Green Tea Conversations
Transforming Your Life with Integrative Health Coaching with Bruce Cryer and Amy Dailey
April 23, 2023
In this episode, we introduce you to Bruce Cryer and Amy Dailey, from Salem University’s Integrative Health Institute, who explore the world of health coaching and how it can help you transform your health and the lives of others. Bruce and Amy also share Salem’s new Integrative Health Coaching Certificate Program, a 16-week program that is designed to educate professionals interested in coaching others to peak wellness. Students will develop the skills necessary to build the coaching relationship from start to finish with an emphasis on integrative health practices and principles. Whether you are an allied health professional, traditional or alternative medicine practitioner, nurse, fitness professional, athletic coach, whole person-centered wellness enthusiast or professional, diabetes prevention professional, healthcare organization, self-insured corporation, or school, this program is perfect for anyone interested in becoming a health coach! Classes Start May 1, 2023. To receive a 20% discount off the program's cost, use the code CNA20KWW when enrolling. For more information, visit SalemU.edu/Integrative-Health-Institute.
[00:00:02.360] - Candi Broeffle
Good morning and welcome to Green Tea Conversations, the radio show that delves into the pages of Natural Awakenings magazine to bring you the local experts who share their progressive ideas and the latest information and insights needed so you can lead your best life. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle, publisher of the Twin Cities edition of Natural Awakenings magazine, and I am honored to bring these experts to you. Today on the show, we are welcoming Bruce Cryer and Amy Dailey, who are from Salem University's Integrative Health Institute. Bruce is the founding executive director and is currently the senior advisor of IHI. And Amy is both the program coordinator and faculty at the university. Welcome to the show.
 
[00:00:53.040] - Bruce Cryer
Thanks so much, Candi. This should be fun.
 
[00:00:55.110] - Candi Broeffle
We are so glad to have you with us today. And as always, so today we're going to talk about the program that you have at Salem University, which is an integrative health coaching certification program that I'm really excited to share with people. As a coach myself, I think coaching is just such a wonderful occupation to get into and also a great thing to have just to have in your tool belt, no matter what occupation you are currently in. There's a lot of really cool things about the program that I'm excited to share with people. But the other thing we're going to do is we're going to talk and we're going to begin by talking about health coaching. What is health coaching and how do you use it with your clients and with people in your life? But as always, before we get started on that, I always want to invite our guests to tell us a bit about themselves. And you guys both have very interesting backgrounds. So I'm going to start with Bruce, who I'm going to ask if you would please share with us, Bruce, what is your journey? How did you get to where you are today?
 
[00:02:04.690] - Candi Broeffle
What does that path look like?
 
[00:02:06.960] - Bruce Cryer
And this is a four hour interview, correct? Yes, we.
 
[00:02:11.560] - Candi Broeffle
Can edit so you can stay as long as you want.
 
[00:02:15.260] - Bruce Cryer
There may be a lot of editing required. Yeah, well, I'm old. I'm the oldest one on the call by far, so I've had a lot more life journeys and stops along the way. But thanks for having us and thank you for the question because this field of integrative health has actually been a very long passion of mine, really since teenage years. Growing up in the 60s, health foods became a thing. Many of us in my generation were starting to experiment and I became a vegetarian when I was 19. It was not because of health reasons. It was because American housewives were boycotting the price of hamburger meat. I thought, I'm a young activist kid and I'm going to support the housewives and I'm going to stop eating meat. And then I started reading up about people who stopped eating meat, not for cost reasons, but health reasons. And I thought, Well, there may be something to this. And so it began a journey for me. And while I actually do eat meat now, among many other things, mostly very healthy vegetables, et cetera, it started me on a process of exploring my health on all facets, my physical health, my emotional health, my mental health, and my spiritual health.
 
[00:03:24.030] - Bruce Cryer
And for me, that's really the essence of what integrative health is recognized is that all of us as humans are made of all those facets. And as you know, I'll fast forward from my teenage years to 12 years ago, 14 years ago now, when I was diagnosed with cancer. And when I was in the doctor's office and he told me it's definitely cancer, tumor you have is definitely cancer. We know that already based on where it is in your body. The question I'll ask people is, do you think just my body responded to that information? No. Do you think my emotions were like, I'm one of those people. Do you think my mind was processing, Oh, my God. In fact, I asked him on the spot, What about my trip to England? I'm supposed to do in a month. If that could kill me, I won't go. So please give me some guidance. But processing all this high speed, what do I do? What do I do? Let alone, if you will, on a spiritual level, why me? Why now? What's this supposed to... So all that was going on in the middle of the word cancer being uttered to me.
 
