Freelance Dietitian Podcast

040: Nutrition Jobs & The Future of Dietetics! Ft. Stacey Dunn-Emke, MS, RDN

• Julia Zakrzewski • Season 3 • Episode 40

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I invited Stacey to come onto the show and talk about dietetics, and I'm talking the BIG PICTURE of the profession.

Stacey has been practicing for thirty years and has built her own successful business, NutritionJobs, which is rooted in career coaching for RDS. If anyone has their finger on the pulse when it comes to the future of dietetics ... its Stacey.

Here are the blog posts Stacey referred to during our conversation:
Alternative Dietitian Job Ideas
Dietitian Job Trends

You can get in touch with Stacey here:

Website - NutritionJobs
Instagram - NutritionJobs
Youtube - NutritionJobs

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Hey, and welcome to the freelance dietitian podcast. A show that teaches you how freelancing can help you meet your financial goals while giving you space to unplug and enjoy your life. I'm your host. Julia is like, Shefsky a published freelance writer who makes a part-time income now on a part-time schedule. Yep. You heard that, right. And I'll go into that in the next episode. In today's episode, I interview Stacey done M key, a practicing RD with three decades of experience. I invited Stacey on the show to have a high level conversation about how dietetics has evolved and what could lie ahead. Let's get into Hey, Hey. So before we jump into this interview, I wanted to formally introduce Stacey and give some background. She's an award-winning registered dietitian with a master's degree in nutrition science. She established herself as a successful dietetic entrepreneur with nutrition, jobs, and exercise jobs. In 2000, she is hardworking kind and loves helping R D succeed in their careers. A super fun fact about Stacey is that she made an appearance on the oprah winfrey show let's bring her on

Julia:

welcome to the show. Stacey. It's so great to have you here. I feel like I've seen you all over my media channel cause I've been following your work for a long time and it's such a pleasure to sit down. Did you wanna say hi to the listeners?

Stacey:

Hello. And thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I can speak for all of your community audiences that we, we just love the work that you're doing and what you're sharing with other Dietitians. I think it's just very valuable. So thank you for inviting me on today.

Julia:

That is so nice. I'm very happy to have you. Today we're doing kind of a different episode. It's not necessarily learning about one specific part of dietetics. I wanted to bring Stacey on because she works with nutrition jobs, or she created nutrition jobs, I should say, and she'll explain that more in the episode. But she is so rooted into the profession and you have so much knowledge about where dietetics has been in the past, where it's going in the future, hopefully. And I would just love to pick your brain and ask questions about that, cuz I think it's gone through a huge evolution even the last two years in the pandemic. So that, so that's what we're talking about today. So I wanted to ask you to start it out. What have you observed during your RD career so far about the changes in the profession?

Stacey:

Well, you know, I, I have been, as you said, I, I'm, you know, rooted in nutrition, and that's because I've been a Dietitian for a very long time. I, I've been in the profession for over 30 years, so, you know, I've, I've seen a lot. And I've seen a lot of change sort of recently, as you said, during the pandemic, but I think really, you know, in the last like 20, 15, 20 years, there's been some really big shifts and so, you know, I've just seen this evolution. I think when I started out as a Dietitian, I did my undergraduate at uc Davis. We were taught that we could do clinical, we could do food service, we could do private practice, and, and usually that private practice was with a doctor's office or within a hospital, maybe an outpatient practice. We could do academics, we could do teaching research we could do community nutrition. We could also, I know there was some, like these sort of secret jobs of consulting out there. I think, the common denominator around that time was. Our paychecks came from a middle person. You know, our paycheck came from a hospital. It came from the doctor's office, or it came from the insurance company. It came from the university, or it came from the principal investigator's. Departmental funds like it. It came from somebody else. And I think you know, what's changed over the last several years is where that money is coming from and where we're able to tap into that money. I think that we've been able to make direct contact with the payer, with the consumer, with the food brand, with you know, a variety of people who want our services. We provide a valuable expert based service that people want to pay for. So I think that was sort of new, like invoicing somebody, right? Like that's sort of a new thing. A lot of has come from social media, they have given us a a view into the consumers and the consumers a view to us. And then social networking. Being able to learn what other Dietitians are doing by watching their channels, by watching their YouTube, their Instagram, their TikTok, their Facebook groups. We're able to network together and learn about different possibilities. I always say like, You don't know what you don't know, right? So if you don't know that you can help people learn how to set up a private practice as a Dietitian, well, my goodness, You know, like, or you don't know that you can help other Dietitians with their resumes. right? Like, So you, you know, you get to see what other people doing. You get to see what students are doing. They bring fresh eyes to the, our, our profession, our cozy profession. You just, you know, people coming up with some creative ideas about how to get the money. So I think that's where the change has been and, and I think that will continue to explode.

