How one community call brought Michelle to Levels (Michelle Las & Ben Grynol)

Health and lifestyle changes don’t come about all at once, and sometimes it takes a drastic revelation to see things in a new light. For Michelle Las, the turning point for changing how she lived her life was the unexpected death of her husband at 43. In this episode, Ben Grynol, head of growth at Levels, interviewed health and wellness coach Michelle Las about her transition into healthier living and how she got connected as a recruiter at Levels.

15:12 – Changing your lifestyle changes how you feel

When Michelle began to change how she ate and lived her life, she noticed changes in the way she felt, too.

Because I had the time now, I didn’t have a job anymore, I started digging more into getting my body just moving and fitness and exercise, because it is something that I always liked. So I started doing that again on a more regular basis. I did it outside because we couldn’t go to the gym. I started reading and just cooking more because takeout, I didn’t feel comfortable. I didn’t go anywhere. So I started cooking more. And also just cooking cleaner, healthier food. And then I noticed that there were changes in myself, mentally, physically, that I really just wanted to unpack some of that information just to experiment because I could. I was by myself, I was at home. Let me try these different things to see what might work and what might not. And what really resonated to me was that I decided that I felt good doing all these things for myself.

18:29 – The importance of being in the right place at the right time

Michelle said her move to Levels was almost serendipitous. She was in the right place at the right time for the opportunity.

I always enjoyed my recruiting career, and I think that the opportunity to use those skills and still do something that was familiar to me that I was “an expert” in, to do that at a company that their mission was what I was focused on, I think that is what triggered the opportunity. Because like you said, I think it was a little bit of serendipity, because what if I didn’t participate in that community call and what if I didn’t have to reach out and throw my name in the hat to say that I might be interested? Miz might not have called to say that he… Why did he think of me for this recruiting opportunity? And I’m fortunate that he did, but I honestly think it was just timing, being in the right place at the right time, and really just putting yourself out there for things that you actually care about.

23:32 – Transparency breeds trust

Michelle said the transparency at Levels attracted her to the company. Transparency makes it easier for people to trust one another.

I was just fascinated by the transparency, the fact that if you, as a member of the team, if you wanted to find out what was going on with the engineers and what they were building, you could. If you wanted to find out what Alan was working on in the design front and what was coming up next and not released yet, that would be cool, and then what Sam’s thinking about as far as his next memo or what the next project might be. I think I was more fascinated by the fact that everything was out in the open. And then also the fact that, to be honest, the fact that you all put so much trust in me to help out with the process where I just walked in. And I love the fact that I was able to dig around and find out how things worked. If I had questions, there were resources. But I was left to my own devices in a good way, because I’m like, “Okay, let me figure this process out. Let’s see what might work best, and let me help out where I can.” So I think that was the couple of the most fascinating things to me, especially in the startup atmosphere.

26:02 – Change causes growth

Big life changes are never easy, but a change in atmosphere can prompt new growth and maturity.

Even though I think I’m older than most people at the company, I felt intimidated because I’m like, “Gosh, everyone’s here is young and they’re smart and they’re all from the startup community and fresh and quick.” I was just wondering and worried, would I be able to fit in here? Because it’s so different than the atmosphere I was used to for so long. Because when you’re in a career for that long, I think there’s good and bad. I think to some extent, sometimes your growth is stunted because either you don’t push yourself because you’re comfortable, or you need a change, but you’re not ready or willing to make the change. And I think that was something that I battled with initially, because I’m like, “Oh, do they think I know what I’m doing here?” But honestly, it was a nice transition in, because I feel like I was able to add a little bit of value and because it was growing quickly and just thoughtfully.

29:41 – Imposter syndrome is natural

Imposter syndrome is normal when you’re changing careers, but it’s also an opportunity to prove to yourself you have the skills to confront those new challenges.

Regarding the imposter syndrome, I think it’s so natural. I talk about it because going to a completely different career as a health coach, it’s so different than what I did. And of course, I have it and I’ll admit I have it, but I think it’s an opportunity to use it to your advantage and prove to yourself that you can do what you’ve been trained to do, what you’ve been focused on, what you have passion about. I think, and this might be a random tie in, I’ve been thinking a lot about this podcast, but I feel like meaning and purpose resonates so much because the people on this team, there’s purpose behind what they’re doing. It’s not just a job. They believe in the job that they’re working on, the job that they’re working towards. And I think that is so important when you have a career. And if you don’t necessarily have it, I think it’s important to either find it in the current role that you have, because there’s always ways to find purpose in your job. You’ve maybe lost that. And if you can’t find it, then find something else that drives that passion for you, because it feels so different.

35:37 – Be more thoughtful about what you eat

Michelle said changing your diet and lifestyle changes the way you think about food. When you’re more thoughtful about what you eat, you notice more how your body reacts to food.

