#127: Nicole DeBoom - See Every Setback as an Opportunity
Nicole DeBoom Gets Real.
“When your body is fit and strong, your mind is fitter and stronger too.” - Nicole DeBoom
Today’s episode dives into a topic that is so important for the New Year - mindset and attitude. We're treated to a conversation with long-time PLANTSTRONG ally, Nicole DeBoom.
Like Rip, she’s a former top-level swimmer, turned professional triathlete, turned entrepreneur, who recently sold her popular company Skirt Sports and started a new company called Aesop, where people book interviews and record their memories for loved ones.
Why will this conversation resonate with you?
Well, because, like all of us, her journey has not been linear. There have been stops, starts, struggles, and plenty of set-backs along the way. She discusses her battle with alcohol, the tension in her marriage, as well as health and self-image struggles. She. Gets. Real.
Through it all, though, Nicole has remained relentlessly curious and passionate. She has used her struggles to gain the muscle and confidence to keep going, even though it’s never perfect.
Today, she is almost 14 years sober, she’s PLANTSTRONG, and as curious as ever! Guess what? She’s still not perfect – and neither are we!
But, as you listen, we hope you’ll be inspired to keep forging ahead and continue to make smart decisions about your body because, as she says, “When your body is fit and strong, your mind is fitter and stronger too.”
Episode and PLANTSTRONG Resources:
Aesop Nation - Share Your Story. Record Your Memories Now.
Nicole DeBoom Website and Social Channels
Your Guide to the 7-Day PLANTSTRONG Challenge
Join the free PLANTSTRONG Community
Promo Music:
https://youtu.be/rhV_DIoebmU
Your Love by Atch
SoundCloud: bit.ly/AtchSoundCloud
Instagram: www.instagram.com/atchmusic
License: Creative Commons License - Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)
Full Transcript from YouTube Interview
Nicole DeBoom:
Maybe you can do this little exercise that might be able to help you get some direction. And she said, why don't you go home and write down all the times in your life that you felt the most alive, that you felt the best about yourself.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, nice.
Nicole DeBoom:
And she goes, just write. Write all of it. Big stuff, small stuff, whatever. And then just see what comes up. And I wrote it all down and what came up was a very clear trend or pattern. And from that pattern came this mantra that I still use in my life. It's a foundational block for me. And it is that when your body is fit and strong, your mind is fitter and stronger too.
Rip Esselstyn:
I'm Rip Esselstyn, and welcome to the PLANTSTRONG podcast. The mission at PLANTSTRONG is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based movement. We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living and envision a world that universally understands, promotes, and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with. We welcome you wherever you are on your PLANTSTRONG journey. And I hope that you enjoy the show.
Rip Esselstyn:
All right, my PLANTSTRONG peppercorns. My name is Rip Esselstyn and I want to welcome you back to another episode of the PLANTSTRONG podcast, and give a special shout out to all the new listeners who have joined us over the last couple of weeks. Since we launched into 2022 our download numbers have almost doubled. And so I want to thank and appreciate all of the new people that are exploring all the benefits of plants. I think it's fair to say that 2022 is off to a leafy green and peachy keen start.
Rip Esselstyn:
Today's episode is a particularly fun one for me because I get to dive into mindset and attitude, two things that are just, to me, so absolutely integral in life, with my longtime pal, Nicole DeBoom. Now like me, Nicole is a former top level swimmer turned professional triathlete turned entrepreneur who recently sold her popular company, Skirt Sports, that she founded in 2002. And she was the first sportswear company to actually have a skirt that people could wear during their athletic competitions. It was absolutely brilliant. And now all the huge companies have followed suit, the Nikes, the Reeboks, Under Armors of the world. But she was the first.
Rip Esselstyn:
And she has recently started a new company called Aesop, where people can book interviews and record their memories for loved ones, for posterity's sake. I love it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Now, why will this conversation resonate with you? Because like all of us, Nicole's journey has not been linear. There have been stops and starts and struggles and plenty of setbacks along the way. And she is very open about discussing her battles will with alcohol, the tension in her marriage, and she gets very, very real. And I so appreciate it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Through it all, Nicole has remained relentlessly curious and passionate. And she has used her struggles to gain the muscle and the fortitude to keep going even though it's never perfect. Today she is almost 14 years sober. She is PLANTSTRONG and is curious open minded as ever. And guess what? She is still not perfect. And I got news for you, neither are any of us.
Rip Esselstyn:
As you listen, I hope you'll be inspired to keep forging ahead and continue to make smart decisions about your body because as Nicole says, when your body is fit and strong, your mind is fitter and stronger too. Oh yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hey gang. I am here with Nicole DeBoom. Nicole and I go back a long ways. She is truly one of the ... She just is a kindred spirit in so many different ways. But she's so much more than that, as well. She is so wise. She is so eternally optimistic, charming ... You just have such a curiosity and almost insatiable thirst for life. You just want to suck out every little bit of it. And I have enjoyed becoming much better friends with you over the last several years. And I really, really feel like you have led such a fascinating, interesting life.
Rip Esselstyn:
And so, almost in the spirit of the new venture that you are getting off the ground, I would love to, actually, almost turn that on you right now. Because I think the different chapters that you have led in your life ... And to me, at times, it's not so much about reinventing yourself as it is about continuing to grow and evolve, and then adding on to all the things you've learned along this life's path and journey.
Rip Esselstyn:
So I'm just going to start out of the gates. Tell me, Nicole, where did you grow up? And then tell me about how you got to Yale.
Nicole DeBoom:
Oh boy. Cool. I love it. The first 18 years, chapter number one. Well, first of all, thank you. This is amazing. And the business you're referring to is a new business I just started called Aesop, like the fables. Some people call it Aesop, I call it Aesop. Who cares what it's called, but it's spelled A-E-S-O-P. And the idea behind it is that I want to help people capture their stories.
Nicole DeBoom:
And we captured your story not too long ago, because you agreed to do it as part of my sample reel.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
And it turned out to be this incredible life lessons episode, where we went through all your chapters. And I actually put you on the spot on everyone, which I think you may be doing to me today, that I did not prepare for. So this will be fun.
Nicole DeBoom:
And you had the most profound takeaways from each stage. And I don't know if this will be true for me, but when you were sharing your stories of your chapters of your life, I could feel how one led to the next. And it was so obvious. So it's that whole hindsight looking back. It was so obvious that you would be a pro triathlete and then become a firefighter. All those things. So I'm excited. So thank you for giving me the opportunity, because it is fun to turn the lens on yourself sometimes, and there's rarely an excuse to do it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. Again, I want to say that when you first told me about this new business venture that you're going into, I was like, it sounds really interesting. But then when you were actually interviewing me as a sample for what it could look like, so people could get an idea. And how people can preserve and share the stories of their lives. I was like, oh my God. I want everybody I know to actually do this and have it as a keepsake for their families. It's like a little treasure trove.
Rip Esselstyn:
And I told you this, that same morning, the COO of my company, PLANTSTRONG, told me that, I really want to do something to capture my father and all of his memories and everything. Will you do it? And I'm like, "Yeah, I'll do it."
Rip Esselstyn:
And then five hours later, I said, "No, you need to call Nicole DeBoom and have her do it. Because this is what she does." But anyway, let's start with you.
Nicole DeBoom:
Cool. Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:
Tell me about the first 18 years and getting to Yale.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. So in my early ... I grew up, actually, outside of Chicago in a little town called Downers Grove, Illinois. What's really funny is that there's a national ... Nationals for cycling is in Downers Grove, Illinois. But I never knew that all growing up because I wasn't in that world.
Nicole DeBoom:
The world of gravitated to, or let's say, bubbled up to, was swimming. So as a little kid, I was sort of a little tomboy type. I was a super skinny, little twig. I ran around chasing after my sister, and then she really didn't like me that much so I made my own friends and chased around with them. And just tried every single sport. My parents were like, you're going to try every sport. We'll just see what sticks. You just have to be busy. I did sports every day of my life growing up.
Nicole DeBoom:
And I sucked at many of them. Most things that required hand-eye coordination, balls ... No way. I remember they made me do T-ball. I hated T-ball, and one of the reasons I hated T-ball, though, was I wasn't very strong, but I was super fast when I was little, say seven years old, eight years old. And we were with the boys in T-ball at that age, and some older kids too. And I remember I had had to go up to bat, and it's a tee. I mean, literally. But these boys were so mean. They're like, "Oh, she's up,. Move up everybody."
Nicole DeBoom:
And sure enough, I'm all nervous anyway. I barely like hit the thing. I probably missed a whole bunch of times and finally hit it. It bounced a couple feet. But that didn't make me feel good. What made me feel good was when I got dumped into the shallow end of the swimming pool for my first ever swim lessons. And by the end of day one I had already graduated to the final, highest level of swim lessons. That made me feel good.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
So I think that's ...
