How did you choose the Institute for Integrative Nutrition as a certification program? featuring Danna Levy Hoffmann
Choosing the Right Certification: Becoming a Health Coach Bonus Episode
In this bonus episode of 'Becoming a Health Coach', host Megan McCrory speaks with fellow health coach Danna Levy Hoffman about her journey into health coaching. Danna shares her reasons for choosing the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and how convenience and cost factored into her choice. Danna also discusses the initial obstacles she faced setting up her business, her learning process, and her subsequent further education at Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. The episode gives an insight into Danna's unorthodox search process and highlights the role of trusted voices, like Mark Hyman, in endorsing certification programs.
Guest: Danna Levy Hoffmann
Guest Links: Danna's Website
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[00:00:00] Megan J. McCrory: Hello, and welcome to a series of short bonus episodes of Becoming a Health Coach. I'm your host, Megan McCrory and in these bonus episodes, I'm talking with fellow health coach and my friend, Danna Levy Hoffman. In the first bonus episode, I started out by asking Danna to introduce herself and to explain why she became a health coach. In this episode, I asked Danna to think way back. Back back back. To when she was looking into certification programs and how she chose the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.
[00:00:36] Danna Levy Hoffmann: It has been a long time ago yeah, I think my thought around it was, you know, starting a small business that wasn't really, it was, I getting a lot of clients, but I wasn't actually making a lot of money because I'm not very good at numbers, uh, in general. But, uh, I really wanted something that was available to me kind of whenever. So again, I'm a mom to two young boys. I need to be able to study probably when they're asleep you know, just kind of like spread my time properly so that I can actually work on stuff without me having to leave home or, or, you know, spend too many, too much time in actual, uh, schooling. Luckily for me, I already came to the schooling with a lot of knowledge. So for me it was like, for the first time ever I was good at school, which was really exciting. Definitely the cost and the availability to study wherever. So that was kind of the two things for me in that at that time. I don't remember honestly who introduced me to IIN or, or how that whole procedure happened. But I was lucky enough that it was kind of like probably Black Friday or something, and it was a good, like 35% off. And I was like, dude, I'm waiting another year for this. I'm just gonna go for it
[00:01:52] Danna Levy Hoffmann: So that was, that was basically the reason
[00:01:54] Megan J. McCrory: No,
[00:01:54] Megan J. McCrory: you're like, I'm sure who introduced me. I can tell Google. SEO introduced you
[00:02:01] Danna Levy Hoffmann: probably. Probably, right? Because back then it wasn't even, I think back then when we kind of started, or definitely when I started like the, the, the cooking classes and stuff, I think the word coach was like a swear word. Everyone who heard the word coach was like, like, you're just fooling us into thinking that you know shit, but you're just gonna tell
[00:02:22] Danna Levy Hoffmann: us what you think and that's about it.
[00:02:23] Danna Levy Hoffmann: And I, I think that was the, the notion back then. So yeah, I don't think that there were a lot of people walking around going like, oh, you should become an IIN coach. It was probably
[00:02:32] Danna Levy Hoffmann: Google, most likely first or second one to land on. And then I was like, oh, this is actually affordable and seems to be great.
[00:02:40] Danna Levy Hoffmann: I was a huge follower of still am I love Mark Hyman saw his face on their website and I was like, Okay.
[00:02:47] Danna Levy Hoffmann: cool. So that was kind of the procedure back then. It wasn't very, um, educated or
[00:02:52] Danna Levy Hoffmann: calculated to, to be fully honest with you.
[00:02:54] Megan J. McCrory: Do you remember what you were searching for? Like what were the search terms that you were typing in?
[00:02:59] Megan J. McCrory: I, I was typing in nutrition and health. 'cause I didn't know health coaching existed in 2017
[00:03:07] Megan J. McCrory: So
[00:03:08] Megan J. McCrory: what were you searching for? Were you actually searching the term coaching or were you searching something else?
[00:03:13]
[00:03:13] Danna Levy Hoffmann: I honestly don't know. All I can tell you is that I'm a very bad Googler, so so I probably wrote something really random. I'm so bad. Like it, it's so simple to Google things and I always make it really complicated. So it, it would've been something completely not rational. I that, my honest answer,
[00:03:36] Megan J. McCrory: Okay. And besides IIN do you happen to remember any of the other programs that you were looking at at the same time?
[00:03:44] Danna Levy Hoffmann: No, back then, no. I do know that I looked into, so I continued my education afterwards with the FMCA, uh, Functional Medicine Coaching Academy, uh, which is connected to the IFM, which is the biggest functional medicine kind of connection. And there I did a little bit more research 'cause I knew what I was looking for and I already had a network of health coaches and a, a network of functional medicine doctors. So I had a little bit more, you know, my foot was through the door. I already had a lot of network that I could reach out to and ask. Uh, before that I had no bloody clue. I think I might've seen, no, I, I honestly don't know. I think it was just really probably the first thing that popped on, on
[00:04:22] Megan J. McCrory: mm-Hmm.
[00:04:23] Danna Levy Hoffmann: I'm, I'm also not a rational shopper so it was probably the Google is making a lot of money off of me. So, um, so it was probably the first thing that I saw back then.
[00:04:34] Megan J. McCrory: I know I, I listened back to the intro episode for this podcast.
[00:04:39] Megan J. McCrory: I listened to the other day while I was at the gym. Like, let me go back and listen to what I was saying seven years ago. And honestly I was like, oh, yeah, I found IIN and I waited like three days, and that was a long time for me to wait before making a decision, like thousands of dollars and a year long commitment.
[00:04:59] Megan J. McCrory: I'm like, sure, that sounds good. Let's do it. And.
[00:05:02] Danna Levy Hoffmann: Yeah, let's do it.
[00:05:04] Megan J. McCrory: If you want to hear more about Danna's journey as a health coach, how she found her niche and some advice for new health coaches, check out the other bonus episodes featuring Danna. And by the way, Danna and I co-host the So Frickin' Healthy podcast where we give you an apple a day food for thought to those who want to have their cake and eat it too. And in my opinion, it is the best health podcast out there.
[00:05:32] Megan J. McCrory: See you later.