If you can’t count how many times you’ve been told to be yourself, there is a good reason for that. Because it works! Whether you’re an influencer, an entrepreneur, a leader, or someone who is just trying to live a peaceful and meaningful life, being authentically you is the only way to live your best life. Joelle Legg understands this better than most. As someone who puts herself out there on social media for thousands of people to see, she knows she has to give herself grace and embrace her full self so she can overcome self-doubt and really excel at what she does. In this episode, you’re going to find out what attitude means to a person like Joelle and how it drives her life and career!

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Get Attitude And Be Yourself With Joelle Legg

We are so happy that you’re joining us. Would you please remember if you got this, share it? Share this with everybody you know so they can read it. Trust me. We have somebody in here that is going to change your attitude and that is going to help you get from where you are to where you want to go and from who you are to who you want to become. Why? It’s because she’s lived a transformational life like you. The cool thing is she’s not from America. She is from New Zealand, from the land down under.

We are going to introduce you to her. I call her a social media influencer. I’m sure she probably doesn’t consider herself that. She considers herself and she is a nutrition, wellness, and mindset coach as well as a fitness coach. If you guys don’t have the vitality or the energy and you do have the extra 20 pounds, this episode may be what is the best for you. Let’s learn what she and her husband, Mike, do on her TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Let me introduce you to the one and only Joelle Legg from New Zealand. Joelle, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

If you guys want to follow Joelle or you want to start looking her up, it’s @Joelle_Legg on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. I saw this awesome, funny video. It was completely cute. I sent it to my wife and she’s like, “This gal’s freaking awesome.” You have 60,000 people. You post a video to 60,000 people, and then you got a few that have gone over a million. When people follow you, I’m sure they’re like, “That bitch, I want to be her. I want to have 60,000 followers.” Can you tell me how it started? What was it like? Was it strategic? Are you naturally viral? What’s the attitude lesson on putting yourself out there and creating what you’ve created? I’d also like to know how long it took from your first video to what you’re doing now.

I’ve always had my own coaching platform or accounts. We own a boxing gym here in Auckland as well. That’s what we were focusing on. Mike was sharing his fitness things and I was sharing my nutrition, wellness, and mindset. During the times when we all had to stay at home the last few years, my husband started to film my reactions to the things he’s done to me. This is where it started.

He put one up and all of a sudden, it got a million views within a couple of days. It was him making fun of me, and it comes from a loving place every time and how I react. It honestly completely took off. He was like, “This is going well,” and continued to do so. That’s where it started, and it has snowballed from there. For me, what it’s brought is this opportunity to share something I’m so passionate about and how everyone can grab life and have fun with it as we do on a daily basis.

That’s very fair. This wasn’t planned. It was so natural. It was organic and natural. It hit and still hits. We encourage you. We’re sharing the light. Carry the Light is the name of the season in season three. I promise you. If you want some light in your life, follow them @BoxingAlleyMike and @Joelle_Legg. You will get that done. Let’s talk about the name at hand. I would love to know, number one, what is your definition of attitude? How do you define attitude? Who was maybe your first attitude coach? When you think about the attitude you have, where’d you get that from?

For me, attitude is something you can completely harness and shape yourself by living in the present moment. You can transition your attitude to however you wish it to be. There is the opportunity to choose to feel, act, live, breathe, and shape your life at any single moment. The attitude, for me, has always come from an upbringing of believing in myself and from my beautiful parents who have honestly given me every opportunity to choose again, be who I want to be, and flourish in life through having a lot of fun and giving stuff a go.

That’s probably, for me, the attitude of being able to shoot again Life throws you down. You might not get the result you want. What can you take from that? How can you grow? How can you learn? You can be in that moment and feel yucky and a bit shitty and gross, but your attitude from that lesson then can propel you forward. Your attitude is everything.

That’s in my book. That’s awesome. You are actively helping and coaching others. What I want to know is did you have to coach yourself? Was there a time in your life, whether it was years ago, where you either looked in the mirror or looked inside yourself and said, “I don’t like who I am,” or, “I don’t like how I look,” or whatever. What possessed you to become a life coach, a nutrition coach, and a mindset coach? Where did that originate from?