Rip Esselstyn:
Why do boys do that to girls? Why do we feel so insecure that we have to try and beat them down? And the reason why I'm interrupting you is because I've got a seven year old daughter named Hope. And it's happening right now with her and the boys. And she actually is the best athlete out there. And these boys can't handle it.
Nicole DeBoom:
I was going to ask, do they still do it?
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, oh yeah, absolutely. Have you not gotten it with Wilder?
Nicole DeBoom:
Well, she's not doing a lot of sports that include boys.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
But if she was, she probably would.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
I don't know why boys do that. You tell me. You tell me. Why do boys do that?
Rip Esselstyn:
I think it's because we're insecure. And we don't like the fact that, oh my God, you mean to tell me a girl is beating me? What does that say about me?
Nicole DeBoom:
Well, I was going to say, I don't know ... And I agree with that. It has to do with insecurity or trying to prove yourself or all the things that boys are trying to do at that age, like be strong, be the best, be competitive, have aggression, all the things that we still teach, that are a little bit gender-centric.
Nicole DeBoom:
And girls are trying to figure out, should I be aggressive, or should I be, in the one mile run, slowing down to help my friend who's crying? The girls are ... I think boys do that too. I'm not sure if the gender line is quite as clear, but I do think you're right. It is still happening. And I can't quite know why boys do that. Maybe we should interview a bunch of little boys. But then I thought, well, what should girls do when that happens to them?
Nicole DeBoom:
And what I did back then was just sort of close off. And I got really hypersensitive to my ... I didn't know it was femininity at the time, but wanting to be a girl was really important to me. But by genetics, and who knows why, I was also a really good athlete. And those two things definitely were at odds, especially as I got older and grew up in the Eighties and Nineties culture.
Nicole DeBoom:
Our society was really setting different standards for being feminine and being an athlete. For a boy, being masculine and being an athlete really were a very similar thing. So I don't know how all this ties into the question you just asked. But, damn, we got to make some changes for these girls.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. But it definitely is going to tie into where you ended up with Skirt Sport.
Nicole DeBoom:
Oh yeah, it is.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah baby.
Nicole DeBoom:
Totally.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you're in the pool and you're doing great by the end of the first day, you're kicking some major butt.
Nicole DeBoom:
I mean, I was five. And my mom and dad were like, let's just put her in year-round swim team. So I just started club swimming at the Hinsdale Hornets. I swam almost every day. So I would do sports after school, growing up and getting into junior high I just did whatever sports were available: Basketball, volleyball, softball, soccer, running, that came into play. And then later on you'd go home and eat, and then you'd go to swim practice. That was the life.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
And I was very talented as a swimmer. And I know you can relate to this. And we go through little ebbs and flows. But from the start I was making the Junior Nationals ... It was called JOs.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
As a kid, it was the state championships. Or something. And as you aged up, you'd suck a little more of that year. You still made the cuts though.
Nicole DeBoom:
So swimming was sort of this baseline where I had a lot of confidence. And I think confidence is one of the things that has carried me through all these chapters. And I developed it as a swimmer growing up.
Nicole DeBoom:
But I will say, there was another sport that I was really good at. In sixth grade, at my junior high, the only varsity sport a sixth grader could do was cross country. The other sports you couldn't do as varsity until you were in seventh grade. So I was like, okay, I'll go do cross country. I knew I was a good runner. I was always really fast at everything. And it was a one mile. Now they run longer, I think. But back then it was one mile.
Nicole DeBoom:
So I went out and the very first meet ever, I think I ran ... I won the whole thing. Beat all the girls. And I think I ran like a 6:45 mile, or something. And everyone was like, whoa, what just happened? And then I won every single meet that entire year. And by the end of the year, I think I ran, I don't know, a 6:20 mile in sixth grade.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's good.
Nicole DeBoom:
That was really good.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
And I look at these little photos in my ... I had those tube socks.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
With the stripes, and my hair was wild. My hands were doing limp-wristed. I was just flying. I remember the feeling of flying. And I was learning how to listen to your breathing and all these really cool things.
Nicole DeBoom:
And then in seventh grade I won every single race. And I ended the year with a 5:59. And then in eighth grade I won every single race and I finished the year with a 5:25 mile.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow.
Nicole DeBoom:
The high school teams were out looking at me. And I remember the high school coach. They were like, wow, so cross country. And I was like, nope, I'm swimming. I was like, screw you. I'll do track. I'm going to swim in the fall.
Nicole DeBoom:
So it was just this ... I think I just grew up knowing that I was awesome. I was an awesome athlete and I was an awesome student. I had insecurities, like we mentioned, and as most kids do as they're going into puberty. But I was a performer. I kicked butt in everything I did.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well ...
Nicole DeBoom:
It was crazy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hey, you know what? Why not? If you can, do it. So did you just swim all throughout high school? You didn't actually do track?
Nicole DeBoom:
No, I actually did track and I was really good. And I'll tell you ... It's interesting. I swam. I joined the high school swim team, but I was on a year-round club team which was way more badass. Super hardcore and one of the best teams in the state. And Illinois was a good swimming state.
Nicole DeBoom:
And so my freshman year, I did okay. I qualified for State in swimming. That was good. I was one of the only ones. But sophomore year I came out screaming. But because our high school coaching was not nearly at par with what I'd done all summer, my times went backward. I didn't even qualify. It was like, what just happened? And I think I was starting to hit puberty a little bit. I was still probably 115 pounds. Scrawny. And I was a breaststroker, I swam 100 breaststroke, 200 IM, and some of the sprint free styles for the relays and stuff.
Nicole DeBoom:
So after ... I was kind of humiliated because I was built up to be the shit in my high school swimming. And I went to this coach. I went, actually, to a new club team that was even more badass and the coach didn't even know my name. I just hung in there and got myself through the next couple months.
Nicole DeBoom:
And out of the blue, out of nowhere, in like January of ... it was 1987 or '88, I think. 1988, I qualified for Junior Nationals and I went up to him and then he knew my name. And he was like, "Oh wow." So that happened. And our family actually ... I then started running track that spring, and Nationals were coming up and my family went on a trip to Cancun, Mexico on spring break.
Nicole DeBoom:
All these things. So I wasn't training that ... I was trying to get some training in. And then I showed up at Nationals in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. There were five of us and the coach was kind of like, all right, let's go see what you got.
Nicole DeBoom:
I got up on the blocks. I swam the hundred breaststroke. I touched the wall and I had dropped almost three seconds. I went a 1:05.12. I'll never forget that. It was a swim that changed my life. I was seated first and I qualified for Olympic trials, which was that summer, as a 16 year old. Out of nowhere.
Nicole DeBoom:
And I remember the feeling. I touched the wall and I was like, "What the hell?" Everyone was still coming in. You know, I wasn't in a seated heat, or anything. And I couldn't believe it. And I got out and I kept looking back at the clock and my coach was going insane. And I get over there and I felt like I was walking on clouds. I was like, "What is this feeling?" And it was almost like ... It became almost a drug for me, as an athlete. And I believe it was the feeling of surpassing any expectation you could have ever set for yourself. Do you remember that feeling as an athlete?
Rip Esselstyn:
Sure. Yes. Yeah, it's very elusive. But yes, when you get it, it's nothing like it.
Nicole DeBoom:
And then you chase it. That's the dangerous part.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like a drug, huh?
Nicole DeBoom:
Little bit. So yeah, that was a big shift for me. And the thing is, I had been running track and I was really fast. We did the 3,200 meter relay. We all ran an 800, and our relay team was second in the state. And my 800 was a 2:10 or something. I was fast.
Nicole DeBoom:
But when I made Olympic trials, I said, I'm not going to run anymore. Because if I'm this good, I'm now seated fifth in the country in the 100 breaststroke. I'm getting recruited to colleges before I'm even a junior, and I'm swimming in the trials. Which, I ended up bombing. But at the end of the day, who cares? I finished smack dab in the middle of the field, 42nd out of 84, which really isn't bad.
Nicole DeBoom:
I got to swim in the cool down pool with Matt Biondi. Yeah. And watching Janet Evans. And I saw Rowdy Gaines, I think, swim his last-
Rip Esselstyn:
What year was that?
Nicole DeBoom:
It was '88.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay.
Nicole DeBoom:
It might have been the first trials Rowdy didn't make it, or he was on a relay as an alternate. It was just this really cool generation, this cool group of athletes to watch.