[00:04:27.020] - Bruce Cryer
So my point being, I was clearly all of those facets. All of those were very much alive and responding. And so I think what's exciting about this burgeoning field of integrated health, integrated medicine, holistic wellness is the recognition that we are all those parts. And so to be healthy, it's not just about fixing the body that's gotten out of whack and ended up as a disease. That's way too late. It's more about what do we do to create balance in our lives to start with and then see how that can continue to grow and manifest in our life in general. That's been both a personal passion of mine for many decades and professional. A long the way, I was involved with a publishing company about new thoughts and new innovations around health issues back late '70s. I was involved with the introduction of a superfood called Spirulina to the United States. I've set up marketing for the company that started that in 1980. I was one of the founding directors and one of the creators of something called HeartMath, which many of your listeners, I'm sure, are aware of. We started in 1991, and I was part of the leadership team when it began, served as CEO for 11 years.
 
[00:05:39.130] - Bruce Cryer
I've been teaching HeartMath at Stanford University for 25 years. I've been all over the world, 25 countries, 50 states, four continents, teaching these principles of integrative health and wellness through HeartMath and many other modalities that I've learned along the way. So it's been both a personal passion of mine and something that deepened significantly when my body went through all it did back in 2009 to 2011, but I'm also a professional one. So I feel like I have my dream job in a way because I'm personally so involved in these topics every day. Every day, I'm considering my diet, my exercise, my sleep. I'm tracking my sleep through a ring tracker because I want to really, at my age, want to make sure I'm especially getting really high quality sleep every day. And so it's very real for me every day to take a look at these issues and continue to explore as my body changes, as each new facet of life challenge happened, what do I do? What's my next step? Plus I get to be working with amazing people like Amy in creating this integrative health institute at a university to take these ideas and spread them to the next generation of health care leaders and health care professionals who could be properly trained in understanding the wholen of the human system, not just the traditional medical approach.
 
[00:06:57.770] - Candi Broeffle
Which is just so exciting to hear about. And it's something that is burgeoning, yet it's becoming so much more mainstream now, which is great. It's good to see us taking a look at all of those different aspects of our health and our wellbeing and how we can integrate that together. And so to be able to bring that into a program for students and professionals who are already in the field in order to get certified in order to do that is really exciting. So we're going to come back to you. We're going to ask you in a minute how Integrative Health Institute came to be because you were the founding executive director of that. But first, I'm going to ask Amy to introduce herself and tell us your journey along the way. And just so the audience knows, Amy is much younger than Bruce and I. So her journey will be a little shorter, I'm sure.
 
[00:07:54.280] - Amy Dailey
It will be. It's very eclectic. My background is quite eclectic. But yeah, so actually in college, I really wanted to focus on medical profession. I started out in nursing. I was one of these students that wasn't sure what I wanted to do, so I just tried everything from physical therapy to nursing. Anyways, I ended up working in a medical facility in a college hospital for about 10 years. And I got the glimpse of traditional medicine. And then during that time, I graduated with a degree in psychology. Things evolved from there. I took a corporate job for the sake of providing for a family, not necessarily a love of what I wanted to do. It was just a decision I needed to make at the time. But during that stint in my corporate career, I started experiencing a lot of medical issues, chronic medical issues, gastro issues, migraines, etc. I refused to believe it was the environment that I was in. I refused to believe that it was stress induced. I just was sure it was something much more complicated. And I think it was because I didn't want to own my own take into my health.
 
[00:09:14.290] - Amy Dailey
So after working with a natural path, my mom happens to be a Reiki master and a massage therapist. And a lot of years in traditional medicine, I realized there's another way. And so with the help of some support, I was guided to some alternative health practitioners that really helped me focus on what can I own? What can I empower myself with? How can I make a change, not only in the physical things that I'm doing, but the mental things that I'm doing as well. That helped me to leave corporate life and pursue a passion of mine, which was teaching. I wanted to teach my entire life, but I just squashed that down. When I had the opportunity to teach, it just really blossomed. I realized we need to be empowered to make choices that really augment our whole health, mental health, physical health, spiritual health. And then during that time, I went ahead and got my master's in Psychology, and I was going to pursue my doctorate, and I just didn't love the outcomes of that. And I switched gears into health coaching. And it's blossomed from there. So about six years ago, I started down the health coaching route.
 