I’ve had some huge life experiences which I’ve had to coach myself through. I was in a completely different career where I was working extremely long hours. I was struggling with how I saw myself. I re-studied nutrition and wellness. That’s what changed my life. The biggest change for me was I suffered from postnatal depression with my two children. Whilst I had a lot of support there, I reached out to my husband, which is amazing, and a medical team and worked through that there. I then had to draw on my own study and what I knew to make choices every single day to get myself out of where I was.

I remember at one point when I was very low in life and thinking, “Am I going to have to do this work all the time? Is this how it’s going to be?” At that moment, it was overwhelming. The thought of having to work at it every single day was my goodness. To work at your life every single day and to be where you are is so worth it. Your potential to live and thrive is huge. Going through that was pretty life-changing for me.

Let’s go back because this is real. Sixty five percent of our audience are women. Many of whom, I’m sure, have had children. I’m sure you know this because you were there. Postpartum depression’s real and painful. I’d like you to talk to those people who maybe never got help. Sometimes, women outweighed it or outlasted and they don’t have the help.

What would you say to maybe those new moms out there that are battling this or that have battled it? What were the 2 or 3 things that you felt brought you out of it? Who did you study? What books did you read? What advice can you give them? What advice can you give to husbands? I know he was big in your comeback. For the guys that are reading out there, what can the husbands do? I know that’s ten questions, but I have a feeling you’re smart enough to get there. Here we go.

My first point to start with is to be gentle with yourself. Moms can still be in a postpartum depression stage even when their children are older. That’s how you’ve lived. Give yourself some grace and that what you do is incredible. It’s a huge life-changing thing to become a mom. You’re not going to have time to read books because life is so busy at that stage, especially that early stage.

1) Be gentle with yourself because what you’re doing is the most important job in the world. It’s a huge job. 2) Speak up. If you are not feeling yourself, tell someone, anyone. Reach out to me. Send me a message. Even being able to direct you in a way where you can find the right help is amazing. The first step for me was talking to my husband. He then was aware of how I was feeling. He could tell that things were hard, but he then knew he could speak up for me. If I wasn’t willing to go to my doctor, he would encourage that in a gentle way. It wasn’t a matter of being like, “You have to do this.” It’s that listening ear or that empathetic ear. It is understanding that maybe when someone is in a depressive state, they may be a little irrational with how they’re thinking or how they’re feeling, and that’s okay. It was a matter of him being able to walk me through it.

He also reached out to my family for support. When you are supporting someone through a stage in life like that, you need support, too. Husbands or partners need to also ask for help from someone that they trust as well because it can be hard supporting someone at that stage. My biggest advice to women is to be gentle with yourself. Please seek help and find the right people to be around you. Often, it is as a mom telling another mom how you’re feeling because they get it. Even if you’re not suffering from depression, being a mom and being honest about motherhood is incredible because you’ll find others are like, “That’s me.”

They’re like, “I want to smack my kids, too.”

They’re like, “They drive me crazy. My children won’t put their shoes on either. I tell them 50 times.” It’s familiar. I even find that if I’m at rugby practice with the boys and I’ll mention something about saying the same thing 50 times. They’re like, “I’m glad I’m not the only one.”

That’s why they call husbands your next child because you have to do that with us too sometimes. You mentioned your mother and father as your attitude coaches and that they always encouraged you. If there’s a special story about your mom or dad and what they did to push you forward to helping people change their lives, we’d love to hear that.

Some people are lucky enough to have grandparents. We always believe that the true attitude stories in our guests oftentimes lie in the stories of their grandparents. Did you have a grandmother or father that you were close to that made a difference in your attitude? What did they do and what was that all about?

This is special. It’s not so much a huge story. I have one grandmother who is still alive. I’ve been asked the question before who my absolute inspirational role model in my life is. It would be my nana. She’s 96. She raised seven children. She was a teacher herself. She lives with the kindest heart. I come from a very large Catholic family. She has 21 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. She remembers every single one of their birthdays. They get a birthday card. She’s incredible. Her beautiful kind heart, the way she views people, and the connection that you can have is beautiful.

