Ricki Heller Did This to Get on Ellen Degeneres’ Radar

Transcription

Welcome back to the show. I hope you’re doing great and having a great day. It’s about to get a little bit better. We’ve got a great guest on today named Ricki Heller. This is going to be a fun interview because she’s going to share some cool stuff about removing excuses and just doing what you must do to get on people’s radars or get stuff done.

The title of this episode is “What Ricki Did to Get on Ellen DeGeneres’ Radar.” That’s tough to do. Ellen DeGeneres is a pretty big deal, so you’re going to discover what Ricki did from a guerrilla marketing tactic. This is Guerrilla Marketing 101. It’s a great lesson and, whether you want to get on Ellen’s radar or anybody else’s, you’ll be surprised at how simple this is.

I’ll tell you right now that the reason most people don’t do this is because they have and inherent human built-in hardwiring that says, “Oh my God, what if this person doesn’t like me?” You’re going to see how Ricki overcame that. I think it’s going to be super powerful for you.

A quick background on who Ricki Heller is: She’s a holistic nutritionist and author, recipe creator, and educator. Her world was turned upside down when health issues forced her to cut out gluten, sugar, eggs, and dairy in 2009, and rather than give up work as a professional baker, which she was, she went and studied holistic nutrition and recreated all her favorite desserts and baked goods in healthier forms.

Today, she shares recipes and information through her blog, RickiHeller.com, her online programs, and individual coaching for people on restricted diets. She’s also the author of two best-selling cookbooks, “Naturally Sweet,” “Gluten-Free and Living Candida-Free,” and was a nominee in 2016 for a Canadian Holistic Nutrition Award. She lives just outside of Toronto, so it’s always a great honor to have more Canadians on the show. I’m super proud of that.

She was also featured and recommended on Ellen’s website. She’s going to share exactly how that all happened. She’s been featured in a bunch of media. Anyways, she’s going to share her secret sauce here. I think you’ll enjoy this. Without any further ado, let’s welcome Ricki Heller onto the show.

Hey Ricki, welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast. How are you?

Ricki:              I’m great. Thank you so much for having me.

 

Introducing Ricky, her journey, and how Ellen endorsed her self-published book

Yuri:                Yes, you are very welcome. Thank you for being here. We’re going to have a lot of fun today, guys. Ricki’s an awesome person doing some great stuff in the holistic nutrition space, as we’ve mentioned before. We’re going to talk about the journey in a few moments.

You mentioned to me that you got started in the space a little bit later in life. How did that happen? What was the initial moment where you made that decision to do this? How did you get from there to where you are now?

Ricki:              Yeah, it was a real process, I must say.

I come from a teaching background. I taught at a college for 27 years, but I’ve been immersed in food, one way or another, my whole life. I come from a family of bakers and I was always baking. Even though I was teaching full-time, I think food and working with food was always on the back burner, so to speak.

I always had something else going on while I was teaching. I didn’t even think of it as work, really. Just as an example, when I was newly married I would send baked goods to my husband’s office with him because I baked all the time. Of course, I didn’t want them at home because I would eat them all.

Yuri:                I’m sure that made him happy.

Ricki:              And it made his workers happy. One day, after about a year, he came home and he said, “My colleague wants to know if you’ll cater her wedding.” I had no idea what I would do or how I would do it. I had no idea, but I just said yes because I knew I loved to bake and I was thrilled that somebody wanted to hire me.

Little things like that happened over the years, but eventually what made the shift for me was a food blog I was writing just for fun. After I graduated from CSNN, Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, where I studied holistic nutrition…

Yuri:                Me too.

Ricki:              Oh, did you? Great. Yeah, it was such a great school. I was doing that just for fun, then I was diagnosed with candida overgrowth. Of course, my diet had to radically change.

Suddenly this food blog that dealt a lot with baked goods, sweets, and things, became a candida food blog because that was all I could eat. What I found was that my audience increased exponentially. I was basically niching down and didn’t realize it, right? I was suddenly so focused on candida.

From there, it was just happenstance. I had a lot of people over two years asking me for help and advice. I can tell you the moment where I didn’t even realize it, but it became a business.