[00:10:40.630] - Candi Broeffle
Well, and now you get to do two things that you both enjoy, health coaching and teaching. And we're going to come back after the break, and we're going to learn more about the Integrative Health Institute, how it got started, and what you guys are doing today, as well as delving into health coaching and how it can really benefit people who are looking for support. So for people who want to learn more about the Integrative Health Institute and to apply for the Integrative Health Coaching certificate program, visit SalemU.edu. Once you get to the website, you just simply click on IHI in the tab and that will take you directly to the page. To read the online version of Natural Awakenings magazine, visit NaturalTwinCities.com. You can find a podcast of this show on AM950Radio.com, on Apple and Google podcast, and anywhere you get your podcasts. You're listening to Green Tea Conversations on AM950, the progressive voice of Minnesota, and we will be right back.
 
[00:11:58.760] - Candi Broeffle
Welcome back to Green Tea Conversations. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle. And today we're visiting with Bruce Cryer and Amy Dailey from Salem University's Integrative Health Institute.
 
[00:12:09.860] - Candi Broeffle
So just before the break, I was asking you guys to give us some information about who you are, how you came about doing what you're doing today. And one of the things that you're both very much involved in and things that you do in your own life is actually with health coaching. So let's talk a little bit about what health coaching is. So, Bruce, what do you feel is the best way to describe for people what health coaching is and who should be using it?
 
[00:12:41.680] - Bruce Cryer
Well, the last part of the question I'll start with, just about anybody these days, because there's so many reasons why our health can go a little bit out of balance. It can be stress from the job insecurity. It can be stress related to family health. There were two people that were supposed to be in a class I'm teaching right now. The mother and the daughter and this little brother all got pneumonia in the last few weeks. That's probably hugely stressful, let alone just the health issues. There's so many reasons. Of course, America, as a culture, is not healthy. We're not doing well for as advanced a nation as we are. We're not even close to being the top of the healthy measures in the world. Not even close. So there's a lot of us. And then there's aging on top of it, which tends to exacerbate whatever underlying issues may have been we're struggling with. And I think the other aspect of this is in this post COVID, I guess it's post COVID, or at least we're out of the worst of the lockdown and the worst of the worries about it. I think a lot of people have woken up and realized I have to take more responsibility for my health.
 
[00:13:49.580] - Bruce Cryer
I cannot just wait for a vaccine. I cannot just wait for the government to tell me what to do. Every day, I need to be doing things more proactively, more preventatively. But a lot of people don't know even where to start because who got educated in health besides the birds and the bees stuff in high school? We didn't get good health class, so we didn't understand about integrated health and why taking care of the body, the mind, the heart, the spirit all are so important. So as somebody who has benefited enormously from coaches in so many parts of my life, I was an actor, so I had an acting coach. I had a singing coach. I had several over the years. As a dancer, I had a dance teacher, dance coach. I've had a number of coaches, a business coach. And I found it so many things that I've achieved in my life. Thank God I had a coach that could help me clarify my goals, knew more about the topic than I did, or the skill that I was trying to learn than I did. And so that was a big important part of my own growth and my own development.
 
[00:14:46.570] - Bruce Cryer
So in this aftermath of COVID, I've realized that more than ever, people are open to the idea of being coached by somebody who knows more than they might, or at least can help them clarify what their needs are from a health standpoint. So to me, it's like we're in a perfect storm in a way, in a good way, that there's more awareness than ever, more validation of integrative approaches, mainstream evidence wise than ever, and people more looking for, I've got to take responsibility. I can't afford to let my weight problem continue or let my blood pressure continue to soar or whatever. I've got to take charge. But they always don't know where to start. So they need a coach to help them clarify what they need and how to proceed.
 
[00:15:29.240] - Candi Broeffle
I just love the way that you described that because I have in my mind that over the next several years, over the next couple of decades, coaching of all sorts is going to become very mainstream. And I work with a lot of coaches now, and I hear a lot of coaches when we're working on their businesses about, Well, I have to do something different, or I have to be able to do everything. And the fact of the matter is, I think we're each going to have several coaches for several different things, just like you said. You had a singing coach, a dance coach, a acting coach, a health coach, a business coach. So for different aspects of our lives, we're going to have people who support us. And that's why I think it's such an opportune time right now to take a look at health coaching as a career opportunity. So, Amy, I'm curious with you because you've been doing health coaching now for some time as well. Do you specialize in any area of health coaching?
 