Julia:

Yes, more creativity and more knowledge sharing, just like you said. It's so nice to see other rds being a trailblazer and then giving actionable steps for other RDS to follow. And I love what you said about the students bringing a fresh eye because it's crazy how quickly, I mean, I've only been a Dietitian for about four and a half years and already I feel so dated compared to what interns are saying. And you know, they're right on the money.

Stacey:

Yeah. The mentality of being a gatekeeper and switching that mentality to the abundance. In mindset that there's, there's a ton of consumers out there. There's 8 billion consumers out there apparently. And there, you know, maybe you're only going to, you know, get a fraction of those, but that's, you know, that's a billion, that's a million. That's a lot of people. And we can't possibly, as one person provide all of that information, so, Why not? Like spread the wealth within our own profession and elevate our entire profession by doing such.

Julia:

Yeah. Here, here. Totally agree. And I wanted to ask you again, just on your own personal journey, I guess, how did you first break into entrepreneurship? Because I hear it a lot where rds do feel like they have those three main pillars that they can go and find jobs in after they get their license. At what point did you first say, Hey, you know what, I'm not gonna do that stuff. I'm actually gonna be an entre.

Stacey:

Oh, you know, that's interesting. You know, so my story is, I started off as a clinical Dietitian. I have done food writing, I've done clinical nutrition management. I've been in research. I have always done a lot of different outpatient. I did a private practice for a little bit within that outpatient with, within the hospital. I. I think what I was always doing, I, I noticed this, like while I was in each one of the, the job titles, I was always like creating something. I was always like, Okay, I'll do my job according to my job description, but hey, let's create this or let's make this system. Or when I did outpatient practice at the hospital, I was like, Hey, have we looked at reimbursement? Let's get in there. And I worked with the IT department and, and tried to finagle like, not finagle, but. Understand what the, what the codes were, what we were billing for are not billing for, and sort of getting in there. So I think, and then my parents are both entrepreneurs, so I would think, I always thought like there's a, there's, there's ways that we can be creative in our jobs that is more enriching for us, that makes you want to go to work and sort of crave that work. I crave working, I love, I love working. And then how can that also make you more money? When I was little, I always was always like selling stuff here and there like, Like clay jewelry, you know, like I was always, there was always something. And so that's always been a big drive. I've always had that in me to create and to create. You often have to kind of do it out on your own and, and, you know, tuning into what, what does the consumer want? What does the person with the handful of money want? I'm going to provide that for them. And so thinking that way, As a Dietitian, I think is a very valuable way of, of finding areas that you want to go into that are, that are very exciting. There's never like a perfect day as an entrepreneur, but you know, there's, there's a lot of ways that you can be creative and feel like you're really giving back and making money.

Julia:

I'm curious now, what does your normal day look like? Your normal work day look like?