When you are digging into this eating healthier and the health and wellness space and you’ve changed drastically maybe than how you’ve either grown up or how you’re showing up. It’s challenging when people in your life maybe haven’t and they’re used to you being the type of person that would just eat a burger and fries or just eat a bowl of pasta. So obviously, I still allow myself to do those things once in a while, but I think what’s happened with Levels is that I’ve become a more thoughtful person about what I’m putting in my body, because I know how it affects it and how I feel afterwards. So using Levels for the last year has allowed me to be more thoughtful about what I’m eating. It has allowed me to know how my body changes based on what I eat, because now I can say, “Oh, I think this is why I’m not feeling well. This is why I have some brain fog this afternoon. This is why I feel a little jittery.” And I just appreciate now having that knowledge, because I know what to do with it.

39:16 – Food creates connections

It’s important to think of meals outside your normal diet as treat meals instead of cheat meals. Your connection with food is important and shouldn’t be clouded by guilt.

You have to have that healthy balance in your mind that, “Okay. Well, if I’m eating healthy or well for a certain part of the week, then if I want to treat myself, that’s okay.” And I think it’s important to be okay with those human needs, because we’ve all grown up eating certain things. And I’m sorry, but it seems impossible to get rid of them 100%. I think you have to give yourself time. You know how some people call them cheat meals? I call them treat meals. If I’m going to have a bacon cheeseburger with french fries, then it’s a treat. It’s not a cheat to me because I’m treating myself. And especially if you’re are having it with friends and family, I feel like having good food and connection is important, too. I feel like that connection with respect to holidays or family gatherings, having that happiness and positivity around the food that may or may not be that healthy is okay, because you’re balancing it out.

40:19 – It takes time to change your lifestyle

Michelle recommended patience when making changes to your diet and lifestyle. It takes time to adjust and transition to a new way of eating and living.

The important part to remember is that if you are concerned and focused on eating a healthier diet, it’s really just what is working in your life? What will make you feel better, both mentally and physically? And then just balancing it out. It doesn’t happen overnight and it takes time to adjust and to transition. But if it’s important and you want to do it, great. I feel like it’s had a huge impact in my life, just the way I feel mentally and physically, especially after I lost my husband, because I feel like you need to work on both of those aspects or all of those aspects to live a healthier lifestyle.

Michelle Las (00:06):

I think it was a little bit of serendipity, because what if I didn’t participate in that community call? And what if I didn’t reach out and throw my name in the hat to say that I might be interested? And Miz might not have called to say, “Why did he think of me for this recruiting opportunity?” And I’m fortunate that he did, but I honestly think it was just timing, being in the right place at the right time, and really just putting yourself out there for things that you actually care about.

Ben Grynol (00:39):

I’m Ben Grynol, part of the early startup team here at Levels. We’re building tech that helps people to understand their metabolic health, and this is your front row seat to everything we do. This is A Whole New Level.

Ben Grynol (01:05):

Serendipitous, occurring or discovered by chance in a happy or beneficial way. That is the definition of serendipitous when you Google it. Well, how does that relate to Levels? How does that relate to this episode? For Michelle Las, Michelle has been helping us for almost a year now with her recruiting efforts. Serendipitously, we connected through a community call. Serendipitously, she started using Levels because her partner was using it too. There were a lot of life changes that took course for Michelle. As she started to focus on her health and wellness. In early March, we had a call, a community call where she showed up just to give some feedback on her experience, talk about the way that she felt about the product, what she was using. And so Michelle reached out after the community call and said, “Hey, if you’re ever looking for some help with recruiting, it’s something that I’ve done for the past 20 plus years.” At the time, it was one of those things that was on the horizon, but it wasn’t quite something we were ready for.

Ben Grynol (02:07):

So Miz, Michael Mizrahi, head of operations, he and Michelle connected and they had a conversation. What could she do to help us? When would we need this role? And why would we bring somebody on to take on that workload? Once we started working with Michelle, which we did, it was quite impactful the way that she managed all the inbound candidates. We’ve been very grateful, very fortunate to have a strong pipeline of talent from all over the world who’s interested in working with Levels, and because we want to be closely connected with everyone. We don’t want to drop balls. We want to make sure that people are receiving message back knowing that we got their applications, knowing that we appreciate the interest they’ve expressed in what we’re building. That’s where Michelle came in. Like many people with Levels, well, it all started with being a community member. Here’s where we kick things off.

Ben Grynol (03:08):

The storyline and the thread is really interesting because you were a Levels member and first became connected to the company in a more intimate sense, if you want to call it that, through community. That’s, I think, where we first met was a community call, and we were just talking generally about Levels and the experience. And from there, I don’t think Miz was on that call.

Michelle Las (03:33):

No, it was just you and Sam.

Ben Grynol (03:35):

Yeah. And we had exchanged emails after and just talked briefly about your story. And here we are in 2022, February of 2022, and you’ve been helping us for, gosh, it feels like two years, but you’ve been helping us with all of our recruiting efforts and leading the pipeline with that. So yeah, it’d be interesting to dig into your story, the path to Levels, and take it from there.

Michelle Las (03:59):

Yeah. There’s a backstory and I could start with that, because I feel like that’s how we got to this actual day. I started using Levels, I think, maybe around January or February of 2021.

Ben Grynol (04:17):

Years ago.