[00:16:27.600] - Amy Dailey
Yes, I like to focus on lifestyle, mental wellness. Particularly, I like to work with people that have chronic health conditions and trying to find ways that they can power themselves to... They may have to live with condition, but they don't have to be miserable every single day. And there are ways that we can empower decision making in those lifestyle choices. So whether it's sleep or food choices. And specifically, I work with people, it's called ischemic gastro diseases, because they have a hard time with food restrictions. So it's nice to have a partner, somebody to collaborate with about how can I empower myself to go grocery shopping? Think choices I do have instead of focusing on all the things that we can't do or can't have, let's focus on what we can do. And so it's been a remarkable journey in working with people in their lifestyle behavior changes. And truly, whether it's that condition or any other chronic illness, most of them are lifestyle related.
 
[00:17:39.540] - Candi Broeffle
Yes. I think a lot of people when they think about health coaches, they think about losing weight. That's the area that we think about when we hear that. But there's so many other aspects to health coaching. Absolutely. Tell us a little bit more about your specialty and what... And I'm sorry, I didn't get the word ischemic. That's okay.
 
[00:18:00.870] - Amy Dailey
Most people don't. We call it EOE for short. But I work with other people, too, with weight loss as well. And even people with sleeping disorders and a lot of people just struggling to make lifestyle changes. So for example, when someone is first diagnosed with, we'll just say, any gastric disorder, whether it's IBS or Crohn's or something, you get along with the things you can't do and the fear comes up. So we really focus on how are you feeling? Where are you at in this process? How are you feeling about this diagnosis? And what are the things that concern you about it? What barriers do you notice or challenges do you think you're going to face having this new diagnosis? It's baby steps. It's not about taking this huge, overwhelming step to make changes. It can be little steps that make them at least feel like, I can own this. I can empower myself through this. Again, it's assessing where you're at, what challenges are you facing, and then how do we work through each one of those little challenges? What do they want to work on? What would they like to see their life to be like?
 
[00:19:24.270] - Amy Dailey
Developing this vision with them of what they can define wellness for themselves to look like. It can be a big vision and we just need to start small. Or maybe it is a small step. I just want to know how to read food labels right. Or I want to know when I go to the grocery store, it's overwhelming, or I have kids that eat one thing or a husband that eats or spouse that eats this other thing, how can I still advocate for my own health while helping with the needs of my family? There's a lot of dynamics, as we all know, when it comes to health and wellness. It's never a silo. It's always multi dimensional.
 
[00:20:08.260] - Candi Broeffle
Yeah. So Bruce, how about you? Do you have an area that you like to specialize in with health coaching or a certain type of client?
 
[00:20:21.000] - Bruce Cryer
Eager to learn clients, eager to be willing to look at whatever patterns they're doing that could be setting up the issue that they're wanting help with. I think that's essential from my standpoint. As my career is going on, I've increasingly used the expression, I want to work with the people that I want to work with. I've worked with people I didn't want to work with and made it through. Sometimes I was quite proud of myself. But in general, I like to work with people that are interesting and want to grow and eager to learn from others and eager to learn about themselves and about their body. Because when you really delve into this, as I've done now, many decades, it's fascinating how much we can control. I think this is one of the big shocks that people have before they get into any health coaching or really learning about the body in a significant way. There's a lot in our control, way more than we think. Most people that are stuck with a chronic condition, especially if it runs in the family, like things do, it runs in the family. So there's no hope for me.
 
[00:21:30.540] - Bruce Cryer
Give up. I give up. It didn't help my mother or my brother, whatever else. And that's just not the case now. There's just all kinds of evidence that the biggest factor of all is how we are responding and creating to life and how we're creating our lifestyle. That's the biggest factor of all relative to chronic disease, chronic stress, and all these things. So as far as my focus is, especially because of this organization called HeartMath that I was one of the creators of. Our whole approach was very much about learning how to regulate our emotions and therefore regulate our nervous system, regulate our cardiovascular and cognitive systems. So it's all about self regulation, but it really starts at the emotional level. The thought of that to most men is like, well, then I don't want to touch heart, man, because if we're starting to touch heart...
 
[00:22:21.170] - Candi Broeffle
I don't have emotions, by the way. I'm a man.
 