Stacey:

Oh my goodness. I don't have a, I don't have a normal day because I've got well, I've got three kids, right? So no day is ever predictable. You know, you've got a plan and then of course, that becomes unraveled. I'll say like a school day. I usually get up very early and I go for a run. I drop off the kids to school or to I live in San Francisco, so I drop off one kid to Bart and who gets himself over to high school. I just got one that is going off to college. So I then will come back home. I oftentimes go swimming in the ocean with a group of friends. We do a very, we actually, it's, it's not really a swim We do a dip. We, we hang out in there and get cold water treatment there are for about 10 15 minutes. The ocean's usually between like 50 and 58 degrees. So it feels amazing. So I did that a few times a week. Then come home and I try to bulk out as much work as I can before noon. Because then after that it's you know, starting the process of, of being a mom. So, while I am working, I'm focusing a lot on my systems that I've set up. I will look at the bank account, I will look at what's going on with Trello. I will look at and work through a bunch of emails. I will check in with Zapier and make sure everything's zapped, and all the systems in place are working working on different projects. There's always something going on. And then sort of trying to stick to my campaigns, working with the. Employers, making sure all their campaigns are running and in place creating blog posts for different job titles, for different topics that we're doing. So every day is a little bit different. And then I, you know, once everybody is home and if I'm not going out that night, then I will do a few more hours of work in the evening, which I really love. There's something about the quiet of the evening that. I can be very creative and think through a lot of stuff really well and also do a lot of planning. I may not always execute in the evening, but I will plan what the execution should look like and that helps save me a lot of time. Cause I kind of work in fragments and I think people who are freelancers or who are entrepreneurs or working parents that you kind of work in these fragments, like the idea. Having like an eight hour day seems like such a a luxury and like what, So every day is different as an entrepreneur.

Julia:

Thanks for just being totally candid and honest about it. I wanted to ask you one question, which you might have already answered a little bit, but I do wanna just ask you the question and see where it takes the conversation, which is, what do you think Dietitian have now that past Dietitians never had?

Stacey:

You know, that's a, that's a really great topic, I think that Well, so social media is a big part of it, of course. Course. So we have more communication with each other. We've got more eyes on each other. I think we also, there's a, there's a culture shift in that we also have. Bigger voices now than I think, you know, if you were to, to bring up some of the topics that we're all bringing up a salary or a licensure or getting a master's or you know, what type of job can we do medical nutrition therapy versus health coaching. Being able to use our voices now much more than we've been able to. We may not always have the answers to that, but I think that starts, the conversations are, are not taboo necessarily anymore. I think we also have, what I've seen is that we've got some hungry consumers, Like consumers want us, they want to pay us, they wanna pay us, you know, directly. They want our services, they want us to do menu planning, meal planning, meal prep educational, like how to use the vitamin X. They want to know how to feed their kids. How many snacks should they have? Should they worry about glycemic control? Like they, they want to know from us they want our information or expertise. And I think we also, you know, according back to the idea of having voices, I think we have each other now, as we talked about before, with being able to network on social media. We're able to have transparent conversations about salary, salary negotiation, or compensation negotiation. We can talk about our rate cards. We can sell our rate cards, you know, like we can have these more transparent conversations than, than what we used to do. I think the other area that is new that I just love watching Explode, is that we can sell our expertise to each other. That is something really big and different. We used to do like continuing education courses that were, you know, that you've got a DVD in the mail for, or you were taught a specific, like motivational learning or, you know, there were different courses that came to you in the mail. But now we can teach each other, like how, like I said, like how to set up a private practice with screenshots of what some of that stuff looks like. We can teach each other how to job interview, right? Like, that's what I do like, and teach people how to set up their LinkedIn profiles, how to set up their resume to make more money so that your resume looks more modern. And more value based. We tell each other how to create menu plans. You know, we, we do all this for each other now, we coach each other, which I love. Again, it's all about the abundance and elevating all of us, increasing our value, increasing our market value so that whether you're doing a traditional job or a non-traditional job, that we can all be greater valued and make more money as a result.

Julia:

Heck yeah, that was awesome. I think having that open discord was such a game changer, and I've even noticed that in my short career so far. The rds who are communicating, sharing the woes, sharing the wins, it just helps our profession more united One other thing I wanted to ask you, cuz I know in the States it's changing. So I think the master's level education is becoming a requirement for future RDS in the states of, as of this year, is that right? Or next year?