Michelle Las (04:18):

Yeah. the timeline during this pandemic has actually a little warped for me and most people, I think. So I started using it the beginning of last year. And then there was the opportunity to do these community calls. And I said, “It’s early on. If I have a chance to talk about the product and get more information, share my experience, why not?” So I actually learned about Levels from my boyfriend who had been using it and he was following this. I think he heard about it on someone else’s podcast who was promoting it, and I said, “Gosh, the data is so interesting. Let me get it too.” Because I’ve been digging into the health space for, at that point, probably a year and a half at that point. And so when we had the opportunity to talk to you and Sam, and it was actually a pretty intimate group, which was pretty nice to just share ideas, get your feedback, get asked questions about the product.

Michelle Las (05:08):

And then I think it was Sam or you maybe said at the end of the call, “If you know anyone who’s interested in Levels, we’re growing, reach out.” And at the time, and I’ll go back to that, I wasn’t working. I was focusing on my path, a new career path, and I said, “You know what? I have time. Let me use my previous experience, throw it out there to them and see if they’ll bite.” Because I loved what Levels was all about. I loved the mission behind it, what they were focused on. And in my head, I said, “Well, the worst they could say is no.” And I think I emailed you, then you put me in touch with Miz, the head of operations, and we chatted. And that was, I think, in March maybe. And then we had a good conversation, a Zoom just like this one, just to dig into my background.

Michelle Las (05:54):

And then he said, “Okay. Well, if something comes up, we’ll let you know.” And at the time I said, “Okay, great.” I didn’t think anything of it because that was nice of them to entertain the call. And I said, “Okay, nothing’s probably going to come out of this.” And then I want to say two or three months later, Miz reaches out to me and he says, “Hey, we’re growing. Besides me, I don’t have help with the recruiting pipeline and we actually need some help. Would you be interested in working?” And at the time I said, “I could do part-time or contract work. I’m happy to pitch in just to get some experiences at a startup.” And I said, “Sure, why not?” So it was a nice segue to dabble into what I was focusing on, but also using my previous career skills.

Ben Grynol (06:38):

Yeah. In your story up to Levels, I know you shared a little bit about it, but there was a point where you changed your lens on health and wellness. It’d be interesting if you want to go there, to frame that a little bit more in what got you thinking about this, talk a little bit about your backstory career wise, your backstory with health and wellness, the journey there.

Michelle Las (06:59):

Yeah, of course.

Ben Grynol (07:00):

Go as deep in as far back as you want to.

Michelle Las (07:01):

Yeah, of course.

Ben Grynol (07:02):

Take us to childhood.

Michelle Las (07:04):

Yeah. Well, I’m not going to go that far back in my childhood. Can’t say that it was that interesting. But let’s see, back in summer of 2018, my husband passed away suddenly at 43, and that was basically what triggered the last couple of years of my life to rethink everything. So a short backstory on that, we had been out to dinner for my 43rd birthday on a Friday night, and this was a really busy time. I worked as a recruiter director of recruiting a corporate law firm in New York City. And at the time, I’d been working there for 16 years. So we were out on our Friday night for my birthday, had a nice dinner in the city, as couples typically do, you eat and you drink, and then Saturday morning, I woke up to the sounds of, at the time, I didn’t know this, but he was essentially taking his last breaths.

Michelle Las (08:00):

So I woke up to sounds, I thought he was dreaming, and then I turned over, tried to jostle him into waking up, and I realized really quickly that it wasn’t a dream. I jumped out of bed and I’m not going to put all the details in this conversation, but I did what I thought I was supposed to do. I called 911. I’m like, “Something’s really wrong. We need to get someone here as soon as possible.” And when you’re waiting for someone to come help you, you feel like you’re waiting forever. And that’s what it felt like. And honestly, I basically watched him gasping for breath. And that might be a little bit too much detail for some people, but that’s what it was. So we go to the hospital and I’m basically waiting in the waiting room not knowing what I was going to hear, and I wasn’t necessarily processing everything that was happening because it just didn’t seem real.

Michelle Las (09:00):

And so he passed away that Saturday morning, and then the next day was our 11 year anniversary. So that time of year, it’s very bittersweet and I can say that now. But at the time, if you just think about when I thought about it, when I talked about it, it was just a wild week. Even now when I talk about it, I feel the emotion in my chest, but that whole week was just surreal. I didn’t even feel like I was in my body. I felt like I was watching it from outside and processing everything. People are coming at you and obviously giving their condolences and trying to comfort you. And I was in a place where I was trying to process all this. But in my eyes at the time, I’m looking at myself like, “You’re not processing this like a quote unquote normal person who lost their husband should be.” And so that’s, I guess, the short story, long short story.

Michelle Las (10:06):

So fortunately, my law firm, they were very kind and they gave me as much time as I wanted. It was leading into a really, really busy time of year, actually the busiest time of year for what I had done as a profession. And so I took six weeks off to get my life in place, figure everything out, and then I went about my business. I went back to work, got back into the grind. And it was a bit unsettling because as the face of the recruiter of a corporate law firm, everyone knows you. Everyone knew what happened.