[00:22:23.880] - Bruce Cryer
Exactly. Yeah. You're going to want to talk to my wife about that. I don't want to acknowledge that emotions are of any value as evidenced by the female race who clearly have the opposite opinion. So yeah, it's a lot of crazy attitudes. But to me, you have to address underlying emotional factors. And that doesn't mean digging back deep into your childhood. And I'm not a therapist, I don't do that work. But stuff comes up. So I think that's critical is to help people identify the holistic nature of whatever the issue is, the blood pressure they want to have go down. There's a holistic reason, holistic approaches, multi dimensional ways to help them.
 
[00:23:10.550] - Candi Broeffle
Yeah. Well, when we come back, we're going to continue this conversation. And for people who want to learn more about the Integrative Health Institute and to apply for the Integrative Health Coaching certificate program, visit SalemU.edu. And just click on the tab IHI. You're listening to Green Tea Conversations on AM 950, the progressive voice of Minnesota, and we will be right back. Welcome back to Green Tea Conversations. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle, and today we're talking with Bruce Cryer and Amy Dailey from Salem University's Integrative Health Institute. And we have been talking about health coaching and the different aspects of health coaching. And both of you have shared with us the type of clients that you like to work with or different aspects of health coaching that people can consider. And there's many, many different types of health coaching. It could be anything from addiction to chronic illnesses. It can be losing weight or just overall wanting to try to bring in some better habits into our life as well. I think one of my favorite quotes as a coach that I learned early on and I think is so applicable, especially to health coaching, is we all have pain, but we don't all have to suffer.
 
[00:24:50.660] - Candi Broeffle
And health coaching really helps you to be able to see that even if you have these chronic illnesses that now you can't eat all these things that you used to love, or how do you change up your eating habits and it's hard. It doesn't have to make you suffer in order to do it. And I think that's the value that we have with having coaching available to us. So when it comes to health coaching, how has it impacted your life? Have you ever had somebody do coaching with you for health coaching?
 
[00:25:25.760] - Amy Dailey
Yes, I have. And it was transformational. I even get emotional thinking about it and goosebumps because there's this shift of your perspective of your own health. And I think there's this line of questioning, these reflections that we can use in coaching and that was used on me about, but what is really stopping you from making this change? What's really going on? And again, like Bruce said, I'm not diving to somebody's childhood and those things I'm talking about right now, why isn't that... Amy, why can't you make this change? What's going on? I feel like I had this aha moment, this transition, this shift that was like, you know what? I don't have to there's a point where you're grieving, but I can move through the grieving and I can figure out for myself, along with this wonderfully supportive coach, on how to move forward in living and thriving. I mean, really, that's what we want to do. We want to thrive in life, not just get by in life.
 
[00:26:32.540] - Candi Broeffle
And coaching really is that for people. It's instructional, so you help to give people skills and information that they need. But it's also so much more about what's going on in our minds. It really is the mindset shift that makes such a difference. And so, Bruce, what are some of the common mind tricks that we play on ourselves that you find when you're working with people in health coaching?
 
[00:27:02.460] - Bruce Cryer
Well, the certainty that I couldn't possibly change. Yes. A certain habit, a certain mindset. So that mindset that says I couldn't possibly change a certain habit or mindset is probably the biggest of all to me because that's the ultimate barrier. If you're convinced change isn't possible, that I'm not capable, or it's a family thing, or whatever the excuse is, that's going to be rough to get past. And so in my experience, I've gone through major health issues and survived them. I had two sequential life threatening conditions and survived them. And then after the life threatening conditions went away, I had double hip replacement surgery. Not only survive that, but was able to come back and I dance again. And I can do all kinds of things that guys my age are not normally doing. And so I showed myself that I was capable of overcoming some pretty significant things with the help of others. I had a strong team around me of family, let alone great practitioners of all kinds. But I think why I say that is that many times something much, much, much, much smaller really annoys me. And I have to slap myself and say, Dude, you have survived two life threatening conditions, the loss of your mother during that time, the loss of your marriage during that time, and two double hip replacements.
 
[00:28:33.750] - Bruce Cryer
And you're stressing out on the email from so and so. Seriously, that's the best you can do. I talk to myself that way, like, come on, you have proven already in your life that you are capable of overcoming very challenging things that other people can't imagine going through. And so part of my job in talking with people is to say, find out what their example is, because everybody has overcome. When you just hear somebody's story, it's like, Wow, I can't imagine having to go through that.
 