Stacey:

In January 1st, 2024. So the students that are entering into an internship program, that's what that's gonna be, the minimum criteria is to have a master's. So, Yeah. You know this is a really gigantic topic with a lot of heat behind it. There's pros, there's cons, there's opinions. There's facts actually. I kinda like to look at the facts and what's interesting is if you look at the academy, put out a salary and wage compensation survey two th they did 2019, 2021. Very valuable information. There were about 5,000 nutrition professionals pulled, including diet technicians. 56% of Dietitians already have an advanced degree. Mm-hmm. I think that's important to to point out. It's not 5%, it's not 10%, it's over half of us already have an advanced degree. So the that again, just sort of some facts. I was also looking at some salary information about comparison. So this is now, of course this will change, you know, in, in 2020 what would it be then? 26, 27, but, Right now, the hour. So the 50th percentile Dietitians without an advanced degree are making$32 and 87 cents. So let's just say$32 an hour. That's sort of the hourly wage you can extrapolate out. I think it's like$72,000 a year, US dollars. Dietitian who have a master's, again, the 50th percentile, hourly wage is$33 and 65 cents. So the current Dietitian without a master's degree are it's, it's making 78 cents less than Dietitian with a master's. Now, if you just look at Dietitians who are in clinical, just clinical without a masters that's about almost 40% of the Dietitian polled. They're making$31 and 79 cents. So 31 30$1 an hour versus a Dietitian with a master in clinical nutrition who is making$32 an hour, so that's only 21. Boost what I thought was also interesting, so Dietitian without a masters who have a special certification that's like in diabetes or nutrition support or lactation counseling. They are making between$36 an hour up to$48 an hour if they're a fellow. So that's a$3 difference hourly. So anyway, so there's just lots of different ways to sort of look at this and I like to look at the money and, and where that is. Advanced education certainly does pay more particularly in specialized certifications, I think it's also important when you look at like SEO and Google's eat the expertise, authority, and trustworthiness of people. You know, advanced degrees are already required for certain job titles such as research and training. When I was being interviewed for the research position with Dr. Ornish, the requirement by U C S F and the grant holders was that, that the Dietitian had to have a master's degree. So I couldn't even interview without a master's. The one year graduate program to your internship will certainly cost and there might be some creative ways to handle that, that tuition. My, my employer at the time covered my tuition. That is unusual. But there are programs out there that highlight those All. Access dietetics, I think has a list of those programs that help with the reimbursement of the tuition. So, I learned so much in my graduate program that I found so super valuable. There's a lot of different ways to go on this, but I think having the facts in front of you can help you suss out your own perspective on that.

Julia:

I think There's always gonna be so much value and learning more. I definitely feel though, like I personally, if I, if I was forced to get my master's to become an rd, I don't know, I would because I knew that I didn't wanna work an environment that would necessitate, necessitate, necessitate, oh my gosh, what tongue tied that would require me to have that extra degree. I guess it's kind of too early to tell how it will affect the next gen. A lot of the times except for nutrition, your workplace will cover higher education. I mean, especially if it's a good workplace that believes in its employees. They should fund your masters if they want you to move up to a supervisor position or manager. Position.

Stacey:

That was exactly it. You know, I, I signed a contract to, to, to be with them a little bit longer as well. And that was fine. That was, that was totally fine with me. I felt very fortunate, very privileged to have them be able to do that. I knew about it before I even thought about it, right before I wanted to do it. So one of the cons is that it could keep some. Folks out of the profession that can't, that that becomes a limiting factor for them. Mm-hmm. doing their dreams. So that, that is a huge issue and that, that will need to get addressed.

Julia:

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Huge topic. I was really curious to hear your answer about it. So I appreciate you being so thorough and detailed. And I wanted to now ask about nutrition jobs, which I think is amazing. I love your website. I'm signed up there. I see all of your LinkedIn tips, which are so practical, and for me that was the biggest thing that made you stand out from any other like business coach I've seen online. So maybe you wanna explain nutrition jobs a little bit.