That’s my mom’s mom. From her, that’s where my mom’s positive attitude mom has always been. I remember as a child coming home from school and someone being mean to me. That was the old saying that sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me. Names do hurt you. It’s not nice when someone’s not nice to you. It is learning to come to that kind of situation with an empathetic view. It was being like, “That was unkind of them to do,” but understanding that that person might be dealing with something in their life. I can stand up for myself, but also having a little empathy towards them as well helped.

Also, Mom and Dad always told me I could be whatever I wanted to be and I could achieve whatever I wanted to achieve. Having that support and belief system behind me is pretty amazing. I try to instill the same in my boys that they can do and be whatever they want to be. You could have a crack. I like that saying. Have a crack at life. I’ve always wanted to have a go at some things, but then let that fear of what people might think. That was a big thing for me, the judgment of others, especially as a teenage girl in my twenties. I probably wouldn’t have had a go as much.

Possibly, it’s with age as well. That willingness to feel the fear and do it anyway has helped me and then knowing that my parents had always said or instilled that value in me. The fear of that teenage years held me back a little bit. Social media’s probably helped. I’m sorry. I’m jumping in circles here. Putting myself out there is quite a thing and sharing your life with other people all online. There is judgment there, but going, “The world sees it, so why not get on with it and have a go anyway?” I’m sorry. I went right in circles there.

As a fellow Catholic from a huge Catholic family who’s ADD, you’re fine. I’ve followed everything. How many siblings do you have?

In my family, I only have two brothers. It’s my mom and my dad. My mom has 7 and my dad has 6.

I know how it is. That’s good. Let’s talk about social media fear or fear in general. 72,000 people see you do stuff. They see you smile and laugh. It’s crazy. Did that freak you out? Do people say hateful things in the comments? Are they like, “You’re an idiot?” Is it weird for you? Are your kids aware of how many people are following you and your husband? What’s that dynamic? Do you not give a shit and you’re like, “We’re going to go do what we’re doing.”

I’m not a don’t-give-a-shit person. It’s blowing my mind, but 99% of the feedback we get and the comments are positive. There is always that 1%. What’s interesting, and it’s a natural thing we do as humans, is you see that one comment, and the rest of them are super positive. You read that one. I read it out and it sticks there. It’s like, “My goodness.” Something I’ve done is though I read it often enough. I’ll read it to the point where it doesn’t bother me so much. It can depend on your mood. If I’m coming in two days pre-menstrual and I read a comment, I’d be like, “Really?”

My personality is that I am very empathetic. These nasty things are coming from a place of discomfort or someone’s unhappiness. I always will respond with love, kindness, and empathy toward them. That is a big part of life and our attitude. If you can have empathy for other people and where they’re at, it supports you and your emotional state and mental well-being from there.

As far as the social media side of things, that taking off has blown my mind. New Zealand’s a small place. There are only five million people that live here, so I get recognized often. People will come up to me in the supermarket. I’ve had people call their wives when they’ve met me and had some photos. I genuinely believe I’m a Kiwi girl sharing the normal ins and outs of life.

Our boys are Rocco and Brax. They are aware. If anything, if we ever feature them, we do ask if it’s okay. They’re little so they can’t quite understand the impact that the internet has, but they’re learning. Some of their friends’ parents might have said, “I saw Rocco doing something today.” Daddy always has this camera to film a joke only when it’s appropriate. Some of them are not for children’s ears. For me, it’s not a natural thing.

To me, it was weird. I saw it. It made me feel good and it made me laugh. There’s a secret sauce there. I don’t know if it’s the humor, if it’s something as powerful as a smile, or if it’s being authentic. Have you studied or thought, “Why do so many people freaking love what we do?”