Nicole DeBoom:
But here's what happened when I quit running. I never got faster as a swimmer. I mean, we think ... Singular focus is a term that's used often as pro athletes. Well, you have to be singularly focused to win the Ironman, or to win prize money and do the things you want to do to be the best.
Nicole DeBoom:
But when I became singularly focused, I never swam faster. I swam faster in other events, but my 100 breaststroke was never faster.
Rip Esselstyn:
So the fastest you ever went was 1:05.12?
Nicole DeBoom:
In yards, yes. I did go faster, relatively, in meters.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow.
Nicole DeBoom:
And that sucked. But it was amazing. I don't know how to feel about it, still.
Rip Esselstyn:
How did you end up at Yale, of all schools?
Nicole DeBoom:
I did all the recruiting trips, and by then I had already become a little burned out on swimming and a lot excited about partying. And I used those recruiting trips as a tool to party my brains out. And it was crazy looking back. I'm like, God did I waste some of that opportunity?
Nicole DeBoom:
But it was what it was. It felt very normal to me. I wasn't the only one being crazy out there. I chose Yale based on my gut feeling. I went to Stanford and Princeton and Michigan and UCLA. I got scholarship offers to some of them. And I chose the Ivy League that doesn't give scholarship offers.
Nicole DeBoom:
My dad had gone there and I kind of didn't want to go because he went. But when I visited it just felt right. So I think that gut feeling is an important lesson that I learned early on.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right. And you listened to it.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah, exactly. Because when you're making a decision that big, you have all these factors. But the one at the very end of the line is, how does it feel in your core. Not even your heart or your head, it's your gut. How does it feel down there?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Now, did you end up swimming at Yale with Frank Keefe?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah, I did.
Rip Esselstyn:
You did.
Nicole DeBoom:
He is so awesome.
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:25:04]
Nicole DeBoom:
He is so awesome. I went to his retirement party. That's the only other time I went back to Yale, it was maybe, I don't know, 10 years ago. He was amazing. When I was swimming there, all the women on the team were beautiful Amazon women. They were like six feet tall with three foot long blonde hair. All of them, I swear, except for me.
Rip Esselstyn:
What do you mean? What are you, 5'11?
Nicole DeBoom:
I was the shorter, I was 5'7, now I'm even shorter. We'll get to that later with my back issues, but it was just this time of we were coming onto scene and we were getting more dominant in the Ivy leagues and we had multiple swimmers qualifying for NCAA. I was sort of leading my class of recruitment, but I enjoyed it. I loved it. I loved being part of a team.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
I loved walking on campus two weeks before school started and feeling like I already had a family. It was amazing. Amazing. I never swam faster in those events. I swam faster in other events. But when you asked, did I swim there? I swam there some of the time. I burned out. I partied so hard that by the end of, I quit swimming junior year, I didn't want to swim anymore. I partied, I smoked pot and I sucked at smoking pot, but I wanted to be so good at smoking pot, but I just kept falling back to my go-to, which was drinking. I was a terrible drinker, but I felt like I was a great drinker. I had created this whole identity around wanting to be a party girl. Oh my God, I'm so glad video didn't exist or wasn't as successful.
Rip Esselstyn:
When you say you were a party girl, what exactly does that look like?
Nicole DeBoom:
I think I just loved the feeling that I had when I drank. I sought out any opportunity I could, to let loose in that way. When I wasn't drinking, I think I felt like I couldn't let loose in a way that there was something inside of me that wanted to let loose, like be very reckless and do things I wouldn't do if I was totally sober. At an Ivy league, you can party every single night if you want. I found ways to do that. When you ask what it looked like, I mean, I was swim team. I mean the swimmers party, they were notorious for it. I know, you know this, but we had a mixed team at Yale so the men and women hung out together. Scantly clad, constant hormones raging, the teams were completely incestuous. Everybody hooked up with everybody and everybody worked so hard with your head down, staring at the black line that you just, you needed an outlet for that when you finally got out of the pool.
Rip Esselstyn:
Did your grades suffer at all or were you able to keep those where you wanted them?
Nicole DeBoom:
Well, I don't know if it's where I wanted them, but I ended up kind of getting a B-
Rip Esselstyn:
Right.
Nicole DeBoom:
... at Yale. I got a B, so I was a B student there, and I learned the system.
Rip Esselstyn:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
It's a good question, because I often, I don't feel guilt, but I do wish that I had taken more advantage of the academic opportunities. The Dalai Lama would come to Yale and I'd be like, "I'm going to go party at the bar." I didn't do these really cool things.
Rip Esselstyn:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
I did learn the system. I guess I learned how I worked best.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
I learned that I was really good at writing papers. I learned that I wasn't great at test taking, but partly because I never went to class.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hmm.
Nicole DeBoom:
It's like I learned how to carve my own path there to get me through the academic part. I didn't fall in love with an academic area of study.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
I wanted to, but I didn't.
Rip Esselstyn:
What did you major in?
Nicole DeBoom:
Sociology.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay.
Nicole DeBoom:
Like everybody else who didn't find what they wanted.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
No, this is so cool. I did not obviously think about this at the time, but I had to write a senior thesis and it was like a 50 page paper. You had to do an experiment or something, and then you came up and you wrote your whole thesis on it. I decided to write a paper that I titled, The Female Athlete: An Oxymoron.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow.
Nicole DeBoom:
I dissected feminine and athlete and how they were at odds. I interviewed all these athletes and I have the paper behind me sitting here somewhere. I found that women who participated in sports that were skimpy uniforms or were judged, like diving and gymnastics, had a way higher precedent of eating disorders and bad body image than women athletes who were in sports like basketball or soccer, where they had to be aggressive and who cares what they looked like. It was just like fascinating looking back. My conclusion was, they're never going to come together unless we come up with a new standard for what female and athlete need to be.
Rip Esselstyn:
That go goes all the way back to when you were seven years old.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yes, it does.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you wrote that kickass 50 page thesis.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Which I'm sure you got an A plus on.
Nicole DeBoom:
No, I got a B minus and I'm so mad. You have to have like a guide, a professor. It was a guy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
What does he know about being a female athlete? Come on.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
I'm sure it was maybe not the very best writing and history, but no, I think it's cool. I was glad I dug it out. It was crazy to me how so much of it still resonates.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, that's really cool. You also mentioned that you did a fair amount of alcohol. You wanted to be a kind of a pot head, blah, blah, blah. One of the reasons that you did the alcohol, was because you wanted to kind of be uninhibited, right, and all that. Do you feel like that's something that you've been able to leave behind and now you're able to kind of break free without any kind of substances or alcohol?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yes and I'm so grateful. It did chase me around for many years after college. I think alcohol abuse is prevalent in most families at somewhere. It has been shown that there is some genetic correlation. My mom got treatment for alcoholism when I was in sixth grade, her dad, some of her brothers, my dad's family. Here's the interesting thing. When I was in sixth grade, the school counselor called me in and I had to do some counseling during school, which was mortifying. I remember them telling me, "You cannot drink alcohol because you have a much higher chance of becoming an alcoholic because your mom is."
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
That may work for some people, but it almost had the opposite effect. I mean, for years when I was really young, I was like, "I'll never drink alcohol." Then by sophomore year in high school, it was like, "What is this thing that just makes me feel so good? Tastes terrible, but it feels good." The thing for me with alcohol, is that I was a blackout drinker and that's scary. It is terrifying. I always wanted to be a controlled drinker. I wished I could. I wanted to, I'd be like, "I'm going to drink up just to the line before I don't remember anything and stop." The next morning, I'd wake up somewhere and I'd be like, "Ah, what happened?" I didn't quite stop in time. That happened frequently.
Rip Esselstyn:
Can I ask you this, because I've never experienced that? That is, so is it basically where you actually are going about, I mean, you drink to the point to where you're going out and you're talking to people, but you just black out and you don't remember any of it? Is that right?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you don't just like black out and fall in bed and fall asleep?
Nicole DeBoom:
No, I call that passing out. Most people I know have passed out, right? You drink a bunch and then you're just laying down and the next morning you wake up. Blacking out, you drink a bunch, you don't actually lay down, but your brain doesn't remember any of it. You may as well just be passed out. That's when it's so terrifying.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
I would call my friends the next morning, be like, "What I do? What happened?" I was so relieved when it wasn't something bad, but sometimes it was something bad.
Rip Esselstyn:
How often would you drink to the point of blacking out? I mean whenever you drank, did it have to go to that level?
Nicole DeBoom:
No, not every single time, but if it was a night where I was like, "I'm going to party tonight, let's get the shots out."
Rip Esselstyn:
"We're going to paint the town pink."