Stacey:

Yeah, so I've, I've been running nutrition jobs for over 20 years. I love my little backstory in that I was looking for a job. I was working as a clinical nutrition manager, and I was looking for another job because I wasn't a very good clinical nutrition manager, like, I wanted to create more than manage people. So I was looking online for jobs, for Dietitians, and there weren't any good job boards specifically for our niche that knew what we needed, that that spoke to us directly. And so I created the job board, it was like my ultimate creation. So I have been running that, it too has, has evolved over the years based on what my consumers want. So I would say in the last, you know, five plus years, I started to notice that the Dietitian would send me their resumes or I. Peek at their LinkedIn profiles and see that they were not up to par like they just were. They'd looked they did not represent the value that this Dietitian provided. I, I always tell the story about this, this epiphany moment where a very fancy, high level Dietitian. Just randomly tossed me her resume at one of the conferences and says, Stacey, can you take a look at my resume and see what you think? And I remember looking at her going like, What? Oh my gosh, this is terrible. Yeah, you have terrible resume, right? Like let's fix that. And so, That, that was my aha moment, that we need some help. If we want to get fancier jobs with, you know, non-traditional jobs, working for non-traditional companies, we need to be on par with people in sales, people in marketing, people in executive positions. We need to up our game a little. And that same goes for LinkedIn. I realized that a lot of people were using LinkedIn as like a look, like a, you know, a dust old job description wasn't like really screaming, Hey, here I am, hire meetings are my services and this is how I can add value. So I've got nutrition jobs, I've got career courses, how to write a modern resume, how to beef up your LinkedIn profile so there's optimized for opportunity, how to job interview with confidence and talking about salary, compensation, negotiation, all of that. And we've got lots of video tutorials on YouTube that I put on Instagram. These little, little reels. Where else I'm, I'm like all over, right? Because I've been around for so long. On Twitter, everywhere. I really wanna help elevate our profession. So that's my, that's my mission with nutrition job is to help Dietitians land a job that they can really succeed in.

Julia:

What are some of the job trends that you've noticed within the past couple of years that are becoming available for rds?

Stacey:

Oh my gosh. I'm constantly surprised by interesting jobs that people are already doing or that companies are hiring for. I'm seeing that there's lots of traditional jobs. Abundance of them. There are also sort of twists on these traditional jobs. So twists in that there are different types of employers. For example, there's a health startup or an app that is hiring a Dietitian. There might be insurance brokers that are hiring a Dietitian, which is something I'd never heard of before. HR departments doing work site wellness. That's been going on for a while, but it's out in the forefront where Dietitians can really connect with these insurance companies and the brokers. Private practice Dietitians, hiring other Dietitians, you know, they're posting the job for another Dietitian, you know, it's also meta, Right? Yeah. I love that. I love it. I love it. So, so there's just, you know, twists on traditional roles and of course then there are, Twists on traditional, like what you're doing, what your job description is. So I think what we're seeing is more responsibility, maybe not necessarily more pay all the time, but there's more responsibility. So for example like nasal gastric tube insertion. Sort of was like this, you know, sort of not very common in the past. And now that's, that's in university hospitals, that's becoming more common or more responsibilities in long term care. More people being able to write two feeding orders or TPN orders the, you know, so more twists on traditional work. And then of course, the explosion of unconventional jobs. In fact, I have a blog post called, I think you could just type in nutrition jobs and jobs for a Dietitian. In Google or a search engine the article will pop up where I have like a hundred different job titles. I can't even, I can't even name them all. Like there's, you know, so many different things that people are doing. I love where you're working with the consumer and that is, and they're paying you online cooking demos. Oh my gosh, that's so genius. These group membership programs, meal prep, have, you know, being able to sign up to get menu. I, Oh my gosh. I just, I love, I love that there's, there's so many different ways. You had somebody on the podcast forgetting our name. Who does the labels for, for companies, for food brands working with food brands? Well, that's always been around, but I think it's much more prevalent. So, you know, the jobs are just exploding. So that, that is really, really fun to see. Yeah. Is.