Michelle Las (10:42):

Not that I was faking it to some extent, but it felt odd those first few weeks, walking down the halls and people, they want to say something and they do say something, but they feel uncomfortable, you feel uncomfortable. So there was a lot of that going on. But in the end, they supported me so much and I appreciated that, but as time went on, I just felt like the work I was doing just didn’t resonate anymore. You experience a trauma like that and you think about everything so differently. Your priorities change, things in your life, the way you used to look at them, changes. The process of the next years after that is what led me down a different path.

Ben Grynol (11:30):

So when you were reframing everything, what was the outlook like? What approach did you take where you’ve had this major change in life, this life event that has given you a different perception of maybe health and wellness and thinking through what you’re doing as a career? What was it that you did that changed that approach? How did you reframe and recalibrate? Because you’re doing recruiting now, but you’ve gone down this different path of exploration, if you want to call it that.

Michelle Las (12:04):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). So during that first year, I won’t say that a lot of things changed. I just went about my business and had a lot of support from family friends. So I just started living life again and moving forward. And I was the type of widow, my therapist, my grief counselor at the time called me a practical griever, which obviously I’d never heard that before. So I started thinking more… Witnessing death and experiencing the loss of your partner and your spouse makes you think about mortality so much more. So I thought about, okay. Well, at the time, we were active, we worked out, and we lived a “normal life.” So to us, it came out and our families and friends, it came out of nowhere seemingly. And I will say on the side, now knowing what I know and digging a health and wellness space, we know nothing comes out of nowhere.

Michelle Las (13:01):

But I started digging into just educating myself about the health and wellness space, but more so, well, what is affecting our health? And the pandemic had a lot to do with that. So I think it was the fall before the pandemic hit, had a conversation with the law firm about leaving. We decided I wanted to leave right before a summer internship program because that’s when the timing had worked out. We had settled on a date. I decided that I was going to leave in May of 2020. And then I think it was March of 2020 is when the pandemic hit. And I said, “You know what? If May, 2020 is my end date and I had already discussed with them that I wanted to leave on that date, I’m not going to change it.” I said, “If I don’t make a change now, when am I going to make it?”

Michelle Las (14:02):

So nearly two years after my husband had passed, I just didn’t feel the same passion I had for my job that I used to. And I think that showed, honestly, I felt a little bit more indifferent. I wasn’t excited about work anymore. That’s also not fair to a place that I had invested my time, that they were investing in me. So I still decided to leave my career the May of 2020, and then I had planned before the pandemic hit to take this… And I call it an eat, pray, love trip. I really wanted to take the summer. I wanted to visit all of my friends across the country. I actually had planned and a trip to South Africa later that summer. And then obviously, when the pandemic hit, I just couldn’t go anywhere. But it was a blessing disguise, because for me, it gave me the time that I didn’t have to really think about, “Okay, well, what do I want to do now? Now that I’ve left this career seemingly that was comfortable and familiar and longstanding, what do I want to do next?”

Michelle Las (15:12):

Because I had the time now, I didn’t have a job anymore, I started digging more into getting my body, just moving and fitness and exercise, because it is something that I always liked. So I started doing that again on a more regular basis. I did it outside because we couldn’t go to the gym. I started reading and just cooking more because takeout, I didn’t feel comfortable. I didn’t go anywhere. So I started cooking more. And also just cooking cleaner, healthier food. And then I noticed that there were changes in myself, mentally, physically, that I really just wanted to unpack some of that information just to experiment because I could. I was by myself, I was at home. Let me try these different things to see what might work and what might not.

Michelle Las (16:00):

And what really resonated to me was that I decided that I felt good doing all these things for myself. And those few months after work, I was very stressed out about, “Okay, I have to fall find out what my next job is going to be. What do I want to do? Do I want to do recruiting for a health and wellness company, because that would marry the two? Or do I want to get a job doing what I did before, but at a smaller firm that might be less stressful or what have you?” But it really took me about six months to figure out that, “You know what? I have this time, I love learning about this health and wellness space.” I started looking into different programs and I almost went into more like executive career coaching because that fell in line more with what I did previously, because I worked at a law firm. You counsel sometimes law students or lawyers at the firm.

Michelle Las (16:53):

And I said, “Well, if I have the opportunity to dig into something that I really like, then why don’t I just try this program?” I did some research and I looked into different health coaching programs and I found FMCA, which is the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. And it really just resonated with me because it focuses on the things I was focusing on, how everything impacts our health, how stress management, how our connections with other people, what we’re putting in our body, how we’re moving our body, how we’re sleeping, all of that was what I was working on. And I found it so impactful to find a program that focused in all these things, but also of tied it into conventional medicine too. I think I just rambled, but…

Ben Grynol (17:41):

You’re not rambling at all. So you had this idea, you were going to go down the path of being more of an executive coach or being more involved in health and wellness, but what was the spark that led you back to recruiting? Did that come before we had connected through Levels? Or was it something where you’re like, “I feel this innate need to go do this thing that I’ve done for so long.” What did that look like when you decided that that was the thing? Was it timing, just serendipitous timing with Levels? Or was it something that you had thought about as you were going through all of these changes with healthy cooking and more physical fitness and doing things like the executive health and wellness coaching?