Nicole DeBoom:
I mean, totally. I mean, I was a girl who was calling for shots. I wanted to be this drinker, I don't know, so screwed up this identity that's so negative, but you are holding onto it for dear life. It happened often a couple times a week.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
I mean, this was not once a year. It was dangerous, very dangerous and somehow I'm alive. I'm not in jail. I don't have HIV. I didn't do heroin. I mean, I could have been slipped some stuff at some point, but I'll never know because I would've been blacked out anyway.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Right. I want to revisit-
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
... this along our kind of-
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
... continue.
Nicole DeBoom:
It'll come back into play.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:
It's time to take a small break for a little episode of PLANTSTRONG Proof. This is a mid roll letter from a listener, which always makes my day when I share these. This particular letter came in from Carrie. She's from Glastonbury, Connecticut and she writes, "In November 2019, I watched The Game Changers and became vegetarian the very next day. I was a vegetarian in my younger years, but over time gave it up for no good reason. I'd read about giving up dairy, but always thought it seemed so extreme. Also, I didn't want to be perceived as difficult. After watching The Game Changers, something just clicked. I realized how I choose to eat is my business, my body, my life. Lucky for me, my husband and son came along for the ride.
Rip Esselstyn:
In 2020, we were vegetarian, but still ate some dairy. Then in 2021, I told my guys I was going to sign up for the seven day PLANTSTRONG challenge, and much to my surprise, they both said that they would join me, heck only seven days. Even more surprising, after seven days, my son said that he was never eating meat or dairy again. My husband will occasionally eat dairy when he is out, but for the last year we've been a whole food plant-based household.
Rip Esselstyn:
It has been a journey to completely change the way we eat. It is interesting how my tastes have changed so much, but I know I will never go back. While I originally went whole food plant based for health reasons, thinking about the plight of the dairy cow is what made it easier to give up cheese. Never in a million did I think that my chicken wing loving husband would change his diet so much, but he actually noticed a difference in how he felt, so he is willing to keep going. I haven't had a migraine headache in a year and no more arthritis in my hands and feet. I could stand to lose five or 10 pounds, but I know this lifestyle is what prevented me from gaining weight during the pandemic. I'm so grateful to Rip and the whole PLANTSTRONG team and the community for being so supportive and paving the way. I was so happy to participate in the 2022 challenge and cheer everyone on, especially those here for the very first time. The journey continues. If you made it this far, thanks for reading my very long post."
Rip Esselstyn:
Well Carrie, first that wasn't all that long and you and your family are doing it. Just keep your eye on the PLANTSTRONG prize and keep rocking away. For anyone listening, the seven day challenge is a great way to introduce the lifestyle to your family. I'll be sure to link a one page guideline in our show notes and invite you to jump into our community for lots of support and encouragement from folks just like Carrie. Thanks again. Okay. Now, let's get back to Nicole DeBoom.
Rip Esselstyn:
You graduated from Yale, then what was your next move? I know at some point, you went down the same path I did, which was you decided to become a professional triathlete of all the crazy things.
Nicole DeBoom:
I mean, we had to be at some starting lines together. I got into triathlon after college.
Rip Esselstyn:
Immediately?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah, I just started getting into triathlon because I didn't know what I was going to do, remember I had that sociology degree?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
I was waiting tables and feeling a little depressed. I remember my mom going, "Why don't you go talk to a counselor?" I went and saw a counselor and she gave me this, I was just like, "I don't know what I'm doing," and she goes, "Well, of course you're starting to feel depressed. You don't have any purpose. That's normal at your age and stage, but maybe you can do this little exercise that might be able to help you get some direction." She said, "Why don't you go home and write down all the times in your life that you felt the most alive, that you felt the best about yourself?"
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, nice.
Nicole DeBoom:
She goes, "Just write. Write all of it, big stuff, small stuff, whatever, and then just see what comes up." I wrote it all down, and what came up was a very clear trend or pattern. From that pattern, came this mantra that I still use in my life. It's like a founding foundational block for me. It is that when your body is fit and strong, your mind is fitter and stronger too.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
All the times I felt the best, I was in great shape, I had goals, I was working towards something. I just realized that no matter what I did in my life, I needed to be able to carve out the time to include fitness because that would keep my brain strong.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
The strongest it could be.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
I was like, "Well, I'm waiting tables. I still don't know what I want to do for a career, but I've always wanted to do this triathlon thing ever since I saw this lady named Julie Moss crawl across the line with poopy pants and the whole thing. I was like, "That is awesome." Most people are like, "That looks terrible," but I was like, "I got to try it." I got into triathlon. I just started doing tries.
Rip Esselstyn:
What year was that?
Nicole DeBoom:
That was 1995.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. Here's what's cool Rip, because I mean, we definitely crossed paths. You were in your prime. That year I did a whole bunch of races, including a qualifier for our worlds team. I was this 20 to 24 age grouper and I qualified to go to IT World Champs in Cancun, Mexico.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
This was the year that Karen Smyers won both Hawaii and Cancun.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
World champs. When I got on the airplane in October 1995, all these very gorgeous, fit, ripped people were walking down the aisle because the whole US team was sort of merging on that flight, right? These two guys walked on who kind of looked similar.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
I remember just looking at the second one and going, "That one. That's the one I want to sit next to me." They came down and they kept getting closer to my row and I was laser focused. I'm willing this to happen. The cute guy never sits next to me on the airplane. They get down to my row and the first guy stops and he looks at his ticket and he turns to the other side and I was like, "Okay, good. I have a shot." The second guy stops. He looks and he turns towards me and sits down right next to me.
Rip Esselstyn:
And what was his name?
Nicole DeBoom:
Tim DeBoom.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. For people that have no idea, because I'm sure many of our listeners don't know about the sport of triathlon like we do, who is Tim DeBoom?
Nicole DeBoom:
Well at the time, he was a first year pro and he had just been 10th in his first pro race in Hawaii when Mark Allen won his last one.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
In the years to come, he would become one of the world's best triathletes for over a decade. He won the Hawaii Ironman twice.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
He's still the last American to win the Hawaii Ironman, in 2001 and 2002.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow.
Nicole DeBoom:
I did not know when this quiet, sensitive, gorgeous guy would sit next to me, that I would marry him a year later, that we would pursue a triathlon life, and that I would become a pro. All I knew was that something special was happening.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I guess I did not recall that you guys got married a year later.
Nicole DeBoom:
A year later.
Rip Esselstyn:
You guys were young and you were just starting your triathlon careers for the most part. Wow.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. We have our 25th coming up in a few weeks.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. That was cool. That started the next chapter of my life, which I kind of think of as the triathlon years.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. That was what, a decade for you?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. I raced pro for six years. Tim raced pro for about 20 years.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
It's interesting, singular focus comes really into play here a lot because the greatest times were during triathlon, the lowest times were during triathlon a lot of it was based around whether Tim won or lost. It wasn't me necessarily. I was kind of steady. I sort of think I was along for the ride.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
I was a great triathlete and if I was married to anybody else in America, I would be the shit in my household, but I was married to a two time Ironman world champ. I was sort of the second priority. He wanted to support me of course, but he was making the money. I was getting the same sponsors as him. I was sort of like the tag on, you know what I mean?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
I didn't resent it at first, but looking back, I think I resented it as we went.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
What did you resent?
Nicole DeBoom:
I think at first, I just really loved supporting Tim, but when I decided I also wanted to pursue my goals and try to be a pro and see how good I could be. He was used to being supported, not being a supporter.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
That's a hard-
Rip Esselstyn:
It's a different skillset.
Nicole DeBoom:
... Yeah. It's a really hard pattern to change. Even though I won an Ironman and I won a lot of races and I actually won decent money for a triathlete. I think in my big winning years Rip, I probably made 75 grand or something. For a triathlete, that's insane. Triathletes make $5,000 and they call it a win.
Rip Esselstyn:
No, that's good.
Nicole DeBoom:
I paid for my expenses, like boom.
Rip Esselstyn:
Did that resentment show in your relationship at all? Were you able to express it?
Nicole DeBoom:
Oh yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. This might be where alcohol comes back in a little bit too, because even as a high performing athlete who was using my body to make money, I still needed that outlet. I needed this sort of party release and Tim, that was not his thing. I would use it and I made dumb decisions and I would be crazy. I could just see that it was pulling us apart a little bit. I was like, "I want to go this way. I'm tired of living like a freaking monk," even though doing that, wasn't necessarily going to help my career.