Julia:

You're getting me excited just talking about it.

Stacey:

I know, I know. It's very exciting.

Julia:

It is exciting. And also, I'll give a shout out to Kelsey Moore. That was the Dietitian who does labels. Yeah. Cause I know she listens to the show, so she'll appreciate the shout out I wanted to ask you, I know you also offer career coaching and some one on one work. I was wondering, are there common fears that you hear expressed from RDS that hold them?

Stacey:

Oh yeah. that's a really good topic as well. In general, Dietitians tend to be high functioning professionals that can also translate to perfectionism and that can lead to not getting anything done That's part of imposter syndrome. This, you know, this blog article isn't ready to be published. The idea that I can't coach a group of people because I need to do medical nutrition therapy, right? So holding back on areas that we're fully qualified to do or that we could do. You know, I'm sure when you started off your podcast, like first one doesn't look like the 20th one, right? Like, there's, there, you just gotta jump in and do it. Otherwise, you're never going to get to the 20th one. You're never gonna get there. You're never gonna get to be a better writer if you don't start writing and publishing because no one's gonna hire you because you don't have the three examples of past work experience, you know, writing, blogging, whatever it is. Fear is people may not term it as such. They just might say not ready. And so, so that, that's a big one. I think in the world that I live in for resumes and professional profiles. On LinkedIn, when I consult with people or when I do these big webinars they're hesitant to be evangelists for themselves. They're used to being humble. I think that's sort of the scientific committee to community in general is not wanting to look at me. Hey, check out me. Look what I'm doing. No, not to be the weirdo in the room. I think, you know, moving away from having your job description on your resume and not being able to shout out all of your accomplishments, not being able to feel powerful about. Showing your value on your resume, on your LinkedIn profile. And it's just sort of wording, it's just sort of re realigning how a sentence is wordsmith, right? It's just, you know, putting an action verb at the front of the bullet point. What it was that you did and what the outcome was, is really straightforward. It's just a different way of copywriting your, your accomplishments. And I, I like people to keep a work journal of their successes and their challenges. You've gotta, you've gotta keep track of this stuff. I recommend keeping a LinkedIn profile up to date and your resume that you send out, which is a one to two page document up to date, and then also your cv. And that can be seven, eight pages. Who cares how long that thing is? But that is a full on document. Everything that you've done, you're probably not gonna send that out to anybody, but you can pick and choose from that and plant into your working document, which is your resume, and then on your LinkedIn profile, don't include your resume there, but, but you can also create links on your LinkedIn profile to, like your media kit or current blog articles that you want to highlight or something.

Julia:

It's true what they say. Look good. Feel good, right And when you spruce up your page and feel so much more confident in presenting yourself, it's amazing how much more further you're willing to push yourself and apply for opportunities that maybe you felt like, Oh, I wasn't sure, but now I've got this amazing new LinkedIn profile. I'm gonna go for it.

Stacey:

I do like people to have a little, a section under your name and contact information about your, your professional summary. You can take it in or out if you want to, but being able to have this little sentence about who you are, what value you bring, maybe a little bit about your background and what services you can provide, and again, what value you have and that you can solve people's problems, whatever problem that might be, having it in there. It's like five sentences. It is so painful to write. It's like writing an abstract for, you know, five years worth of research, right? Put all down to 150 characters. But once you've done that, you've gotten used to speaking about yourself that way. And then someone's gonna ask you that crazy question right off the bat. So you know, tell me about yourself, or tell me about why we should hire you or why do you wanna work here? Or what you know, what value do you bring to us? Like, holy smokes. Those are, those are tiny little sentences that can just make your mind. Go on and on and on, you know, like, and then you realize you, there's like this long pregnant pause. You haven't answered the question because you haven't practiced that.

Julia:

Absolutely. And I wanted to ask you kind of a big question to wrap up our interview today. What do you think the future of dietetics holds?