This is a tangential story, but it does all fit together. I was newly on Twitter and one day I noticed that Ellen DeGeneres was following me on Twitter. I’m assuming that, at the time, she was vegan. I don’t know if she still is vegan, and she had just gone sugar-free. Of course, I was sugar-free.

Anyway, I saw this and something clicked. It was like I was back in my teenage mentality. I started tweeting at Ellen literally every minute, one tweet a minute.

I remember this so well because I didn’t even have a smartphone or anything at the time. I was sitting at my desktop just tweeting and tweeting, and then I’d run to the bathroom, and then I’d tweet, and tweet, and tweet. At one point I thought, “Hey, why don’t I turn on the Ellen Show and then I can make references to what’s happening on the show.”

I did this from 9:00 AM till about 9:00 PM. Seriously. It was just fun.

I kept tweeting that I had this great book that I had just self-published which was all vegan sugar-free treats. Anyway, about two weeks later, when I was looking at my blog stats to see who came to my blog, with how many hits and whatnot, I noticed a whole bunch of hits from Warner Bros.

I had no idea what that would be. Then, when I went to check, it was Ellen’s website and she had recommended my self-published cookbook on her website.

Yuri:                Wow.

Ricki:              I can remember, literally, standing in my office and shaking for about 10 minutes. I couldn’t believe it. Then, I called my husband and all my friends.

That was a turning point for me. As anybody who knows about getting a reference on a big person’s site, it didn’t result in any book sales, but what that did do was allow me to leverage that. I could acquire a literary agent to get that book republished as a conventionally published book, which was called “Naturally Sweet and Gluten-Free.”

Then again, because I was writing about candida while I was writing the draft of that book, another publisher who didn’t even know I had an agent contacted me to say, “Would you like to write a book about candida?”

That was the book I wanted to write in the first place. I ended up working on two books at the same time, which I would not recommend to anybody ever. It almost killed me. But when the first book came out, it suddenly hit me that I needed to adopt a more professional demeanor online.

It’s not just a personal little blog anymore, I wanted it to be what I do. That’s when I made a conscious decision to rebrand. I changed the name of the blog. I started thinking about what else I could do besides writing recipes and books.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. It’s so true, too, because it’s a mindset shift taking it from a hobby to a profession, right? It’s, “This is what I like to do here and there,” versus “This is my livelihood”. As soon as you make that distinction, everything changes. That’s awesome that you could make that shift.

Ricki:              I wouldn’t say I made it that fast, to be honest. It wasn’t instantaneous. I’m still working on it, but that was the moment when the shift started, let’s say.

Yuri:                Sure. The tweeting was to Ellen, or just around her topics and show?

Ricki:              No, direct tweets. At that point, I don’t know if anybody follows Ellen, but it was new. I think it was 2010. I don’t know how new she was to Twitter, but she used to brag that her tweets were her own.

I remember her tagline. She said, “My tweets are my own and they’re magnificent,” or something like that. Which was a line from L.A. Story, I think. She was referencing that line in L.A. Story where Sarah Jessica Parker is talking about her boobs being real, right? She said, “My tweets are real and they’re mine and they’re magnificent,” or something like that.

In effect, if that was true, she was seeing them because I was tagging her on every tweet.

At some point, she was getting inundated with tweets from me. The funny thing was, as the day went on, I started noticing other vegan cookbook authors tweeting Ellen. I guess people saw me tweeting out hundreds and hundreds of tweets and they thought, “Oh, that’s a good idea.” It was hilarious. But I’m assuming, because of she’s never contacted me or anything.

I’m assuming she just saw them at some point when she was looking at her feed and she saw all these tweets coming from the same person about her book and how I have vegan sugar-free treats. Then I was making jokes about the guests on the show at times. I was possessed that day, seriously.

 

Her thoughts on entrepreneurship, overthinking things, and persistence

Yuri:                There’s a huge lesson there of the power of persistence.

What you demonstrated there was something that I would say almost everybody lacks, including myself a lot of times. You get to the point where you think, “Okay, I don’t want to be annoying. Are they going to get pissed off at me?”