I have. Generally, it’s from the feedback. What works is me being authentically reacting. Nothing is fake. For me, I can’t stand fake. Be yourself and be who you are. Connection is big for us. With connection, people will come to you. What works is that it’s a genuine reaction or connection, but also, it’s very relatable. The marriage humor is a light on what goes on behind closed doors that people might think, “It’s only me.” I can laugh at myself. That’s why if my husband’s playing a joke, I’m like, “I know. I do nag, but also, you play shit everywhere. I’ll laugh about it, but pick it up.”

It’s a great pattern interrupt. It’s an emotional state change for people that are scrolling. I always think,” The formula’s not that hard. Why is it that you’re either the only one doing it or maybe you’re the only ones that are doing it?” It’s so cool. You can take your social media star hat off. I do want to get into your coaching a little bit. We’re going to go through each, nutrition, wellness, mindset, and fitness, those four. What I want to do is bullet point it for our GAPers at home.

I know you got great stuff to share. I know you got great stuff to tell. I know that you have great stuff to relate to the people that are like, “Get to the mindset stuff.” Let’s start there. Give me the 2 or 3 most important things or 2 or 3 most important exercises or solutions that our GAPers, which is what we call our audience, can take to improve their mindset. What are 2 or 3 things they can do to improve their mindset? What should they know about their mindset first?

One, the most important thing is you always have a choice. In every moment, you have an opportunity to choose how you want to view a situation, how you want to feel, and how you want to react. It’s your choice. No matter what you are confronted with, if it’s a negative situation, you can choose to go this way or that way. I’ve been in a place where I felt like I couldn’t choose or I was stuck. If you are stuck, it’s, “I’m going to choose and then take action.”

The biggest thing when we’re in a position where we are struggling is being able to go, “I’m here and I’m stuck. I know I have a choice. I want to be healthier or I want to be happier. What action am I going to take to get me there?” It can be something so small. I want to feel happier. It’s not a matter of being like, “I’m going to feel happy.” It’s what brings me joy. How am I going to make myself feel happy and take action on that? Pick up the phone and call someone that makes you feel happy. That’s a small action, but that can help up here and can snowball from there.

We don’t have enough time for this, but doing a line or smoking a joint is probably not the right decision to make you happy. I know that’s what half of our audience thinks. They’re like, “I’ll be happy. I’ll go have a drink.” Are you kidding me?

That’s probably not good for your overall health in the long-term if that’s going to be what you’re going to do every time.

That gets into our next one, nutrition. With mindset, GAPers, look it. We always say this all the time. The definition of attitude is being dedicated to the way that you think. Attitude is always a choice, positive or negative. When it comes to mindset, which I thought was so powerful about your answer, sometimes, we do get stuck. We only focus on one choice when there are always two choices, positive or negative. The second thing is to do something and don’t be stuck no matter how bad it is. That could be as simple as walking around the block. Let’s talk about this thing called nutrition. Give us your 2 or 3 best pieces of advice on nutrition.

Simplify. Honestly, when we think about nutrition, we think about restriction and, “I’m going to have to be on a diet. I’m going to have to eat salad.” You don’t. Simplify it. Water. If you go to the fridge, have a glass of water on the way because half the time, you’re dehydrated.

That’s great.

Honestly, simplify it. You can still eat well but enjoy foods that are less than healthy. It’s simplifying things. If you’ve got deep-fried food, it’s add a lot of veggies on the side. If you’re wanting to improve your nutrition, add more of the good stuff without feeling like you’re having to take everything else away. That would be my starting point for a lot of clients I work with. Rather than restrict and take away, add more goodness in. This is my philosophy for life as well. Add more of the goodness in because it crowds out the less-than-ideal things.

As far as nutrition goes, add more goodness in. Most of us are aware that goodness is fresh whole foods, vegetables, meat, and seafood. For women, carbohydrates are not as scary as the media world, fitness, or social media has made them seem. You need carbohydrates if you are feeling restricted and low on energy. You need that in life and good fats like olive oil, avocado, and things like that. I’m sorry. I’m getting too technical.

It’s good.

Add more good stuff in to crowd the less-than-ideal foods out. My two tips are to add more water and add more goodness.

