We recently had the pleasure of interviewing Elika Tasker, a health coach, entrepreneur, and leadership expert. Elika has been working in the field for many years and has become an advocate for improving health and wellbeing through her work.
1: We would love to learn more about your work in helping entrepreneurs optimise their energy
through nutrition & lifestyle changes! How did you get started in this industry?
I got started working in this industry by my corporate career in HR and finance, consulting, and not having the tools, the mindset, and the experience to know how to navigate through that without the impact to my health. So when the wheels came off, or I had burnout, I went looking for answers. And when I went looking for answers, I did what most people do that the mainstream health support is geared around, which is diet and exercise. So first, I got a personal trainer. And from the personal trainer, I noticed they were talking a lot about nutrition from the point of view of macros, then I realised there was a whole part of nutrition that I didn't understand as well as I thought I would, which was that food as a science. Being super passionate about food, from a point of view of how does it taste? And how much of it could I eat? I wanted to explore that further, so I enrolled in the world's largest nutrition school. And I then learned a very big understanding of all that exists, 56 different dietary theories to be exact, on the different approaches to looking at diet. That exploration helped me think about what we were doing wrong and how my approach to food wasn't really helping.
2: What has life been like as a female entrepreneur? What challenges have you faced and how
did you overcome them?
My life as a female entrepreneur, it's been super exciting, and super challenging at the same time, exciting because I'm super passionate about what I do, I absolutely love it. And I feel so grateful to be able to live in purpose every single day. However, the challenges have come, you know, initially, it was a lot of financially, not having an income that I'd come accustomed to, then I would say that the majority of the rest has been around managing my energy, and wanting to do absolutely what I love, but not at the expense of my health, and also my relationships. One of the major things that I've had to overcome is to have discipline around self care. The other challenge that I faced is, from an energy point of view, is trying to manage the more Yin side of my energy field, which is very much about the softer, nurturing, feminine energy that I use a lot in my coaching business, I used to cook and prepare all my food, or use it to support the women in my community. The masculine more young energy that I have, which are used to build and create businesses, but when in overdrive, which I've needed to use for a lot of the things that I've created, it really upsets the feminine energy, and it really upsets that balance between going and being driven and moving forward and building and creating and having fun, resting, relaxing, and just enjoying and being. So again, the way that I've had to overcome this is my self care. And it's really about being able to know that I have to have activities that are built into my schedule that really nurture them and flood, the feminine energy and support that so I can be everything from you know, doing yoga instead of doing weightlifting, it can be my salsa, which is super passionate. So sometimes I don't actually get a chance to go to salsa, but I love to dance. My nervous system is soothed by the music I listen to and by spending time in nature.
3: You have lived all over the world from Singapore to the United Kingdom. What has it been
like living the expat life?
Life as an expat, I absolutely love it, I feel for me. What I love the most is the integration with different cultures, different races, different walks of life that really immerses my mind into a new way of thinking, I have a huge growth mindset. I think when you're living outside of the environment that you've been born and grown up in, which for me is the UK, and then you're, you know, immersed into another environment. It really makes you challenge the way that you think about everything. And I think that has been one of the greatest things of my experience as an expat.
Relationships are extremely important to me and I suppose, meeting people and connecting with them in a way that you do as an expat because, you know, for me being away from all of my family.
And so having that connection where you're building a second family base for yourself, is really beautiful.
4: What advice do you have for women who are in burnout mode in their career and life?
The advice for women who are in burnout in their career in life is to consider that by slowing down, you get to see everything with more colour. By slowing down, you actually get to achieve more. Because you get to fully experience everything that is available. By slowing down. You actually get to be the ability to remember the things that were really important because you're present for them.
5: How do you take care of your health? What do you like to do for fitness, health etc?