What was your thought process as you were tweeting? What was going on in your mind as you were doing that?

Ricki:              You know what? It’s interesting; it didn’t occur to me that I would be annoying. They were all – if I say so myself – funny tweets. I know she has a great sense of humor and I knew that she was talking a lot about being vegan, going sugar-free, and wanting help around that.

In a way, this was something I was offering her. This is a book. I kept saying, “I’d love to come on your show and give these treats to you.” When I look back, what hits me the most about it is that if I had stopped to think about what I was doing. I just thought, “Oh, that will be a fun thing to do.”

It was like I was a teenager again, not even thinking about the consequences. If I had stopped to think about it, I would have thought exactly what you just said. “It’s Ellen, for God’s sake. Who am I to tweet Ellen? Of course, she’s not going to see this.” I would never have done it. I was doing it more for me in a way, in a weird way.

I was having fun with it. It was something that I thought of doing and I thought, “I’m going to be so crazy and silly today.” That’s how I was as a kid and I felt like I had lost a lot of that as I got older. For some reason, that day, the spirit moved me again and I just went with it.

If I hadn’t done that, had I stopped to think about it for even 30 seconds, I probably would’ve just stopped and given up. I just thought, “I’m having fun,” so if I was having fun I kept doing it.

Yuri:                Yeah. That’s cool. I think what you mentioned about getting out of your head, or not even allowing you to get there in the first place, is an important part, too. I can relate to thinking, “Well, am I going to be annoying if I message this person too often?” But, it’s funny, because when you speak to successful people, one of the things that they admire is persistence.

A lot of times, when we email, message, or tweet someone, sometimes they don’t respond to us as a test, like, “Does this person even have the wherewithal to follow-up?” It’s a filtering mechanism. Sometimes people don’t hear a response and they give up. In your case, you just kept going and going and going.

I think it’s such a great example of top of mind. When you’re top of mind, you’re tip of tongue. Obviously, she was thinking sugar-free, maybe candida, and then you were the first thing that came to mind.

That’s such a great example of the power of just doing your thing, not overthinking it, and not letting that little mind fret get in the way. That’s such a cool story.

Ricki:              Oh, good. Since then, I’ve had thoughts about deliberately trying to contact someone who I think is a big guru in business, or somebody who I admire. Of course, I’ve had second thoughts about it, right? Now it’s become something that I’m consciously trying to do, so I think you’re right.

Being able to get out of your head, that’s something for sure that has served me well over the years when I can do it.

 

Failure, perfection, discussing business, and her exit strategy from teaching

Yuri:                Yeah, totally. We were talking before we started recording about the journey that you’ve been on in terms of your own growth as an entrepreneur. What are one or two big lessons you’ve learned about yourself, or had to learn about business, since you started several years ago?

Ricki:              I don’t know if this is a lesson, but I never realized that I have always been an entrepreneur, but just never realized it.

Looking back, I’ve always had a side hustle going on. In my mind, it was, “Oh, I just need extra money from teaching. Teaching is great and secure, but I wish I had more.” I was just always wanting more and wanting to further myself and use my potential further then what I was doing in my day job.

I would start little businesses. That’s what they were, but I didn’t think of them as that at the time. I catered, and at one point I was doing tutoring on the side because I was an English teacher at college.

That was something I learned about myself, because I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur. When I first decided that I was going to leave my job and do this full-time, I was struck by self-doubt, lack of confidence, and all those things. I didn’t know if I could do it; I’m so not entrepreneurial.

But now that I’ve learned so much more about what some of the traits of entrepreneurs are, I think yeah, I was entrepreneurial. That was a big “ah-ha” for me. Then the other thing for me, which was huge, is that you absolutely must embrace failure.

Growing up, especially as a teacher, I was an absolute type A perfectionist. That held me back a lot. That’s probably part of the reason why it took me so long to do what I’m doing. I was always afraid of not being perfect, and if I couldn’t get it right the first time, I didn’t want to do it. I was too insecure to try it if I couldn’t get it right the first time.