I love mashed potatoes and gravy, so instead of half a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy, do a quarter plate of mashed potatoes and gravy and then add that next quarter full of veggies. I do that. Both of those I do. I’m going to check the box on that. Let’s get to this thing called wellness. What does wellness mean, and what are your best tips to help people with their wellness?

For me, wellness is our overall well-being. Wellness encompasses all of the mind, body, soul, and movement. It’s a real whole package. For me, wellness is being able to nurture our whole nervous system and become grounded and well in the sense of our overall health. For me, a lot of the tools that I use personally are small things like supporting myself by getting out in nature and getting outside.

In New Zealand, it’s interesting. One of the things that I get a lot of feedback about is that I’m always barefoot. In New Zealand, that’s normal. We wear shoes to work and meetings and things, but if we’re outside, we’re barefoot in New Zealand. This is quite a holistic approach, but being barefoot on the earth and feeling the soil brings you back down. It’s something that I work with some of my clients to do more often, but as Kiwis, it’s very normal here.

It is also using tools like journaling and getting out of here because we can be so overwhelmed, especially as women with everything that’s going on in our lives. Our brains can be so busy. For me, I use a journal to brain dump and get everything out of here onto that piece of paper. I love that. Half the time, I look at that piece of paper.

With Mike, that’s probably why our marriage works so well because I can laugh at myself. To be in my brain, he’s like, “Your poor head.” If I write it down and read it, I can then see half that shit up there is not crazy, but it’s not even needing to be there. That’s a tool that I use to then get out of my head and move on. I’m able to be active, be busy, and continue with my daily life. Breathwork is another thing. Me talking a lot, it is going, “Hang on.” That brought my energy a little bit more back down.

It’s so true. I love those tips. That’s good. Is there anything else you want to add?

The extension of breathwork is meditation.

There you go.

Breathwork is a form of meditation. The word meditation can be woo-woo or a bit like, “They meditate.” It’s that simple breathing exercise. You take one deep breath. If you did that several times, that can be your form of medicine. You can support your nervous system to come back to the here and now, breathing is a huge tool to use to reset and get out of that or whatever it is that your state you are in. It’s powerful.

That’s good. I love it. All great advice from Joelle Legg. Do you have a mentor? Is it a Tony Robbins type of guy or is it Taylor Swift? Who inspires you that’s out there that you love to follow?

Gabby Bernstein. She was a drug addict. She’s also suffered from postnatal depression as well. How she’s changed her life is incredible and how she coaches. She comes from a very spiritual place. I find her story and what she shares amazing. I’m sporty. There are a lot of New Zealand sportswomen that I find incredible. Also, though, for me, it’s the moms that have shown me that you can be a mom and still live your life and achieve your goals and dreams. My mom instilled that in me. My mom’s an early childhood teacher. She raised me and my brothers. She’s incredibly well-known in our local community because she’s so wonderful with children. To show me that she can do that and still have three beautiful children is pretty inspiring.

I love it. We’re going to try to do this quickly because our time’s about to expire. I do this thing called Knowledge through the Decades where we walk through your life and ask you to give us an attitude lesson at certain stages of your life. People always go, “What do you mean? I don’t remember being born,” but what do you think the attitude lesson is of birth? If you think about giving birth to your kids, what was the attitude lesson? Put yourself on the table. You gave birth. What was the attitude lesson that you’re like, “Boy.”

The power you have as a human is incredible. That’s as simple as that. Giving birth or as a baby, it’s a new life. Opportunity awaits you. Life is there.

I’ve had women say, “I’ve done nothing more powerful than birth a child.” Think of that. Whether you can run a marathon or you can birth a child, I’m still saying birthing a child’s more impressive than running a marathon. Guys can run marathons, but they can’t birth a child. I love the awesome power of that. I love that answer. That’s raw and real.

I want you to be where you’d be in 3rd or 4th grade as a Kiwi. This would be when you were ten years old. What I want to know is do you remember being ten? Was there something that happened to you? Did you get in trouble? Were you bullied? Were you a bully? What was the attitude lesson that you can remember from being in 4th or 5th grade when you were 10 years old?