Michelle Las (18:26):

Yeah. I think for me, I always enjoyed my recruiting career, and I think that the opportunity to use those skills and still do something that was familiar to me that I was “an expert” in, to do that at a company that their mission was what I was focused on, I think that is what triggered the opportunity. Because like you said, I think it was a little bit of serendipity ,because what if I didn’t participate in that community call and what if I didn’t have to reach out and throw my name in the hat to say that I might be interested. Miz might not have called to say that he… Why did he think of me for this recruiting opportunity? And I’m fortunate that he did, but I honestly think it was just timing, being in the right place at the right time, and really just putting yourself out there for things that you actually care about.

Ben Grynol (19:24):

Yeah. It’s one of those things where sometimes, it’s a matter of interest, timing, all of these things align, and it’s harder to put a finger on exactly what it is that makes all these things line up. But it’s interesting to see how it’s all come together, because the work that you do every single day, you see it firsthand. You see how many candidates are coming in the pipeline for all different roles. And we’ve been very fortunate that the caliber of talent that has been interested in Levels is world class. It’s just incredible to see this support. There’s not a question that, do we even have enough frontline support? The amount of candidates that you’re communicating with on a daily basis is incredible. And so it’s one of those things where it’s perfect timing. It’s, I think, a lot of serendipity be as far as the inbound interest for Levels and all the things going on. So it’s also, we’re very lucky that we have you working with our team.

Michelle Las (20:26):

I was happy to jump on the opportunity because I really respect what Levels is focused on and their mission. And I am honestly, on a daily basis, impressed by, like you said, the caliber of candidates that come through the ranks. And even just, we have a regular talent pool, people who are just interested in working with Levels that really just don’t care what they do. They just want to be a part of the mission and part of the journey and their backgrounds are just so impressive. And you’ve obviously seen a lot of them. When you sit down and read these cover letters, I’ve never read so many thoughtful cover and emails about how Levels has changed our lives, or they just want to be a part of it because they just believe in it so much. And the level of thought that goes into these types of applications, and you don’t always see that. And so that makes you feel good about working for Levels and also just being part of the process.

Michelle Las (21:26):

I think it’s just fun for me eat because I used to work at corporate atmosphere. And also, it was intriguing to get startup experience just to be in… I call myself, to my friends, I say I’m an insider outsider, because I’m working on this part-time contract basis. And for me, it’s great because it’s flexible. It gives me the opportunity to finish… I’m finishing up this month my health coach certification, so that’s almost done. So it gave me flexibility to work on that, to work on the Levels recruiting pipeline, and also just have a more balanced life.

Ben Grynol (22:02):

Yeah, it’s interesting because you’ve seen, as you’ve been part of the team or working with us on all of our recruiting initiatives, you’ve seen things change really quickly. You’ve seen us migrate from platform to platform as far as where we work and the type of work that we do. But the interesting thing is that when we had the community call, everyone is part of the community, whether they work with the Levels team or not, anybody who is a community member. But you had an external lens. And some of the questions that we get sometimes are along the lines of, “Okay, cool. Yeah, that’s the way it sounds from the outside, but let’s hear it from the inside.”

Ben Grynol (22:41):

You experienced it from the outside for a long enough period of time, being a member. And then when you jumped in, what did that look like as far as… People expect sometimes, I think, that the curtains are going to be pulled back and it’s like, there it is. There’s the car without the engine. They’re just like, “I knew it.” Then when people come in and they get inside, then they’re like, “Oh yeah, this is the way things work.” So what did that look like for you, that process of going from outside to inside? Share your experience with that.

Michelle Las (23:10):

Yeah. I think I was fascinated of about how transparent you guys all were about just everything. And I feel like we use threads, which is this online platform where everyone’s just sharing notes and memos to each other, and you could just read all of them if you really wanted to. If you had the time and if you wanted to, you could just read everything going on on a daily basis. But I was just fascinated by the transparency, the fact that if you, as a member of the team, if you wanted to find out what was going on with the engineers and what they were building, you could. If you wanted to find out what Alan was working on in the design front and what was coming up next and not released yet, that would be cool, and then what Sam’s thinking about as far as his next memo or what the next project might be.

Michelle Las (23:55):

I think I was more fascinated by the fact that everything was out in the open. And then also the fact that, to be honest, the fact that you I’ll put so much just trust in me to help out with the process where I just walked in. And I love the fact that I was able to dig around and find out how things worked. If I had questions, there were resources. But I was left to my own devices in a good way, because I’m like, “Okay, let me figure this process out. Let’s see what might work best, and let me help out where I can.” So I think that was the couple of the most fascinating things to me, especially in the startup atmosphere, which was so wildly different than what I was used to.

Ben Grynol (24:35):

Yeah. It’s a very funny juxtaposition that you have as lived experience, meaning the information within our team is very transparent, internally and externally. So everyone has access to 99% of everything, aside from confidential information about… Everyone doesn’t have their compensation. That’s not available to everyone. But almost every single piece of information is available internally to everyone. And then externally, a very large portion of the information that we create and share, it’s shared externally with people in the public. Or if sometimes if people inbound and they say, “Hey, I heard through a piece of content or whatever it was, I heard that you have a document about X, Y, Z. Is it possible to get that?”