What I’m trying to do now is just totally embrace failure. I think you need to be able to fail with ease to be a successful entrepreneur.

Yuri:                That’s such a great point. The irony is that a lot of high achieving entrepreneurs are type A perfectionists.

I don’t think a lot of us have the mindset out of the gate to say, “You know what? I’m going to fail and it’s all good, because the faster I fail, the more I learn, the more I can grow.” You have to go through the pains of getting to this point where you’re like, “You know what? All right. Maybe everything’s not going to be perfect, I’m just going to fail.”

But it’s tough, because there is that resistance initially. We’re wired to say, “It’s got to be done right. It’s got to be perfect. I can do this better than anyone else.” When it doesn’t go right, it’s very deflating. I can certainly relate to that.

I know a lot of people we’ve had on the show can relate to that, as well as probably most of our listeners. We’re all high achievers wanting to grow, do more, and be more. It’s essentially these dichotomies and these contrasting forces that we play with on a day-to-day basis.

Ricki:              Oh, yeah. It’s true, like in my case, pretty much everybody who was in my life before I did this was not an entrepreneur, even just well-meaning family members. They see the failure and that’s all they see. They think, “Okay, this is never going to work,” and they try to talk you out of it.

I’ve wanted to not discuss my business with my family and friends anymore, because to them, and certainly this is the way I used to think, failure means that it’s over. You failed. Now, I try to approach it as, “Okay, what can I learn from this? Okay, next.”

Yuri:                Yeah, good point. We speak with so many health coaches and experts on a weekly basis and one of the biggest objections they have about enrolling in one of our workshops or programs is that they need to talk to their spouse.

I understand that because you’re part of a relationship you want to make decisions together, but what I realized very recently was that I’ve never asked my wife for her permission to invest in anything business-related.

Ricki:              Neither have I.

Yuri:                I remember the first mastermind I invested in was $18,000 of money I didn’t have. I didn’t even talk to my girlfriend at the time, who’s now my wife, because I knew I had to do that and make it work no matter what. What I’ve found is that, a lot of times, when people let someone else decide for them, there are a few things happening.

Either they don’t believe in themselves and don’t have the confidence to do it and make it work, or they’ve simply lost their power. They don’t have control of their life, so they let someone else make their decisions. I think it’s a cop out.

I love the fact that you brought that up because, again, we as entrepreneurs are the leaders of our families, businesses, and people we serve, and we must make the decisions. We can’t leave it up to someone else to make those decisions for us.

Ricki:              Absolutely. I’ve discussed it with my husband, and he’s so amazing he would never think to say to me, “You can’t do that.” It’s just not in his nature. But, I would still – because this is a partnership and you’re building a life together – want him to be aware. It’s more just for that.

 

Complacency and the constant desire to become and do better

Yuri:                Talking about mindset for a second, you were a teacher in the traditional sense. A lot of people we speak to are entrepreneurs, and I believe there’s a very strong difference in the way our minds work and our outlook on life.

Having been in the trenches working with teachers, and not that they’re lower or bad people, what have you found to be one or two big mindset differences between teachers who are happy to do the minimum, get by, and take their two months off for summer, versus entrepreneurs who are willing to step out on the edge and have the courage to go out for their dreams?

Ricki:              I think that’s part of the reason why I felt I had to leave, quite honestly. I was at the college for, like I said, 27 years and I had colleagues who taught the exact same material for 27 years. I was always trying to create new courses.

There are programs now online, but new material, because I would just get bored. I would be bored to death repeating that same information over and over. There was a certain level of complacency, and I don’t know if they were just jaded or what, but there was just no self-motivation to learn more, do more, get better, and change. If what you were doing was excepted, then you never did any more than that.

I’m not saying that was everyone. It was just endemic. I think that’s part of what the system engenders in people. You’re given your little raise every year and it takes about two years for you to get permanent status. But once you’re permanent like that, it takes an awful lot for a college professor to be fired. You have security that, honestly, is almost unshakable.

For a lot of people, that creates complacency. For me, it just created the itch to leave.