[00:29:05.960] - Candi Broeffle
But.
 
[00:29:06.780] - Bruce Cryer
People often don't think that about themselves. Oh, it was just my life. Just wait a minute.
 
[00:29:11.150] - Candi Broeffle
What you did was what you were told. I just had to do it. I had to work through it. And it's like, no, you did it.
 
[00:29:18.140] - Bruce Cryer
Exactly. But people don't necessarily think that unless they've got a coach that could reinforce, hey, wait a minute, you don't realize, yeah, you may see these things you still want to accomplish in your life. Sure, me too. However, what you have already accomplished to be able to do that and that and that shows you have tremendous ability to change and courage and resilience. And so that's what we want to now support and amplify going forward. You have the abilities. It's the mindset that says, There's no way I can do it. And reminding yourself there's no way. That's the biggest one.
 
[00:29:51.310] - Candi Broeffle
Yes. It is all of those messages that we have in our minds so much of the time that we don't even know that we have them there until somebody can help point them out to us. And I think that is the power of coaching for myself is when I've been coached is to have people be able to show me what it is that I'm actually saying to myself that I've repeated so many times, you don't even know you've repeated it. But it's become a habit that way. So yeah, health coaching is an amazing tool to be able to use if you want to make any types of change in your life. But it's also a really great opportunity if you're looking for doing something that's going to bring you purpose and feel like you are making a difference in the world, health coaching could be that next thing that you're looking for. So, Bruce, you have helped Salem University put together the Integrative Health Institute and the Health Coaching Program. Tell us about that. How did that all come about?
 
[00:31:01.660] - Bruce Cryer
Sure. Well, it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, it was the beginning of COVID. It's hard to believe it's only three years. It seems like no, no, that's like 10 years ago. It's a lifetime. It's a lifetime ago. It was only three years ago. And so like so many people, it affected me powerfully, mostly my career, my income. Luckily, I did eventually get COVID, but it wasn't for another year and a half. And luckily, it was relatively mild. But the job thing was tougher. And I got approached during that time by a graduate school in Connecticut. I was living right outside New York City at the time. My graduate school in Connecticut approached me about becoming president of the school. And it was a graduate school. It's called the Graduate Institute, and it was an institute specifically for holistic studies. And so they ran 20 years, had all these master's programs you could do in integrative health and healing, consciousness studies, learning and thinking. It was all very progressive, really positive stuff. But it was COVID. They were struggling. So were thousands of other higher education institutions. I came in as the CEO and realized this was going to be a challenge, COVID.
 
[00:32:15.520] - Bruce Cryer
The only option I saw was to merge or be acquired by a larger university. We were only state accredited. And I think you know, Candi, that's not going to work. You need to be a bigger accreditation where students from anywhere can get value from the degrees they get from you. So fortunately, I was able to find this university, Salem, and they were very interested in acquiring the Graduate Institute. So it took about a year for that all to go down. And then by January of 2022, it happened. And so I was part of the deal, so to speak. I needed to go and run the new institute that would now become part of Salem University. So that all happened in January of 2022. And even as we were starting, because in the run up before the acquisition was completed, this idea of health coaching, we were doing a lot of work about how we wanted to create it, envisioning what could be different and how we did it before Salem was even in the picture with us. Then all that happened. Now it was becoming a major project of Salem. The creating of the Integrative Health Institute was the reincarnation, if you will, of the Graduate Institute, which was the school in Connecticut who sold its assets, its curriculum and other things to Salem to be able to establish its own in a bigger institution that was regionally accredited, not only state and more resources, etc.
 
[00:33:45.670] - Bruce Cryer
So that was the genesis of Integrative Health Institute. And one of the main projects always was we want to be able to create our own integrative health coaching program and be able to build it into a whole business model eventually where people who are going through the program aren't just trained in the principles and tools and methodologies of integrated health and the coaching to go with it, but also how to create it as a career for yourself. How do you have it become a business if that's what you want? Some coaches now, health coaches, can be employed by companies. More and more companies need health coaches. They can be employed by health systems who have a service to support corporations with health coaches. So there's more and more opportunities where you don't have to be in business for yourself necessarily. You can be a health coach in a major hospital for corporate clients in the area or for progressive, forward thinking companies that are also getting more and more health coaches. So we want to build out eventually the whole business side of it, too. So somebody coming in is not just, as I say, schooled in health and wellness coaching, which is super valuable and important, but also has the other aspects if they need that to be able to be strong and successful.
 