Nicole DeBoom:
I think that's where the big friction could be seen, but the deeper part of it was that we just weren't connecting at that period of time. Tim here he is, winning the race that should make him happy and he's not even happy. When he wasn't happy because he always wanted to win the next one, I got more mad. I'm like, "When's enough enough? There's got to be more, right, out here." It was an interesting ride. The alcohol actually hit its head a few years later. It took a while. What ended up happening for me is that I started my next chapter. I purposely started my next chapter, which didn't really include Tim, while I was still racing.
Rip Esselstyn:
St what point did you decide, "Okay, I need to start transitioning out of the triathlons and find something else to focus on." Can you remember how that evolution took place?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. I think I saw what Tim had given to triathlon and how much pain it was causing our marriage and relationships around him. I thought, "I don't have that to give to this sport. I don't want to give that much to this sport. I may have that much to give to something else and maybe it'll cause some problems later, but it's not for this sport." This sport it's just... My eyes were just open.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nicole DeBoom:
For me, I think I was very open to ideas. I didn't know it was the end of my racing career, but looking back it was towards the end of my racing career, just sort of open. There are times in your life when you're closed and there's times in your life when you're open. One day I was out on a training run when I lived in Lyons, Colorado, it was December 2003, and I had literally pulled on my all men's black, extra small, bad fitting training clothes to go out for this gloomy run. I had a beanie on my head and you couldn't see my hair, which is one of those feminine defining features. I looked at my reflection in the storefront window and I was like, "Holy shit, I look like a boy. I'm completely uninspired. I just want to feel pretty." I kind of tried to keep running a little bit.
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:50:04]
Nicole DeBoom:
And I tried to keep running a little bit and that word pretty just grew in my head and literally forced me to turn around and run home. And it was like, something's changing. Right now, something's changing and it has to do with feeling pretty and what I'm wearing. And I wrote all these notes when I came home about wanting to start a line of women's clothing that would combine feminine and athlete. Oh my God. What the hell, am I seven again?
Rip Esselstyn:
No, you're back at Yale writing your paper.
Nicole DeBoom:
No, but now I'm going to get an A+ on it. So yeah, that's how it turned out. And I didn't realize it at that moment, but basically, that was the business plan for Skirt Sports. Six lines of text, about starting a women's clothing company. I said, "I want to be like what Venus and Serena did in tennis." There were skirts out there, but no one had done skirts for running. Nobody had taken these terrible shorts that women were pulling out of their crotch every five steps, and you're getting chub rub, and your butt's hanging out.
Nicole DeBoom:
And they had granny panties underneath them, it was saggy and they fit bad. No one had figured that out. And I was like, "Well, what if you covered your butt on the run, but in doing so, you actually made it kind of sexier?" And it was like, "Boom, I'm going to do that."
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, I mean, what a great epiphany and what a classy way to show femininity. And I think you wrote somewhere, "Here I am, cross..." So you actually won, if I'm not mistaken, the Wisconsin Ironman on September 12, 2000 and what, '14? Or 2004, something like that, wearing one of your loin cloths. I think you called it a loin cloth.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yes, totally. It's so funny. Well, first of all, I didn't invent the skirt. Skirts existed. I invented the running skirt. That did not exist.
Rip Esselstyn:
No. Were you able to get an IP on that, or no?
Nicole DeBoom:
No.
Rip Esselstyn:
No, you can't do that?
Nicole DeBoom:
No. And it's okay, because then it might've been a weird little tiny category product. The whole world blew up. I was on the front of a tidal wave of femininity and sport. It was like the minute we came out, all these other companies were also toeing this bridge going, "We got to make clothing that actually fits women's bodies. We got to make clothing that's fun, not black." Colorful and cool, and has features women want. So I was riding that wave.
Nicole DeBoom:
So I crossed that finish line and yeah, it was a loin cloth. It was literally a home-sewn... I had a race belt, and I sewed two pieces of red mesh fabric on it. I had somebody else do it, because I don't even know how to sew. And here I am starting a women's clothing company, no business background. I don't have a sewing machine, but I just learned it as I went. And it became so apparent to me, here I win an Ironman, the biggest race in my career. Three days later, I took my five grand, I incorporated Skirt Sports, Inc.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, you definitely were onto something. And now what? Does Nike and everybody-
Nicole DeBoom:
Everybody.
Rip Esselstyn:
Everybody's got them?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah, everybody's got them. It took only a few years.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. Wow. What's crazy is when you hit upon something really amazing like that, it's hard to stay out in front of that wave, isn't it?
Nicole DeBoom:
Oh, it is. It's so hard. And we didn't. I mean, we didn't. We couldn't have. I mean, I ran the business for 15 years. We did over $40 million in sales over 15 years. Some years were big. Some years sucked. We had so many rollercoaster rides.
Nicole DeBoom:
I mean, there were just cycles, and it wasn't ever supposed to be the only thing I did for the rest of my life. But during the beginning, I look back on it and I started Skirt Sports to create something for myself too. Tim had his thing. I needed my thing.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh. And you created it. So over the evolution of your marriage with Tim, did he become a supporter of Skirt Sports?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah, it took a little while, a couple years into Skirt Sports, our marriage was really rocky. And part of that was because Tim was still chasing a win, and he was coming down the other side of the bell curve. And you like to think that champion athletes win the big one and hang it up. Wouldn't that be a great dream? But then if you hang it up, you'd probably always look back and go, "Could I have won another one?" And so he won two, and then he had a medical issue, and then he kept trying to come back and I was done.
Nicole DeBoom:
I was like, "I can't, he's got to move on." And it took him a long time to move on and I was frustrated, so I was starting my own thing and I was getting praise. My ego had never been so big. I was like, "I am the shit. Everyone loves me. I'm making people happy. I'm succeeding in business in a way that I had never succeeded as a triathlete."
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, you were on that cloud, just like you were when you won that one meet and you went 105.12.
Nicole DeBoom:
I've never put that together. You're right, you're right. Except it lasted a couple years. And during that time, it lasted a few years, but a couple years in, the drinking just came to a head. I had to stop. I was ready to walk out of the marriage and I was just drinking. And my eyes were open in all kinds of ways, Rip. I was like, "I think I need to find love somewhere else. This is not working. It's not fulfilling me."
Nicole DeBoom:
And Tim was like, "Please try, please stay." I said, "Okay. But only if you work on all your stuff," because I was like, "It's all you, not me." But then he said, "I need you to stop drinking." And I was like, "Fine. I'll stop drinking, only so that when I look back in five years, I can say I gave everything I had to trying, but I know it's not going to work." And I stopped drinking.
Rip Esselstyn:
What year was this roughly? Do you know?
Nicole DeBoom:
That was 2008.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. So have you been successful?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah, I've been sober ever since.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow.
Nicole DeBoom:
I stopped on my own. I had a lot of support from friends. If I needed to get help or intervention or join an organized group, I definitely would have, because I tried to stop other times in my life. I always knew. Even right after college, I remember taking three months off and I was like, "Oh, I could drink again," but I can't drink again. If I have a drink, at some point, I'll be blackout drunk. It might take two years. It might take two weeks, but I'm going to get back there.
Nicole DeBoom:
My history shows me that that will happen. And my biggest fear in stopping drinking was that I thought I wouldn't be fun anymore, and I'm fun, really fun. But I'm fun in a different way. And I'm not an asshole. I wake up knowing what I did the day before, and I'm healthier, and all of those things. And I don't care if people drink. Drink, but if it's hurting you or people you love, then you should look at that, because there's no time for that pain.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you stopped drinking, and then did your relationship with Tim... Were you guys able to figure that out?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. I mean, it took a couple more turns, but taking that out of the equation, I could make decisions with a clear mind. And I really got back to thinking about my gut. What I really wanted and the first six months I woke up every day and I was like, "I want to be in this marriage," but I didn't really believe it after I stopped drinking.
Nicole DeBoom:
And there was just this day and I think it was six months in, it took a while, and I woke up and I was like, "I want to be in this marriage." And it hit me that I actually did. If you say it enough times, if you push towards something hard enough and you're consistent and persistent, it can change.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, and today, are you just so grateful that you decided to weather the storm and figure it out?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh my gosh. And what-
Nicole DeBoom:
Because we wouldn't have our baby.
Rip Esselstyn:
You wouldn't have Wilder.
Nicole DeBoom:
We wouldn't, and it would've taken me out. I wouldn't be here sitting, talking to you. I wouldn't be here all plant strong. I'd be doing things that are unhealthy for me, and justifying them and surrounding myself with people who helped me justify them instead of surrounding myself by people who believe in me for who I am, and support me for who I am.
Rip Esselstyn:
So I want to talk about where Skirt Sports is today and that evolution. But before, so Tim started a newsletter maybe a year ago, if I'm not mistaken, something like that-
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
... called A Dedicated Life. And I love reading it, but he just sent one out just a couple days ago, and I think it was the 10th anniversary of him officially retiring from the sport of triathlon. And he started it out by saying he left this item underneath the bike racks, and it was significant for a reason. And I'm like, "Well, what did you leave? I want to know what you left underneath and why."