Ben Grynol (25:22):

And we’re like, “Yeah, we’ll add your name to it.” And we’ll do it. We’ll share it with them temporarily, and that happens for frequently. But in the world of law, litigation, everything is very much bummed up and for good reasons, but it’s very much a juxtaposition between the way information would’ve been shared in your previous career and then the way it is now where it’s… Trying to rationalize that, I would imagine it is a hard thing to do, except when you see it first hand, you go, “Hmm. There’s something interesting about transparency.”

Michelle Las (25:53):

Yeah. The one thing I will admit though, I was admittedly a bit intimidated, because even though I will say this, even though I think I’m older than most people at the company, I felt intimidated because I’m like, “Gosh, everyone’s here is young and they’re smart and they’re all from the startup community and fresh and quick.” I was just wondering and worried, would I be able to fit in here? Because it’s so different than the atmosphere I was used to for so long. Because when you’re in a career for that long, I think there’s good and bad.

Michelle Las (26:27):

I think to some extent, sometimes your growth is stunted because either you, yourself, don’t push yourself because you’re comfortable, or you need a change, but you’re not ready or willing to make the change. And I think that was something that I battled with initially, because I’m like, “Oh, do they think I know what I’m doing here?” But honestly, it was a nice transition in, because I feel like I was able to add a little bit of value and because it was growing quickly and just thoughtfully. But there were things that just people needed help with, especially on the recruiting front that I think someone like Miz wasn’t able to handle because he had so much on the operation side.

Ben Grynol (27:09):

Yeah. Our time gets spread very thin very quickly if we are all operating laterally and wide. There’s a number of things that just as a company’s getting built, that everyone is going to have some… It doesn’t mean everyone has involvement in it because there’s 20 people all involved in one thing and 20 people in the next thing. It’s that there might be 100 things going on that each have two to four people that are working on that. But as soon as you start to look at that, the web, the network of all of these interrelated projects, wow, that’s a lot of things. And so having the nth project get added, and that’s where we talk a lot about this idea of project debt, where it’s like, it would be great to focus on people ops, but I don’t have any more bandwidth to do it. And so then that’s when we have to think about, how do we grow and build the team?

Ben Grynol (28:00):

But it’s interesting, you brought up that idea of intimidation and imposter syndrome, because I think comes up. It’s a very common thread. It’s a common thread that you hear amongst the entire team, with the exception that we all look up to each other with the sense of admiration and learn from each other, but we all feel the sense of… I think it could be hard. We hear it all the time when people join the team, they’re like, “Well, it feels intimidating because it’s this tight group of smart people and everybody is…” Once the curtains are pulled back, I think people realize, everyone’s just trying to figure it out. There’s no silver bullet. If there’s no secret sauce. No one is going, “I’ve got it all figured out.”

Ben Grynol (28:44):

Building companies is just inherently hard. Building companies from the ground up, it’s not an easy path. And maybe that’s a misconception is from the outside, especially with very visible brands. Levels is a visible brand externally. It’s something that we’re lucky that we get a lot of user generated content and a lot of engagement out of the product and people will talk about it. But I think externally, people, they look and they go, “Oh, it’s such a polished and a tight brand and look at that company,” but it’s hard. It’s not easy building companies. And I think it’s something that we don’t take for granted that we just think, “Oh, we’re on a great path and it’s smooth sailing.” We know it is not an easy thing to do. So it’s all hands on deck to constantly figure it out every single day.

Michelle Las (29:34):

Yeah. And being the insider outsider, people work hard, but they also have this nice balance in their life. And regarding the imposter syndrome, I think it’s so natural. I talk about it because going to a completely different career as a health coach, it’s so different than what I did. And of course, I have it and I’ll admit I have it, but I think it’s an opportunity to use it to your advantage and prove to yourself that you can do what you’ve been trained to do, what you’ve been focused on, what you have passion about. I think, and this might be a random tie in, I’ve been thinking a lot about this podcast, but I feel like meaning and purpose resonates so much because the people on this team, there’s purpose behind what they’re doing.

Michelle Las (30:18):

It’s not just a job. They believe in the job that they’re working on, the job that they’re working towards. And I think that is so important when you have a career. And if you don’t necessarily have it, I think it’s important to either find it in the current role that you have, because there’s always ways to find purpose in your job. You’ve maybe lost that. And if you can’t find it, then find something else that drives that passion for you, because it feels so different. I will say that.

Ben Grynol (30:53):

Yeah. It’s one of those things where if you’re inherently interested in what you’re doing every single day, it doesn’t matter what it is that you’re interested in. If that has a deep amount of meaning to you, then you don’t really work. You don’t feel like you get up and you’re being pulled to this thing that you don’t want to do, because it’s challenging, it’s stimulating, it aligns with your values, and that makes it a lot easier. Now, tie in this idea of imposter syndrome, if a person has that, so let’s use professional sports, I always think about this YouTube video that Ray Lewis, he was on some NFL team, which I will not say because I do not follow sports closely, I have to remember, but he talks about effort. And he said, “I wasn’t the number one recruit. I wasn’t the best guy on the field, but no one could replace my effort. I would try the hardest. That’s the one thing.”

