons I have learned (and am still learning every day) in both life and business is that struggle is a choice, especially financially. If you’re anything like me, you grew up in a family that didn’t have a lot of money, but we always managed to get by. I watched my parents struggle to make ends meet, taking second jobs or as the saying goes, “borrowing from Peter to pay Paul”.

Watching this engrained a belief system in me that it would be hard to make money, and further, make just enough money to get by. I found myself in this constant cycle of bills increasing with income, or anytime I came into any extra money, a bill costing just as much showed up in the mail. Money felt HARD. Granted, I had tons of medical bills from Lyme treatments, many of which were not covered by insurance. But it felt like I just couldn’t catch a break.

It wasn’t until I dug deep into my beliefs around money that I realized I’d been conditioned to think it had to be hard and feel like a struggle to succeed. It took years to reprogram this mindset, but I’ve learned that while challenges may arise, things don’t have to be a struggle — success can come with ease and flow, and success looks different to everyone. Creating your vision of success will get you further than chasing someone else’s version of success, always.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown has strongly impacted my business strategy. Business owners tend to have a million ideas, struggle to stick to one (because what if the next one works even better?!), and seem to always be trying the next best tool, resource, etc. to get ahead. Essentialism helped me re-evaluate everything going into my business and simplify, simplify, simplify. I was able to eliminate back-end processes and even realize how over-delivery of materials to my clients was overwhelming them, too. Refining everything I was doing in my business has allowed me to prioritize needle-moving tasks, reduce the amount of buckets I’ve had my hands in, and ultimately show up better for my clients because of this.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://shutthegutup.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shutthegutup
• Other: https://shutthegutup.substack.com/

Image Credits

Gina Ribando of In Full Detail