Rip Esselstyn:
And I think he got it in combination from you, because I think it's something that you did. And it's also a tradition for the Hawkeye wrestling team. And I'd love for you to share that what you did, what he did, and the significance of that, because I think it's really powerful that you were able... both of you were able to know, "Okay, it's time. It's time. It's time to close this chapter and move onto another one," which as we've been talking about, is not easy to do.
Rip Esselstyn:
And I don't care who you are. If you're doing triathlons, if you're a lawyer, doctor, it doesn't matter what your career is. When's it time to move on?
Nicole DeBoom:
Ending things is hard. And sometimes, you don't even know it's the end until you're in the middle of the last day of it. And suddenly, it shows itself to you, that it is the end. And what you're referring to is the last race Tim did as a pro and many years prior to his last race, I had my last race as a pro.
Nicole DeBoom:
And for me, I had already started Skirt Sports. My energy was there, but I was still racing because I believed you didn't want to quit your day job until you knew your new job was going to work. And I remember, I worked an expo at the Chicago Triathlon the entire weekend, and then I went and did the race. And it was my worst finish ever. In my six years, I had never been out of the money.
Nicole DeBoom:
And in that race, I was slogging around in a more professional loin cloth and thinking, "Well, I'm promoting my company," but as I'm slogging around in total pain, I was in 12th place, for the first time out of the money ever. And in my head, I was like, "When I finish this, I'm done. I'm going to leave my shoes in transition and walk away." And I did. And that was in late 2005, less than a year after I started Skirt. And years later, Tim did the same thing.
Nicole DeBoom:
He had a storied career, but he wasn't proud of it until years later, and it's very hard to watch somebody do something amazing and not be proud of it. But at that time, we had had a daughter and he thought he was going to keep racing. So he did a couple more races. And at the end, within six months, the race you're alluding to, he just knew it was time. He left his shoes in transition, walked away and never did another pro race. So cool.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So let's transition now to Skirt Sports. So when did you know it was time for you to put your skirt underneath the bike rack and leave that, because that, what a passion and love affair you had for that!
Nicole DeBoom:
Oh my gosh. It was incredible. I'm a really good starter. I'm not that good at hanging around for the long ride. I'm not good at hanging around when it's boring. I like to create stuff, right? So literally, halfway through my 15-year-ride, I was already bored, I think. I was creating everything you could think of, race series. And we had a crowdsourcing thing. We did this Kickstarter. I had gotten all these women who were like, "I have urinary incontinence. You have to help me."
Nicole DeBoom:
I created a skirt with what we called a trap door, so that you could literally just stand there with a skirt covering you, and unleash the trap door and pee next to a guy who's peeing without having a squat and go in a Porta-Potty. We literally created this skirt we called the Got To Go, and we sold 800 units on Kickstarter.
Nicole DeBoom:
It was like, "What the hell?" I had to keep creating, to the point where it became a little bit of a detriment to the company, and I had investors and I really wanted to make them so happy. But what I learned looking back is that if you don't sell your company during the original hockey stick, like three to five years in while you're still growing fast, your chances of getting a really good return just get lower.
Nicole DeBoom:
So I'm an athlete like you, when things get hard, I would just try harder. And sometimes, it worked and sometimes, it didn't. And after a few of those cycles, every cycle took three years by the way, it's a long time to run another business cycle. I was faced with another business cycle in late 2019 and I was like, "I don't want to do it. It's not the best time to sell my business, but I'm going to try to sell it. And if I can't sell it, I'm going to close it. It's time. I have to do it. I have to do it for my own mental health, for the health of my family. And I'm going to do my very best, even if I end up shutting the company down, I'm going to win at ending."
Nicole DeBoom:
So when we talk about ending, I got some advice from a friend because I thought, "Well, while I'm working on this, I should be working on my next thing. What's it going to be?" And my friend said, "Nicole, you cannot start something else until you give everything you can to ending this chapter." And so with that advice, I just put my head down and went and I said, "There could be a fairytale ending, but I don't know if it's going to be there. So I'm going to act as if it's not."
Nicole DeBoom:
And I spent the early part of 2020, well, the first thing that happened is I thought I might actually resurrect and do another three-year cycle. And in January of 2020, I was like, "Thank God 2019 is behind us. It sucked. 2020 is going to be an amazing year." And six weeks later, we're in a global pandemic. People were losing their jobs, healthy companies were going out of business, and nobody bought anything. And we weren't healthy enough to withstand a couple months of not hitting numbers.
Nicole DeBoom:
So I just knew it was time. And you know what happened? The fairytale, it happened. I found a buyer. I shut the company down. We did amazing with that process. I mean, it was insane. It could've been the worst time of my life and it wasn't. It was an amazing time.
Rip Esselstyn:
When you say you shut the company down, what exactly do you mean? What does that look like?
Nicole DeBoom:
Well, we started the process of shutting down. We had almost a million dollars of inventory we had to sell. So by shutting down, I'm like, "Well, I don't know if a buyer will show it herself or himself. So I have to sell all this." And I had to sell it all to online customers, because no businesses were buying inventory in the beginning of a pandemic. We didn't know what was happening.
Rip Esselstyn:
So what percent of your business at Skirt Sports by the end was D2C and what was retail?
Nicole DeBoom:
Towards the end, it was a half and half. And we had a couple of big accounts, but it was just done. It had to be done. Everything was changing. Investment, everything was drying up, financing, all of it. So, we sold it all.
Rip Esselstyn:
So what was that fairytale? How did that happen?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah, I got a lot of interest. I decided that if we were going to sell the business, we couldn't do it in private, how most companies sell. Like one day they're operating and the next day they're like, "Now we're owned by Hormel." You're like, "How did that happen?" I just put out a press release. I said, "Skirt Sports is seeking a new owner, contact me." And I got maybe 30 serious phone calls from individuals, companies, VC, et cetera.
Nicole DeBoom:
And one of them became the new owner of Skirt Sports. And I realized, she's not going to want all this old inventory anyway, so let's just sell it all. We came up with a plan and I said, "I'm going to sell every last piece by August 17th of 2020, because it's a Sunday and I'm going on vacation that day, and you got to pick a day."
Nicole DeBoom:
And it was the morning of August 17th, 2020. I woke up, we had 20 units left.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow.
Nicole DeBoom:
Of extra small black one-piece swimsuits. Not even skirts. And I was like, "I freaking hope there's 20 extra small women who want a black one-piece swimsuit for like $6 today, because I'm hitting send on this email." I hit send. And by noon, they were sold. And I emailed the woman who bought the last one and I said, "You bought the very last piece of Skirt Sports as we know it. There may be a new chapter someday." I wasn't announcing yet.
Nicole DeBoom:
And she wrote me back and she said, "I've been wearing your skirts for 14 years, Nicole. I'm so happy to have helped you here." And it was just like, "Wow." And Rip, I loaded up my family that day and we went to this little mountain town called Steamboat Springs on vacation. We were thinking, "Maybe we should move. Maybe Boulder needs to be done. We've been here 25 years."
Nicole DeBoom:
And we had actually put an offer on a house here and we lost it, like everybody loses their offers these days. And we were bummed because we were hoping to come here and be getting ready for a new move. But our realtor said, "Nicole, something weird is going on with this offer, so I think you should put in a backup offer." I'm like, "Sure, whatever. Put in a backup offer."
Nicole DeBoom:
So we load our family up an hour after that last unit sold, and we got halfway here and the phone rang and my realtor said, "Hi, Nicole. I hope you're sitting down. Guess what?"
Rip Esselstyn:
Another fairy tale.
Nicole DeBoom:
"Another offer fell through. The house is yours." And then immediately, we lost reception and was crying in the car. And Tim was like, "What? What's going on?" It's like, you have to put your energy into the thing that needs to be done. And the minute it's done, another door opens up for you. It just works that way.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, and along the way, I mean, you've done so many things. I mean, you started your own podcast, what? Five, six years ago called Run This World, right?
Nicole DeBoom:
You were episode five.
Rip Esselstyn:
Really?
Nicole DeBoom:
We talked about penile dysfunction. I mean, I remember I was like, "I love Rip." I became plant strong.