I wasn’t bullied, but we had this group of girls where we idolized this one girl and we’d always do what suited her. My essence from that is you can still be kind and give to others. If I could see that little ten-year-old girl, break away. It was to fit in. You don’t need to fit in because you will still be so well-loved and accepted by other people. It’s’ not having to pan it as somebody else all the time.

I love that. All you got to do is walk through a grade school and look at the second, third, and fourth graders. That dynamic has not died. I don’t know that it ever will die. No matter how much people try to do it, there always seems to be a ring leader. I’m sure that hit home with a lot of different people. There’s no question. Whoever can figure that out, that’s probably something that should be studied more. Let’s go to when you were twenty. Did you go to college? Were you a college grad? What were you doing at twenty and what was the attitude lesson? Tell us about that.

I did a gap year. We call it high school in New Zealand. I did a gap year and then I went to university. I was twenty. I was coming back to New Zealand after living in the UK and partying so hard. I had to come back and study. It wasn’t nutrition. I studied broadcasting at that point. It’s a huge life change there. It was that freedom of being able to do what I wanted. My mom and dad didn’t know what I was doing anymore. I was like, “I can do whatever I wanted.” Also, that’s a lot of responsibility. It comes back to those choices. The choices you make can influence where you’re at and what you’re doing.

The attitude lesson was, “Life is real. I better buckle down and get ready. Here comes university.”

The attitude is what I do that will get me to where I want to be. It’s the choices thing. It’s that attitude where you have such an influence on your life. You are the driver here. You go with it.

Tell me. Do you remember turning 30? What was that like? What was the attitude lesson at 30?

Thirty was pretty cool. I became pregnant a month after I turned 30. It was a pretty life-changing time for me. My attitude toward life at 30 is very similar to now. It was like, “Enjoy it. Soak it up. Life is happening now.” Be in the moment and embrace where you’re at at 30. I also felt really old at 30.

When you’re 55, you’re like, “I wish I was 30 again.” That’s what people always say. You’ve been so sweet and adorable. You are full of great nuggets for our people. You carry the light. That’s why I put you on this show because I want people to follow you. I want them to feel the way that I feel when I see you and Mike do what you do because I know they’ll feel better. The gift of making people feel better and carrying the light is truly original.

In most, if not all, of your videos, you don’t get to say anything. What I want to do is if you could, talk to the person that’s in the car that’s crying or that’s on the beach that’s hopeless. Give them a message of hope coming from the heart of a girl that hopefully, they’ll start looking at and being encouraged by. We’ll close the show with that. If you could give us a message of hope for our GAPers, we’d love to hear it.

Thank you. Firstly, I would extend love and grace to give yourself some grace. Give yourself some love by coming back to who you are because you matter. Your life matter. What you feel matters. If you can be where you are, take a breath. It could even be hugging yourself and giving yourself the love that you so deserve to then go forth and be with who you want to be and change your life however you wish to. I always come from that place of being gentle because I have been so hard on myself through various times in my life. If I come back to living in loving kindness, it’s incredible.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is having an attitude of gratitude. From where you are, find one thing that you can be grateful for. It could be the fact that you’ve got shoes on your feet. It could be the fact that the sun is shining and you can feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. Be where you are and give yourself every little bit of love and gratitude that you can. I hope that helps.

I love it. It did. I am grateful to have you on our show. I’m grateful that you shared a good 40 minutes with us. You are a fantastic guest. I’m going to keep watching you. If I get down to New Zealand, I’ll look you up. Does that sound good?

Please do. That would be awesome. We’d love that. Thank you for having me. I love the opportunity.

It is my pleasure. GAPers, that was Joelle Legg. Give her a shout @Joelle_Legg or @BoxingAlleyMike. You will not regret it. If you need a pickup or you need somebody to put some light in your life, those two will do it. Joelle, thanks so much. We will see you guys in the next episode.

Important Links

• Joelle Legg
• @Joelle_Legg – Instagram
• Facebook – Joelle Legg
• @BoxingAlleyMike – TikTok
• @Joelle_Legg – Instagram