[00:34:56.180] - Candi Broeffle
Well, so we're going to go into a break right now. When we come back, we're going to learn more about the particular program at Salem University and talk to Amy about some of the specifics about it as well. So for people who want to learn more about the Integrative Health Institute and to apply for the Integrative Health Coaching certificate program, visit SalemU.edu. You're listening to Green Tea Conversations on AM 950, the progressive voice of Minnesota, and we will be right back. Welcome back to Green Tea Conversations. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle. And today we're visiting with Bruce Cryer and Amy Dailey of Salem University's Integrative Health Institute. We have been talking about health coaching and just was introduced in the last segment about how the Integrative Health Institute came to Salem University. And Bruce, I think I'm going to ask you to introduce to us how Amy came to the university because you started it as the executive director, and now Amy has come on recently to be the program coordinator. Great.
 
[00:36:19.370] - Bruce Cryer
Yes. We first met Amy when she became faculty for us teaching in some health courses. She has a Masters in Psychology and has taught at the college level. And then when we began developing our integrative health coaching program, she was found as a great resource because she's a board-certified health coach and she's been a curriculum developer. And so she was brought on and had a significant role in the development of the program, really the main developer. And then when we were getting ready to launch the course, we realized Amy would be an obvious and wonderful choice as the instructor. S he's the instructor of the upcoming cohort of integrative health coaching. And then she accepted a full-time position from us as the program coordinator, wrapping all of these roles into one. It is.
 
[00:37:03.650] - Candi Broeffle
Exciting to be on the forefront of something so innovative. And so I'm going to ask you to tell us about the program. Give us some information about how people can get involved, how long it is, what some of the classes are that they'll be taking as well. Yeah.
 
[00:37:21.180] - Amy Dailey
So our program in total is 16 weeks. We have two courses and each course is eight weeks long. So in our first course, we really dive into, of course, the basics. What is health coaching? What is our role? What is our scope? And each class, we move forward and find certain topics, whether it's motivational interviewing, powerful questioning, reflective inquiry, these topics that are necessary for coaches to learn. But not are they just learning the dynamics, the.
 
[00:37:58.890] - Bruce Cryer
Basics.
 
[00:38:00.380] - Amy Dailey
But we're practicing. So it's important, as you know, it's hard to go out there with just book knowledge and run out there and start coaching. I really think that what I love about this program is the practice portion. In each live class, which we have two live classes each week for an hour and a half, a piece, and while we go over the concepts that they're learning, we do a lot of demonstrations, a lot of one on one, a lot of collaborative breakout rooms. And so I'll post case studies and questions and just trying to get students to feel comfortable about coaching. Yeah, it's 16 weeks long. There's three hours of live coaching every week. I'm sorry, live classes every week. And then there's also asynchronous learning. So for us, what that means is there are some assignments, there are some assessments. We actually do discussion board, so we can dive into extra curricular topics, diving deeper into professionalism and ethics and looking at some of the legalities of being a health coach. So it's this culmination of all these activities that makes the program pretty vibrant in my mind. Very cool.
 
[00:39:22.290] - Candi Broeffle
Is there a requirement that the students have to coach so many people before they get their certification? There is.
 
[00:39:31.860] - Amy Dailey
So this is a certificate of completion, but we still want to be able to assess their coaching skills. So along the way, although we're practicing, there are three faculty one on one feedback sessions that are recorded. Students will choose a client of their choosing and they'll record it. Then a faculty will sit back and assess it. It's to, of course, help develop their skills. Where are their strengths? We could expand on some things. And then in the second eight week course, part of the completion of it is a half hour long coaching session that, again, is recorded and is faculty reviewed and assessed. And there are more than one attempt. So I don't want students to feel like, oh, no, if I... We're here to mentor students and help them feel comfortable in this process. It's not a ABCD grade. It's to help them develop their skills. And I.
 
[00:40:37.650] - Candi Broeffle
Think it's important for listeners to understand that you do not need to have any certification to be a coach in the United States yet, and especially not in Minnesota. But having the skills that go along with it is absolutely... I don't know how people would do it without having the skill set, without having the knowledge and the skills that is taught in the certification programs. One of the things that I was so excited about when I talked to Bruce initially about the program is just how affordable it is. Now, I have to say, I have gone through a coaching program. I have looked at many coaching programs myself, and yours is about a third of the price of almost anything I have seen, which is it's at least a third of the price. So tell us a little bit about how people can get involved. What is the price? What are the expectations that people need to do? Yeah.
 