Ben Grynol (31:47):

And I think that even if you have a sense of how to be a good teammate or how to contribute, no one’s going to fault somebody for effort. And so if a person thinks, “Oh, am I good enough to be,” let’s use in your case, “Am I good enough to be recruiting? Or am I good enough to be doing job X, Y, Z?” Putting forth the effort is what matters. Everybody recognizes that. It’s like, are you interested? Are you putting forth the effort? Do you really care? Are you trying to make that incremental difference every day? It’s not exponentially making difference. We’re incrementally making a difference and that incremental difference ends up being exponential in compounding day over day. That’s what gets us forward. That’s what gets us to the next path of what we’re doing, and it only happens as a tight team unit, an interwoven web of all these nodes in the network.

Michelle Las (32:40):

Right. No, I totally agree, because once you integrate that part of the equation into a culture, I feel like it runs so much differently. And sometimes, depending on what job you’re doing, you lose sight of that, or the team loses sight of that. And once you layer it back in, I feel like it makes your teammates and your team members work differently, more thoughtfully, more engaged, a bit more excited too. So I think it’s important to remember that when you’re building a team, which I think you guys do, but seeing it in a work in progress and on an active basis, it’s pretty cool.

Ben Grynol (33:21):

So if you think about this idea of we’ve got work in progress as it relates to career, and you have been on this health and wellness journey as a member, community member for roughly a year now, right?

Michelle Las (33:34):

Yeah.

Ben Grynol (33:34):

February of last year and February of this year, so we’ll say you’re going on your 13th month as a Levels member. What’s that look like as far as maybe some of the behavioral changes you’ve made or the way that you’re thinking about your own health now that you’ve had this dashboard in front of you saying, “Here’s the outcome.” Here’s how food affects your health with all your lifestyle decisions.”

Michelle Las (33:57):

Yeah. When I started this health journey, obviously I looked into different things, like different foods to eat and what I thought was good and I started experimenting with, well, what physically makes me feel good? Because sometimes, I feel like we ignore those things. And then when I started using Levels and I started first just eating normally, the first couple weeks, you eat normally and see how that affects your levels and your glucose, and then you start experimenting with different things. So I think for me, what I found was I found that certain foods would be completely fine, but also certain foods that I maybe grew up eating completely just would spike my glucose. And I think as far as using the data that I learned, I would now thoughtfully just say, “Okay, well, I found out that I can’t always eat a sandwich.”

Michelle Las (34:52):

I used to eat a sandwich probably almost every day in the cafeteria at my law firm. Or sometimes, I’d go into work, I live in New Jersey, I would take the ferry in. If I was in a rush, I’d grab a muffin and a coffee and just sit at my desk. And then, what happens when you eat something like that first thing in the morning? You just crash. And I didn’t think anything of it. Obviously I knew it wasn’t healthy, but I didn’t think it was doing much damage. But using Levels for a whole year. I learned how to eat in a more thoughtful way, how to combine foods in a way that maybe would not cause bikes that I didn’t want to happen. I also just learned how to talk to people in my family about what they were eating.

Michelle Las (35:36):

And the thing is, that’s hard when you are digging into this eating healthier and the health and wellness space and you’ve changed drastically maybe than how you’ve either grown up or how you’re showing up. It’s challenging when people in your life maybe haven’t and they’re used to you being the type of person that would just eat a burger and fries or just eat a bowl of pasta. So obviously, I still allow myself to do those things once in a while, but I think what’s happened with Levels is that I’ve become a more thoughtful person about what I’m putting in my body, because I know how it affects it and how I feel afterwards.

Michelle Las (36:14):

So using Levels for the last year has allowed me to be more thoughtful about what I’m eating. It has allowed me to know how my body changes based on what I eat, because now I can say, “Oh, I think this is why I’m not feeling well. This is why I have some brain fog this afternoon. This is why I feel a little jittery.” And I just appreciate now having that knowledge, because I know what to do with it.

Ben Grynol (36:40):

So what does your balance look like? And I only ask because we’re all human, we’re all imperfect, we’re all susceptible to influence, outside influence. That might be friends and family. We’re all susceptible to triggers. There are certain things, it doesn’t matter how great our willpower is, there’s this idea of balance. We never want people to feel that they’re depriving themselves. We want positive behavior change, but the balance comes from knowing what the implications of certain decisions are going to be, and that’s entirely okay.

Ben Grynol (37:18):

It’s that we want to create the positive feedback loop or the behavior change where people go, “Okay. I used to eat,” to your point about the sandwich, “I used to have that every single day, oatmeal for breakfast, sandwich for lunch. Now, I understand that might not be beneficial to the way that I feel and the way that I navigate the world throughout a day.” But what does your balance look like as far as some of these changes that you made? And then when you have, we’ll call it the desire, I think that’s fair, when you do have the desire to dig in, what does that look like for you? And I only ask because it’s very subjective and everyone has different “balance.”