Rip Esselstyn:
And that to me epitomizes your curiosity for life, because I think you reached out to me because you wanted to try the 28-day challenge. And you like experimenting with things and this is just another thing you wanted to try and experiment with, to see what would happen with your lipid panel and other things.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yes. Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
And I remember you getting some really nice drop in your cholesterol and your LDL, and I think your triglycerides and stuff like that. And then, I mean, it sounds like for the most part, it stuck and you've been maybe not plant perfect, but you've certainly been plant strong for a long, long time.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. It's funny. Vegan is one of those polarizing words. Plant strong is way less polarizing, but a friend of mine used the word chegan not too long ago. The cheating vegan. A lot of people are like, "You eat cheese?" I'm like, "Not really, but I cheat." Because I am not perfect. I am far from perfect. And I mostly choose to eat the Rip Esselstyn way, because it feels the best.
Nicole DeBoom:
But if somebody's offering me something from a bakery and I'm sure it has butter and eggs, I usually don't say no, I take a bite. You know what I mean? So, yeah. I like being a chegan, I think it's cool.
Rip Esselstyn:
I think Serena and Venus Williams consider themselves chegans.
Nicole DeBoom:
Awesome. See, it's coming all the way full cycle again. I love it.
Rip Esselstyn:
You're in good company, for sure. And then also, just a couple months ago, you did a summit, right?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
BeYOUtiful, something like that?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yes. And part of that is because a lot of times when people sell their businesses, they have very bad relationships with the people that buy them. And I have an amazing relationship with our new owner. She and I started a podcast. It's called She Runs It. We're refocusing it a little bit on women in business. We are doing projects together.
Nicole DeBoom:
And the beYOUiful Summit was one of those projects. So my role there was to line up all the speakers, get the content loaded, and create inspiration for women. It's such a perfect fit for me. I love playing in a lot of buckets right now.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well that, and everything that it sounds like you've ever really done and been passionate about, it's also been about empowering women.
Nicole DeBoom:
It is, and I think it's really cool when you finally just embrace it. You go, "Well, this is what I'm going to do. I'm just going to empower." And women is a big part of my focus. My new business isn't just for women, by any means. But that will always be there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And you'll always be fashionable. I mean, I look at just talking to you right now and you've got a pink microphone cover that you're talking into, that goes so perfectly with your pink hairband.
Nicole DeBoom:
Oh, thank you so much, Rip. I will say, it's fun. I love starting things. My new called ESOP, it's actually at ESOPNation.com, and you can listen to your sample, which is what I call like a life lessons example. I think follow your passion was your big message, and that's what's taken you through each stage.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:15:04]
Nicole DeBoom:
... message, and that's what's taken you through each stage.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
And maybe thinking back on our conversation today, maybe I'll steal that and say that following my passion has also taken me each stage.
Rip Esselstyn:
I think it absolutely has.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah, it has.
Rip Esselstyn:
Absolutely. I just want to share a little bit with the audience. So, you also, one of the projects that you're doing right now, that is a mutual friend of ours named Steve Tarpinion, kind of tragic for us and everybody that loves Steve. He committed suicide about six years ago. And so you are now kind of interviewing a bunch of people on mental health and suicide, and people that knew Steve. And it's something that's been kind of commissioned by Steve's kind of life partner, Jean. And what a beautiful thing to leave behind for people, because I think today, so many people right now are, are hurting. They have mental health issues, suicidal thoughts. And to me, that's just one of so many amazing things that you're going to create and put out there into the universe.
Nicole DeBoom:
It's truly a gift. I launched this business and the idea was for people to book interviews with me, so that I could help them preserve their memories. But when I launched it, it went all kinds of directions. And I got a request from Jean. And she said, "Nicole, I saw your email. This new business has to do something with podcasting and interviews. Steve's hand was guiding me to reach out to you. I think we need to do some kind of tribute-type podcast that helps raise awareness about this issue. And also celebrate Steve in a way."
Nicole DeBoom:
Because that's important to her to focus on the positive impact he had on people's lives, instead of having people judge the fact that he ended up killing himself to relieve his suffering. And so I said yes immediately. I was like, "Okay." I don't care if I lose money on it, this is important. I've got to move where the energy is. And that project has been absolutely incredible. It will be out in the new year. It's going to be called Touched By Suicide and it will include 10, maybe more, episodes.
Nicole DeBoom:
And most of them are from the of perspectives of people who've been touched by suicide. We have a mom, we have an attempter who survived, we have a psychiatrist, a son, a fan, we have a colleague. That's you, Rip. I interviewed you for this. We have a buddy, we have an athlete. We have a widow. It is, it's an important issue to raise awareness on. And the goal is that when people are suffering, just like you said, they feel very alone. Whether they are thinking of killing themselves, or if they're a survivor, and we want to provide a resource so people don't feel so alone.
Rip Esselstyn:
And as we talked about, this is a subject that people don't talk about. And so, like anything, to me, in life if you can get conversations flowing and get people talking about it, it is so helpful in so many ways that we're not even aware of.
Nicole DeBoom:
We think vegan's a polarizing word, try suicide. So many survivors, their first reaction is to withhold how their loved one died, because they're ashamed. And that is a massive burden to carry. But it also perpetuates the stigma, and especially people who attempt they don't share that they attempted. And oftentimes, that leads to the second attempt being successful. But if they had shared it, they may have found that there are other people out there who could help them.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, in addition to the word suicide, that goes so hand in hand with it obviously, is depression. And that's, to me, another word that I think a lot of us suffer from depression and most of us aren't talking about it.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. Well, here's the thing about depression. It is probably the number one mental health issue that leads to suicide, but also it's invisible. Alcoholism, you could see when I'm blackout drunk that I'm slurred my words and fallen around. You can see different diseases that people have, often. You can physically see them or hear them. You can't see depression. And so, one of the only ways to combat this is to have persistent, consistent conversations with anybody. The people in your life, for sure, especially your kids as they're growing up and getting into high school and environments where depression can start to come on. But to have conversations, even though you think for sure, they're not depressed, still ask the questions.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
You would never know if you don't ask.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And again, I want to thank you for including me in that, because it was really nice for me to actually just revisit those memories with Steve. And in fact, I've got the photo of me with Steve on a beach right here behind me. Let me just get it for a second.
Nicole DeBoom:
Oh, my gosh. Oh, this is going to be good. Oh, Rip. This is amazing. Oh, oh my God. That brings tears to my eyes. Wow.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
Those were happy times.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yes, they are. Speaking of happy. You have a happy wall in your office, don't you?
Nicole DeBoom:
I do. I do. I have a wall of happy. If I turn my, my laptop around though, all my mics and stuff will come flying out. I stare at it. No one else needs to see it. Just me. You can look at the picture behind me. It's cool too.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
But yeah, I think everyone should create a wall of happy, at a place where they look most. Mine includes artwork from my kid from like second grade that I framed, and photos of smiles and anything that brings a little bit of joy, my wedding picture, sporting stuff. It's all fun.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
I want to talk about a couple other things and then I'm going to let you go. But one of them is, so in looking at some of your Instagram posts, I really like your Instagram and what you post and how inspiring it is. But you have something that says, it's a quote from Alice Walker, "Activism is the rent that I pay for living on the planet." And I feel like you are paying your rent, and then some, with everything that you're doing. And anyway, I don't know if you want to comment on that or not, but I just want to put it out there that I like that quote a lot.
Nicole DeBoom:
What's really cool is I picked that up from somebody I interviewed and I can't even remember who.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. That's a great thing about having a podcast you get-
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
... so many amazing-
Nicole DeBoom:
Doesn't even matter. It doesn't matter because the whole point is that if we're not out here doing something a little larger than ourselves, it can lead down some dark paths. So when you ever go that direction, broaden it, broaden your horizons. That's what I think. Do something bigger than you.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
It helps.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, absolutely. So I also want to talk to you now, because I know that you've been having some back issues. You've got a kind of a, I don't know if it's a disease, or what it is exactly, but it sounds kind like spondylosis. Something like that.
Nicole DeBoom:
Uh-huh. It's like the longest. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
But I want to tie that into body image, injuries, not being able to be as fit as maybe you or I would like to be because we have an injury, and how all that kind of ties together.
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. It's demoralizing. However, there has to be a phase, I think, of acceptance and then hopefully fixing, and a new normal. But what I do have, was diagnosed a couple years ago, it's called spondylolisthesis, there's another S in the middle. I always just call it spondy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Who came up with that crazy name?
Nicole DeBoom:
And there's like, there's spondylosis and [spondolisis 01:24:21]. There's like all these ones. But this one is where one of your vertebrae has a genetic weakness, often genetic, but it doesn't have to be, you can get it from a traumatic injury, and the vertebrae breaks. So, you have your sections of vertebrae. Mine's in my lumber area, my L4 broke and it moved and slipped forward. And it's sitting on top of L5. And you can go to my Instagram and look at my x-ray, because I post these things.