Stacey:

Ooh, that's a, that's a good one. I think we can continue to work with the consumer directly. You know, Noom is so popular because they're getting coached. People want this stuff. So anyway, what's your expertise is don't be afraid of providing it directly to the consumers. I think job trends in general health span is really important. Working with mental health, nutrition and mental health. Of course, gut health. Oh my gosh. I think that is just. If I, if I were to go into private practice, I think that's what I would go into is helping people poop normally. I think that is like so everything, so people are always going to need that. Delivering diversity, diversity, you know, what you can bring to the table to a dive diverse population or bringing your diversity to other populations. I think that is, that is going to be significant and super helpful. Working in the area of food sustainability climates I've got an article on job trends that, that is updated every year. Sort of what's, what's happening. I should probably do it more than just once a year. But if you type in again, nutrition jobs and the. Job trends it should pop up. So there are some ideas in there. I think the other thing that's really important is to be able to be a good communicator and working on those skills, whether it's copywriting. So Holly Larson has a copywriting for Dietitian course. Being able to communicate with seo if you're working with a blog. Whether that blog is monetized or you just wanna bring some more traffic to your website, bring more people to you. Erica Jewel's course SEO Made Simple. Katie Dodds course on blogging accelerator program. Master the Media with Amy Goran. Being able to communicate is important. There's Dietitian working in clinical nutrition as well. Sarah Griffin has Edge Nutrition, how you can communicate to the healthcare team at at a hospital or a clinical setting. So being good communicator, learning how to do video whether that's for technical or for fun. Being able to communicate directly with the consumer, whoever that person might be. So being really good at that. I think just communicating in general, being really good writers. You don't have to be a perfect writer, but I think being able to be your authentic voice is, is really important so that, you know, there's, there's lots of ways to learn how to do. I think also the future is sales I think being able to sell yourself, think about, think about making money. I think we've always been thinking about how we can heal people, but think about how you can make money by healing people, by helping them. So, you know, think like that. How you can share your services, how you share your expertise. How you can solve a problem, how you can be relevant in a health situation and make money doing it and, and, you know, so yeah. I think advocating for yourself is, is always going to be important. So if you're already in position of power, if you've been a profession professional for a long time, or even if you've been a professional just for a short amount of time, but you got a lot of power, Help bring up other people behind you that need some help, get them jobs, help write a LinkedIn recommendation for them. Do what you can to bring up other students, interns, Dietitians Dietitians that are less privileged who are in different situations that just need a little boost. I've had so many boosts from Dietitians throughout my career. I have been so valuable. You know, one, one little boost leads to another, leads to another, leads to another. Everybody wins when we help each other. So being an advocate for yourself, be of service to yourself and be of service to others, and then of course, make some money. Yeah,

Julia:

Your passion is just pouring and it's translating so well in this episode. So thank you so much for your time and for all your insights been absolutely a treasure speaking with you. Is it okay Stacey, if listeners send you a message after and follow up, cuz I'm sure they'll be very interested.

Stacey:

Oh, for sure. LinkedIn is a very easy way to do that. Just connect with me over there. I will always accept a connection from a fellow Dietitian student or intern. Put your credentials after your name and in your headline, say that you're a dietetic student or an intern, you know, whatever it. So that it's really obvious not just to me, but to all the other bajillions of people that are looking at your LinkedIn profile. Even if, you know, you're not active on it, they're looking. So yes, I would be delighted to connect. Thank you. It's been an honor to be on your, on your podcast. I really appreciate the work that you're doing.

Julia:

Thank you. It's been a blast.

That wraps up this week's episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. As always, I'd love to hear from you guys, if you love this episode, or if you have any more questions. I am. Next week. Sorry. I had a brain fart there next week. I'm bringing on a business coach. Who's not a dietician and I've been following her on Tik TOK for the last two years. She is Canadian and she's just super down to earth. And I really related to her story about quitting her job and just diving into entrepreneurship. Her name is Danielle Ryan, and she's all over social media. So you can check out her tick talks or Instagram. Um, and you can hear from her next week on the show. I hope you have a great week and i'll be back next Tuesday Bye