109 - Overcoming Pain and Depression To Become the Diabetes Dominator with Daniele Hargenrader

Daniele Hargenrader has an incredible story.  At 9 she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, a diagnosis that completely rocked her family.  Then just three years later, her father died suddenly.  Daniele became depressed, and let food take over as she grew to almost 200 pounds.  Between dealing with her father's death and dealing with the 'gloom and doom' of diabetes, she let it all get the best of her.

It was when she was 19 she decided her life needed to change.  She did a lot of reading and studying on diabetes and nutrition.  She had a lot of knowledge on it, and decided to start applying it.   There were two things that really made her begin her journey to turn things around.  Daniele states: 'The person I was showing the world physically was not the person who I felt I was on the inside.  Second, it was my personal choices that I was making that were actually killing me.'

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She got her Bachelor's degree in Nutrition Science, as she continued to use her brainy knowledge to make better choices for her health.  She began cooking healthy food for herself, and turned that into her first business.  She would go into peoples' homes and prepare food for those who had a health problem.  Her speciality was to prepare those healthy foods to taste really good.  That was the first place where she started helping people.

The next thing she did was moved into exercise.  Up until that point, she had only been dabbling into it.  However, after being asked by several clients on how they should be working out since they were eating clean, she decided to learn.  She went to personal training school.  They taught the physiology of the human body, but also took it to the gym floor.  After taking that program is when she realized that her physical strength was just as limitless as her mental strength, which wasn't something she had believed before.

That's when the first business transformed into the Diabetes Dominator.  Once the first person told her how much she had helped them, her new path became addictive.

Where and how did you start growing your business?  What happened was when she got out of the personal training school, she did a hybrid.  She did some cooking and then personal training.  She realized that in order for her business to grow, she had to commit to moving into the online space.  She was too limited by travel of who could come to her place or where she could go.  She now does most of her coaching via Skype or over the phone.  She then did an online course to help more people.

Also don't let perfectionism get the best of you to keep you from getting your course out to the world!

[ctt tweet="Don't let perfectionism get the best of you to keep you from getting your course out to the world! #podcast http://ctt.ec/yebdA+" coverup="yebdA"]

You decided to fund the launch and publishing of your upcoming book with a Kickstarter and hit goal in 3 days.  What was behind the success of that?  The book was completed last year, in what she thought the book should be.  However, she realized it wasn't complete because she had gotten a lot of help from reading other blogs or connecting with others on forums.  She wanted to highlight her story plus write a how-to on how you can do the same thing.   She also wanted to add other stories of people living the Diabetes Dominator Mentality of having more wins than losses.  You'll never be perfect, but you can take on this and live the life you deserve.

She went with the Kickstarter campaign because it's such a tight knit community.  She used it to spread awareness of the book, plus to cover some of the expenses.  She did hit the goal in 3 days, and they're running it until July to reach their stretch goal.

What are some lessons learned from a successful Kickstarter?  The first thing is to research other Kickstarter campaigns that are in the realm of what you're trying to do.  Just so you can go through what they did.  You want to study the successful and the non-successful ones.  Read their campaigns and watch their videos, and it will give you a lot of insight of what people responded well to (and what they didn't respond to.)

Daniele also reached out to the people who had been successful, and asked them for their advice.  Don't be afraid to reach out to people.  The people Danielle reached out to responded back right away.  Ask for advice from someone who has done it before.

You can find Daniele's Kickstart at: DiabetesBook.com and Daniele's website is DiabetesDominator.com

More About Daniele:  Daniele Hargenrader, aka the Diabetes Dominator, is a nutritionist, health coach, and certified personal trainer. She helps individuals from all walks of life to think, eat, and move in ways that allow them to achieve a quality of health and quality of life they previously thought unattainable. Daniele is the author of the upcoming book Unleash Your Inner Diabetes Dominator which will be released in November, 2015 in time for Diabetes Awareness Month. She is an international speaker, has presented at Fortune 100 companies, top ranked hospitals and universities, and has dedicated herself to teaching people how to live the life they imagined through optimal health. She was diagnosed with T1D in 1991, and after ballooning up to 200 pounds while battling a binge eating addiction eventually took herself from obese to athlete.