I remember plotting out how long it would take me to leave. I just couldn’t stand doing the same thing over and over. For me, that was a big difference. There’s no merit or acknowledgement. For instance, if you were the best teacher or you were the worst teacher, maybe your students would talk about you differently, but in terms of the rewards from the administration like financial rewards or status in the college, it was absolutely the same. It didn’t matter.

Yuri:                Interesting.

Ricki:              I believed I could do better, and if I want my reward, whether it’s financial, or appreciation, or testimonial on my site, whatever the reward is, I want it to be commensurate with the level and the quality of work I’m doing.

I wouldn’t expect to be paid the same amount if I were not doing what I felt was an excellent job and what my clients felt was an excellent job. But there, it almost didn’t matter. I hate to say it.

Yuri:                Yeah. We operate in a results’ economy, where if we produce great results, we should be compensated with fulfillment, financially, or however you want to define that. I don’t think a lot of people operate in that same world. But as an aside, do you know the number one reason for aviation accidents?

Ricki:              No.

Yuri:                It’s complacency.

It’s human error obviously, right? Pilot error. The only reason I know this is because I got my private pilot’s license five years ago, so I love flying. I remember reading about this. The number one reason planes crash is because of complacency. Pilots get to the point where they think, “I know this. I don’t have to do this checklist, whatever.”

Whatever that looks like, that’s the biggest reason that human error comes into that equation. Yes, teaching or your own job is maybe not life and death like flying a plane, but I think it is, right?

To live a life of 20, 30, 40 years of just saying, “Maybe I’ll just do the minimum,” I don’t consider that to be a life fully lived, especially when you’re impacting kids, teenagers, or students whose future you can shape. To have someone like you be their teacher would be a very different experience versus somebody else. I don’t know about you, but in my 20 years of being in school, there’s only maybe three or four teachers that I can recall impacting my life in a meaningful way. That’s sad.

Ricki:              Yeah. I think it is sad. It’s the way the system’s set up. I was a young teacher with enthusiasm, and it gets beaten out of you over the years, and it’s very unfortunate. That’s the way it’s set up.

Yuri:                But the cool thing is that you teach now, right? Just in a different format, in a different platform, and I think a lot of the people that we’re speaking with, whether they do online coaching or are building out programs or books, are essentially teachers. Yet we don’t have to be confined by a regimented or rudimentary type of schooling system to be able to impact people’s lives, which is amazing.

Ricki:              This is more of a rewarding form of teaching because I’m working so much more closely with a lot of these clients. When you were saying that for some people it’s not life or death, it is, in fact, with some of my clients. One client comes to mind. She literally couldn’t get out of bed when we started together and by the end of our three months together, she was planning a camping trip with her family.

Yuri:                That’s awesome.

Ricki:              Yeah. To me, nothing can beat that feeling of helping that person get there.

 

Regrets and doing things that align with who you are

Yuri:                That’s great. Let’s say you’re speaking to a new grad coming out of CSNN, Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, or any other health coaching program. What advice do you give to them if they’re starting their business and jumping into this world? What words of wisdom would you give?

Ricki:              To be true to who you are as a person.

Like I was saying with the thing with Ellen, that was the core of who I was as a kid and who I still am today. When you do things that feel aligned with who you really are and your personality, they work out. Even if they don’t, I’ve never regretted anything I’ve done that I felt passionate about, or said yes to, that I wanted to do.

What I’ve regretted are the things I passed up because I was too afraid.

Be true to who you are and go with those instincts because they won’t serve you wrong. Then the other thing is to get some business training. I don’t know if business courses would’ve helped, but some business training. I took a lot of online business programs, which I do feel helped me because I knew nothing about this world before.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. Great advice. I remember when I was in CSNN the business component was to put together a business plan or something along those lines.

Ricki:              Yeah, we have that.

Yuri:                I think I refused to do it because I had a business operating at the time. I was like, “I have a business, here it is.” Anyways, there’s my rebellious nature, right? That’s why I can’t work for anyone.

Ricki:              Exactly.

 

The Rapid Five

Yuri:                Ricki, this has been enjoyable so far. We’re going to shift to the Rapid Five before we wrap up here. You ready?