[00:41:47.440] - Amy Dailey
So you can come into this. You don't have to have a specific background. You don't have to have a specific degree. We accept students from all walks of life, and our cost currently is $3,300 for the entire program. And of course, that includes the mentoring and the live classes and everything. So it's all encompassing. And it's about four months or 16 weeks long. And I think one of the other things I really love is that it is college supported. So supported through Salem University, they get a support advisor, there's tutoring services if needed. There's an online library, and the accessible and engaged faculty, of course, is also important. And so, like you're right, looking at other programs, we are about a third of the cost, yet still very dynamic in making sure that students are assessed properly and receiving the training that they need for real life coaching work.
 
[00:42:52.640] - Candi Broeffle
Well, Bruce, I also understand that Salem is offering a special tool, a special discount for anybody who's listening to the show. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
 
[00:43:04.250] - Bruce Cryer
Absolutely. Well, because we're affiliated with Natural Awakenings and Know We Will, the platform that now Natural Awakenings is part of, we want to offer everyone listening to this program a 20 % discount off of the $3,300 price that Amy spoke of. And there's a code I can give you, and it's three letters with a number and then three more letters, CNA 20 KW. So CNA 20 KW, that's the code that if you want to apply for this program, you can register and the people at Salem Staff will recognize that code, give you the 20 % discount. Now, that's a pretty generous deal. But in addition, we realize finances are very challenged for a lot of people. And so there are installment plans possible as well on top of the discount. So we really wanted to make it as affordable and as available as we possibly can. So we'd love you to be part of our program.
 
[00:44:03.150] - Candi Broeffle
That is excellent. Okay, so again, anyone who's interested in the discount code, it's CNA 20 K www. Excellent. So Bruce, when you were putting together this program, and now that you've been doing it for a while and the certification is launching, who do you see as the best candidates or who do you see coming into the program? I think.
 
[00:44:30.990] - Bruce Cryer
There's so many people that have some background in wellness. They are nurses, they're therapists of some type, respiratory therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists who realize there's another step they'd like to be able to do to offer. Because in the medical model as a whole, it's not particularly a coaching model. It's more about the expert doctor telling the patient what to do and not really any dialog. That's the basics. And so I think there's a lot of people who already have a love of health care, already have a desire to serve, but they're feeling, This thing I learned was great, but I feel I'm in a prison, in a straitjacket. I'm limited in what I can do. And so I think for many of these folks, wellness people, there's tons of wellness enthusiasts, fitness trainers that haven't been trained necessarily as a coach in the context. One of the things that Amy will be teaching is something called motivational interviewing. As a coach, it's not just a matter of telling the people what to do. In fact, that's the opposite. It's asking what they want, but doing that asking in such a way that doesn't make them feel bad or ashamed about their 50 pounds overweight or whatever it may be, but rather is motivating to them.
 
[00:45:44.860] - Bruce Cryer
Well, that's a skill to learn. And so to me, that's a big part of what can draw people to doing something like this. But I think already having an interest in health, whether you've had a lot of training or not is a big one. But I think, again, as I was saying earlier, there's so much interest now because people are wanting to give. If they know about how sick America actually is, they want to help. Even if they don't know the data, they just realize we've all been through a nightmare through years and who wasn't touched by it. We all have been. It's affected all of us in different ways. So what can I do to help more at the individual level and make a difference? So if that spirit is there, you're the right person for us. Yeah, that.
 
[00:46:28.670] - Candi Broeffle
Is really exciting. I really appreciate you guys coming on the show today and talking about this program. I want to encourage people, if you have any interest at all, doesn't matter what your background is, you don't have to have a background in health care to be a health coach. Go check out the program, contact the university and get more information on it. I do want to guide people toward your website. Again, if you want to learn more about the Integrative Health Institute and to apply for the Integrative Health Coaching certificate program, visit SalemU.edu and click on the tab IHI and the information will be there. I also want to let our listeners know that we're going to have Bruce come back next week and talk to us about HeartMath. And can't wait to see you back. Perfect.
 
[00:47:21.200] - Bruce Cryer
Can't wait. Candi, thank you. And thanks again.
 
[00:47:23.940] - Candi Broeffle
To both of you for being here. I really appreciate your time. And thank you to all of our listeners for listening to Green Tea Conversations. I am wishing for you a lovely day.