I take care of my health as the most important thing in my life. So every single day, I have habits that I've created over time, that for me have become very sustainable and are realistic. So that's everything from the filtered water with lemon that I drink every morning. From the moment I wake up to making sure that I'm outside and getting sun light or natural light into my eyes, within the first hour of waking, by starting every day with some form of movement, whether that be a walk around the block, or full weight workout or a yoga routine by making sure that 80% or more of the foods that I'm eating are minimally processed. Every single day I'm doing something that looks after my mind, that could be meditation or journaling, but really prioritising mental well being. And it's also my relationships by surrounding myself with people that are like minded people that have similar values to me, such as, growth mindset or want to live a healthy lifestyle and are purpose driven people. It's also by making sure that everything that I do is something aligned to what I'm really here to do, which is to assist others in their transformation.
6: Where have you traveled/lived that has inspired you the most?
The place that inspired me the most that I travelled to was Costa Rica, I spent three months there, doing plant medicine, being with the shamans, and really understanding myself through the journey of the plant that's called ayahuasca, and really being able to shift a lot of beliefs that I had from a lot of conditioning that I had from an early age and also from the corporate lifestyle that I had.
I also think that Brazil was somewhere, actually I would say, the whole of South America
really inspired me. I think of the way that people just live with joy, like dance and music is just immersed into their life an they just really find ways to be passionate about the things that life just gives us with ease. Bolivia, where, you know, less than 25% of the roads were paved. Yet they were some of the most happiest people that I ever met. Yeah, I would say South America was very inspiring for me.
7: You have a lot of projects from executive coaching, public speaking, training to business
consulting! How do you manage your time effectively?
Okay, well, the first is I don't believe that time is linear in the way that we were conditioned from an early age for most of our education system, which is the Newtonian way, I believe that we quantum leap. So what that means is sometimes, for example, when you have this connection, and you're like, gosh, we really get on, you know, this is my type of person. And, you know, when you're working in a linear timeframe, you sometimes feel you have to meet 10 people to find the right one. Whereas sometimes you can meet that right one, and that they actually are the connection that you need to invest in, and so much more comes out of that. So what that means is that, for me, my bigger vision is to assist an individual with their transformation. I look at every part of their lifestyle, and I create parts of my business that supports that. Firstly, the women's mastermind, if they're a woman, I actually work with men and women. So the women's mastermind is a monthly round circle where women, business leaders could come with a challenge that they face, personally or professionally. So I can support women in that way, by being around like minded women, and having that empathy and also being solution orientated in a way that women communicate. I also have the helpers, nutrition and culinary programme, that's the six week programme that I started to support households. So a lot of the people that I serve, they don't actually have time to prepare the types of meals that they would want. But many of them have helpers that can actually be trained to do so. The helpers themselves are a community that support us for their own physical and mental well being. I bring them onto my six week programme, and provide them with that support, and that training. I also create unique experiences that foster meaningful connections at discover Everton, which is my space, my private space, where we like to say it's a home away from home experience. So these experiences are there for corporate teams, and my clients that I work with one on one who want to entertain their teams or their clients, and they want to do it in a very meaningful way. So all of these are like my ecosystem that are also connected. And so that means when somebody comes into my ecosystem, I'm really looking at which way do I support them?
8. What does your health concierge packages entail?
My health concierge package is focused on executive leaders and entrepreneurs who want more energy. Typically, my clients, they want to feel like they have the clarity to make great decision making. They also want to feel great in their body. They want to have deep restorative sleep. When they are exhausted, it's difficult to make those decisions and feel good in their body. So they end up being frustrated, and not able to impact change. So what my role is to do is to work with them not on providing more knowledge, but by supporting them over a 12 week period of time to implement small, realistic habits that help them to build the lifestyle that optimises their energy. So essentially, they're then able to identify over this period of time where they're leaking energy, and I work with them to create this plan to restore their body, their sleep and their mind. And that plan that I have is called the Energy reset recipe, which is my four pillar framework to look at every area of their life where they could be leaking energy.
Connect with Elika:
Website: www.elika.co Instagram: https://instagram.com/elika.health
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elikat/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@elikahealth
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