Rip Esselstyn:
I did.
Nicole DeBoom:
Oh, it's terrifying to look at.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
You're like, "Whoa, those look really nice up there." And then your eyes go down and you're like, "Wow, there's no disc. And there's a bone sitting on a bone, and that looks bad." And I knew I had it, but you can live with this. Some people don't even know they ever have it. But over the last two and a half years, my symptoms have been getting worse. And I think possibly it's not stable anymore. I'm getting diagnosed right now with the current state. But what ends up happening is your spinal cord gets pinched.
Nicole DeBoom:
And I now have numbness in my foot, and my leg, and pins and needles. And I'm thinking, this is the beginning of the end, because I know the end of the line for this condition, when the symptoms get bad enough is a spinal fusion. Isn't that terrifying sounding? At 49 years old, I'm have a spinal fusion. But-
Rip Esselstyn:
Not if it will stop the pain, and you'll be better off.
Nicole DeBoom:
Well, and that's just it. We're athletes. We know how to suffer. We know what pain feels like out on the Ironman battlefield. Constant, lower grade pain, it's hard to justify as being bad enough to need help. You know what I mean? From an athlete from a high performer. But I do. The other day Tim said, "Wilder's even noticed that your mood has changed." And I was like, "Maybe I am getting depressed. I've never really been depressed." Like it's not my baseline.
Nicole DeBoom:
But when your lifestyle starts to get more and more limited, that's when I think we go to the dark side. And my lifestyle's getting limited, literally Rip, from swimming 10,000 yards a day, I can swim 500 yards before my back hurts. My workout yesterday was walking to the pool, swimming 500, and walking home. And to a lot of people listening, I would say that is a freaking awesome and respectable workout. But for me, that would be kind of my secondary recovery thing. And in addition, I'd like to do an hour and a half on skate skis or something.
Nicole DeBoom:
But right now I don't think my body's going to let me do that. So it's hard. It's a mental thing.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
The joy of sports is so ingrained in me and the endorphins that are released that I need.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
I don't know how I will be if I let this go on much longer without fixing it. But I'm going to say one other thing about all this posting.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
I'm an open book out there. And a friend of mine wrote me a text the other day and she said, "Nicole, I'm here for you. You are strong. It's scary, but it's great. And I love that you're crowd sourcing support." And I said, "That's what I'm doing." I'm crowdsourcing support. People have all kinds of feelings about social media, but when you need support, people are generally there for you. And even if you don't know them, it feels good.
Rip Esselstyn:
So and you are. You are an open book, and just listening to your conversation here for the last hour and a half, you're insanely open with everything from alcohol blackouts, the rough patch with Tim, your businesses. Have you always been that way? Or when did that develop that you were okay being open like that?
Nicole DeBoom:
I mean, I think there's been an element of that, that I've always had. But as I've gained more confidence in who I am, and I just don't care as much what people will think. And if I think that anything I can share would help someone else, I'm just willing to do it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Tell me, what'd you have to eat this morning for breakfast?
Nicole DeBoom:
Well, there is a kind of foundation piece from the seven-day challenge that you did years ago, when you were launching the abbreviated 28 day. You were like, "Let's do a seven-day rescue." Right?
Rip Esselstyn:
That's right.
Nicole DeBoom:
And you launched this, and the Facebook group had like five million people on day one. I was like, "Oh my God, this thing's amazing. Everyone was crazy." And one of the things was you have to eat greens in every meal.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
And I love it. Greens call to me, and yet I don't always include them, but I know my body's craving them. So I do a breakfast, but then I do a second breakfast every day, because I'm not full after the first breakfast. But today, my second breakfast was hot cereal with blueberries, almonds, some honey almond milk. And then I threw a massive heaping pile of chopped up spinach and kale into it, stirred up and ate that hot cereal with a fork. It was awesome.
Rip Esselstyn:
Was it like oatmeal, or steel cut oats, or what was it?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah, I did oats and Malt-O-Meal.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
I love Malt-O-Meal.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
It's not gluten free or anything. I'm not gluten free, but I love it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Neither are we. I mean.
Nicole DeBoom:
I know. I know. But a lot of people think that people who are plant strong and eat with your philosophy are also gluten free. They like make that assumption.
Rip Esselstyn:
No, we're very much wheat proud. Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
Well, good. You would've liked it. Actually, I made extra because I will throw that Malt-O-Meal oatmeal cooked into a green smoothie later today.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
It gives it a good texture.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, you know what I think, I'm going to have later today?
Nicole DeBoom:
Tell me.
Rip Esselstyn:
So we're having some friends over tonight. And we're doing the DeBoom Cherry Chili. So for people that don't know the DeBoom's actually have this amazing chili they do with cherries in it. Who would've thought? And so I asked them if I could put it in the Engine 2 Cookbook and they said, "Absolutely." So it is probably displayed there on page 253, something like that.
Nicole DeBoom:
I love it. We make it all the time. Our own recipe. And we've done some variations. They didn't have dried cherries. So we used cranberries, recently. That was very good. Through some different veggies in. Squash. All kinds of stuff. You can play. I love playing in the kitchen.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nicole, so great to visit with you today. And can you let people know one more time, if they're interested in partaking in kind of sharing and preserving any of the stories in their lives, where can they go?
Nicole DeBoom:
Head to AESOPnation.com. And it's A- E-S-O-Pnation.com. And you can find it on Instagram. I'm just getting that account off the ground, @AESOPnation. Could always Google me, search me, whatever, you'll find it too. And you reach out to me directly, because I respond. Sometimes it takes a while. If I end up with back surgery, I'll let everyone know. It might take a little longer. But it's an awesome business. And I'm really excited. The people who have booked interviews, we've all had such a blast, and it ends up being such a gift beyond the actual podcast that they receive, their personal podcast. It's almost like a mix of therapy and storytelling and just fun. Every single time.
Rip Esselstyn:
And to me, you do such a fabulous job asking the right questions, making it so easy for the person that's sharing. And you're so, just by nature, you're interested in pulling out all this information. Again, it goes back to one of the reasons I love you so much, because of your deep rooted curiosity, and your insatiable thirst for just getting to know people and just wanting to always explore. And it's just a great spirit that emanates from you.
Nicole DeBoom:
You know Rip, I think that if-
Rip Esselstyn:
But you are-
Nicole DeBoom:
... at any point, if you don't know what you're doing or what you should be doing, if you write down the things that you really want, and for me, one of them was connection, especially during a time of a pandemic, I would love nothing more than to do like 10 interviews a day, connecting with people in all walks of life, hearing their stories, and helping them feel like they're doing something really cool. That would make me so happy. So book an interview to make me happy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, there you go.
Nicole DeBoom:
Please.
Rip Esselstyn:
I like it. Nicole, you are deliciously optimistic. Truly, truly. Man, way to go on your next chapter in life. Thank you for sharing all those chapters. In looking back from when you were in the deep end of that pool, kicking butt to where you are today, can you believe all the different experiences you've had and-
Nicole DeBoom:
No.
Rip Esselstyn:
... what an amazing life.
Nicole DeBoom:
No. And as we get-
Rip Esselstyn:
And it's not even halfway done.
Nicole DeBoom:
Halfway done. And as we get older, we just learn that the next one is going to turn into something else one day too. So that's what I'm excited about, is just that it's a journey the whole way.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can't wait to come visit you and Tim in Steamboat. Do you have a guest room I can stay in?
Nicole DeBoom:
Yeah. And right now I'm sleeping in it, because of my freaking back.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay.
Nicole DeBoom:
But it'll be better when you come visit and you can have it. It's like a suite. It's amazing. Then we'll cook you some DeBoom Cherry Chili. You can have like three or four bowls.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Nicole DeBoom:
It's going to be an awesome visit.
Rip Esselstyn:
Love it. I love it. All right. I look forward to seeing you soon. Peace Engine 2. Keep it plant strong. DeBoom.
Nicole DeBoom:
Boom.
Rip Esselstyn:
Thank you, Nicole DeBoom for your friendship and inspiration to start this year on a positive note. I love that she has a wall of happy in her office, and I would encourage all of us to do the same thing. Stay the course, and like Nicole, continue to remain deliciously optimistic. Oh, and one final note. Nicole did have her back surgery a few weeks ago, and is doing fantastic. We're rooting for you, Nicole DeBoom.
Rip Esselstyn:
For all the resources and links from today's show, including all of Nicole's projects, visit the episode page at plantstrongpodcast.com. The PlantStrong Podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Lori Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick Gavin, and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth seekers, who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision, and hold firm to a higher truth. Most notably, my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. and Ann Crile Esselstyn. Thanks for listening.
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