Ricki:              I’m ready.

Yuri:                Okay, here we go. You’ve got no idea what these questions are, so whatever comes top of mind is the right answer. Number one, what is your biggest weakness?

Ricki:              I overanalyze things. I’m a Libra, so I tend to want to weigh every single option before I decide.

Yuri:                Very cool. Number two, what is your biggest strength?

Ricki:              I think I’m very adaptable. I can change, pivot, and always try to adapt.

Yuri:                Chameleon-like powers. That’s awesome.

Ricki:              Okay, I’ll take it.

 Yuri:                Number three, what’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at to grow your business?

Ricki:              Never stop learning.

Yuri:                Awesome. Number four, what do you first thing in the morning?

Ricki:              I do my affirmations, meditate, and then I exercise. If I have time, I do an infrared sauna, but that doesn’t happen every day.

Yuri:                Cool. It’s funny, almost every single person we’ve had on the show has said, “I wake up and meditate.”

Guys, there’s a reason that successful people are doing this stuff. It’s a very common trend. It’s interesting. Finally, complete this sentence, I know I’m being successful when…

Ricki:              I know I’m being successful when I think there’s a combination of what I feel passionate about doing and being able to see that it helps other people.

Yuri:                Love it. Ricki, thank you so much for being on the show with us and for all the amazing work that you’re doing helping your clients and shifting focus from baked goods to helping candida.

I loved baked goods. I mean, I live right behind a French bakery, so it’s dangerous.

But I just want to acknowledge you for all the amazing work you’re doing, for getting your messages out and helping your clients. It makes a difference, so thank you and thank you for being on the show.

Ricki:              Oh, it’s been a pleasure.

Yuri:                What is the best place for our listeners to follow you online?

Ricki:              Go to my site, RickiHeller.com, and find me on Instagram and Facebook.

Yuri:                Nice and simple. Ricki, once again, thank you so much for being with us. It’s been a lot of fun. I hope you guys enjoyed and got a great lesson from that.

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Yuri’s Take

That is such a powerful strategy: Just follow-up and keep on going. Who cares what people think, right? If you annoy them, hey, whatever. Anyways, that’s a good reminder that persistence usually wins and the worst-case scenario, if you piss somebody off or they don’t like you, that’s too bad, right? Just move on to somebody else.

Now, there is an easier way to get on people’s radars and that easier way is to be in their presence. If you want to exponentially accelerate your business success, I would say the most important thing you can do is be in the room with the right people. For that reason, I want to remind you of our annual family gathering called Healthpreneur Live, which takes place in Scottsdale September 20th through 23rd.

It is just over a month away and the time is now.

If you want to be surrounded by a 150 awesome and inspiring health coaches, entrepreneurs, practitioners, authors, and influencers in the health and fitness space, this is the event to attend. It’s 150 people by application only. There’s no ego. You’ll be sitting beside the speakers. They’ll be helping you out. They’re not light years ahead in many cases.

There are guests who are building six, seven, and eight figure businesses. Everyone is there to share. Everyone is there to connect. Everyone is there to be cool and have a good time. It’s a three-day experience unlike anything else, and if you’re serious about getting on the radar in the health industry, this is the event.

Here’s what I want you to do right now. Go to the website, HealthpreneurGroup.com/live. On the webpage, there’s a red button that says, “Request an invitation.” Click on that. The next page will have a couple questions for you to fill out. Fill those in and then submit that page. It will come into our system, we’ll review your application, and we’ll get back to you within one to two days.

Time is of the essence, okay? It’s filling up very quickly. We’re almost two-thirds sold out right now. A little bit more than that, actually. We must let the venue know by August 31^st. That is our cutoff date to finalize all our numbers.

If this is something you’ve been thinking about, then now’s the time to act. If you didn’t know about it, well now you know about it and check it out. The name of the event is Healthpreneur Live. This is the event to attend if you’re serious about growing your business and taking things to the next level. You never know who you might connect with. You never know what might happen from this opportunity, so now is your chance. Request your invitation now and I’ll see you in the next episode, and hopefully I’ll see you at the event.

 

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