Michelle Las (37:55):

No, I think balance is important and I also just think being kind to yourself is also important. Because I think when you are digging into this space and you’re focused on just nutrition and putting real, whole foods in your body and not eating refined sugars, there’s a lot of pressure. And also, now that I’m doing this as a profession, I feel like the lens is almost a bit more magnified, because like, “Oh, well she probably doesn’t eat cookies and she doesn’t eat pasta, or she’s not going to eat french fries.” I will say that I do try to… I don’t try. During the week, I do eat pretty cleanly. So I try to eat whole foods. I try to eat organic pastured meats, lots of vegetables. But if I’m craving, and I will crave, I have sometimes a sweet tooth and I love pastries, I’m not necessary a cookie person or cake person, but I love pastries, and so if I’m craving a pastry, for whatever reason, I’m going to allow myself to have it. I know I’m going to have that crash afterwards, but I’m okay with it.

Michelle Las (39:07):

I know it’s going to be this temporary feeling, a high from having it, and then a low after crashing after the sugar rush. But I feel like you have to have that healthy balance in your mind that, “Okay. Well, if I’m eating healthy or well for a certain part of the week, then if I want to treat myself, that’s okay.” And I think it’s important to be okay with those human needs, because we’ve all grown up eating certain things. And I’m sorry, but it seems impossible to get rid of them 100%. I think you have to give yourself time. You know how some people call them cheat meals?I call them treat meals. If I’m going to have a bacon cheeseburger with french fries, then it’s a treat. It’s not a cheat to me because I’m treating myself. And especially if you’re are having it with friends and family, I feel like having good food and connection is important too.

Michelle Las (40:03):

I feel like almost that connection with respect to just holidays or family gatherings, having that happiness and positivity around the food that may or may not be that healthy is okay, because you’re balancing it out. So I think the important part to remember is that if you are concerned and focused on eating a healthier diet, it’s really just what is working in your life? What will make you feel better, both mentally and physically? And then just balancing it out. It doesn’t happen overnight and it takes time to adjust and to transition. But if it’s important and you want to do it, great. I feel like it’s had a huge impact in my life, just the way I feel mentally and physically, especially after I lost my husband, because I feel like you need to work on both of those aspects or all of those aspects to live a healthier lifestyle.

Ben Grynol (41:00):

When you’re thinking about balance, you mentioned that it’s more of during the week or during the day, you’ve got this conscious effort. Is it because of knowing the implications of, if I have the pastry at 9:00 AM, then I’m going to be doing the head nod on the keyboard? Is that a conscious thing or is it… How do you think about that sense of balance when you decide to do things? Do you have a framework or a personal algorithm that you use where it’s like, “Okay, cool. Never at this time.” And again, air quotes, never, “Relatively never at this time, but these times are open game.” Do you think about that?

Michelle Las (41:43):

It’s funny. I don’t have specific times of day. I think it just depends. Sometimes I feel like some days, or most days, I have a routine and I like being able to stick to it. And I enjoy the fact that I’m fortunate that I can stick to this morning routine. And I usually just get up. Sometimes I journal, sometimes I meditate, I’ll read and then I’ll work out. And then I won’t usually be eat, because most of the time, I’ll do some time restricted feeding, like intermittent fasting. And I don’t do that on a consistent basis either. I tried it for a while, but I feel like you need to be flexible sometimes. I feel like I allow myself to listen to my body. I love eggs. So usually when I eat lunch or break a fast, it’s usually eggs and vegetables.

Michelle Las (42:35):

I switched over to, for the most part, some gluten free, like a base culture bread or something like that, and avocado toast. And I realized that, you know what? That does not spike my blood sugar at all. And I shifted that because that actually used to be my breakfast anyway, but I was eating maybe like Ezekiel bread, which is lower on the glycemic scale, but still spiked a little, or just regular bread. I love bread. So I noticed that it’s not always a formula, but I notice that I feel better eating a certain way. And then if I’m going into the day just feeling good and I want to keep feeling good, then I’ll just continue that process this. But if sometimes, I’m like, “Oh,” there’s also just emotional eating sometimes. If you’re having a stressful day… Honestly, I thought about, I’m like, “Oh, should I get a treat before I talk to Ben?”

Michelle Las (43:25):

But I knew that if I had that treat, I would totally crash and probably flop or nap during our podcast. So I said, “No, I’m going to have a healthy, nutritious meal. I’m going to have lots of wall water.” I keep it even keel. I had a chia seed pudding this morning, because that’s, over the last, I don’t know how long now, maybe six months, that’s been the snack or the breakfast because it tastes good. And to me, it feels me up and it makes me feel good. So I think it changes for the most part. It’s not always an exact science as to what you’re supposed to eat, but you have to eat what makes you feel good and listen to yourself. Funny, because I listened to the one where you and Josh and Sam were talking about the podcast and just the reasoning behind it. I think it’s different. You’re not trying to satisfy any one audience. So in doing that, you have more freedom to dabble in different things, see what sticks, what doesn’t, but something is going to resonate with someone.

Ben Grynol (44:29):

A couple things have transpired is it’s been an unbelievable recruiting tool. The number of people that are like, “I want to work with the team because I feel like I know you, I feel like I trust you.” And then what you find is that because there’s more content out there, people pick and choose what they want to listen to, instead of it being like they feel like they need to listen to everyone. In the end, they end up probably listening to more than they would. Or even if they listen to less, they get more engagement out of the ones they do listen to, because they’re like, “That was worth my time.”