Gina Ryan, producer and host of The Anxiety Coaches Podcast and a nutritionist and coach, joins Niiamah Ashong on the Outlier's Edge Podcast to explore peace, consistency and possibility. She shares what she stands for, how she took over a podcast and kept it going by being consistent, and why lived experience is her edge. What emerged is a calling to something more: helping people see their lives from a higher perspective, from a less clinical and more spiritual and philosophical place.
Episode at a glance
- Guest: Gina Ryan, Producer and host of The Anxiety Coaches Podcast, nutritionist and coach
- Host: Niiamah Ashong, coach to outlier leaders
- Show: Outlier’s Edge Podcast, released March 10, 2022
- Format: conversation, 48 minutes
- Topics: Peace begins with each person, Consistency as an edge, Lived experience as an advantage, Called to something more, Solving problems versus generating possibility
What Gina brought to the conversation
Gina Ryan stands for peace, internal and external integrity, and being the best she can be so she gives permission to the people around her to do the same. After years as a nutritionist working with eating disorder clients on Maui, she offered her expertise to a podcast about anxiety, was soon co-hosting, and said yes when the host asked her to take the show over, knowing nothing about podcasting. Six years later she had kept the same release days and time, released close to 800 episodes and reached 14 million downloads. Her edge is lived experience: she brings people what she has lived herself, and Niiamah Ashong names the peace she carries into a room and her gift for consistency as edges too.
What emerged
Asked what would make this a life-changing conversation, Gina Ryan names a feeling of being called to something more, still helping people but helping them see their lives from a higher perspective and reaching a wider audience. She names a wish to talk less about the problem and more about people having peace and calm in their lives, and Niiamah Ashong offers a distinction between solving problems and generating possibility, a term she writes down. Niiamah Ashong pictures something more as a natural extension of her existing podcast, and she leaves with ground underneath an idea that had felt elusive, and with permission to dream big without having to hold the space.
Questions this episode answers
How does Gina Ryan help people find peace?
Gina Ryan hosts The Anxiety Coaches Podcast and works with people one-on-one and in groups, drawing on lived experience rather than a background as a psychologist or therapist. She believes peace is available to everyone, regardless of money, politics or race, and that it begins with each person individually.
How do you keep a podcast going for hundreds of episodes?
When Gina Ryan took over her show, she told herself to be consistent, and the release days and time have never changed. Episodes run between 17 and 21 minutes, and her topics come from listener emails, her groups, her one-on-one clients and her own experience, which she calls an endless well.
How do you keep adding value when you cover the same topic many times?
Gina Ryan comes at a subject from a different angle or a higher perspective each time, because who she is today is not the person she was six years ago. Niiamah Ashong adds that the listener is not the same person either, so the same message reaches them differently on a different day.
What is the difference between solving problems and generating possibility?
Niiamah Ashong suggests that defining everything through the lens of a problem keeps people coming back to the problem, while generating possibility leaves space for what happens after it. Gina Ryan connects it to what comes after anxiety: a world of endless possibility that is peaceful, calm and exciting.
How did Gina Ryan become host of The Anxiety Coaches Podcast?
In 2015 Gina Ryan was a nutritionist working with eating disorder clients and listening to a podcast about anxiety. She emailed the host to offer her expertise in nutrition for anxiety, ended up co-hosting after a two-hour conversation, and took the show over when he decided to leave, eventually putting all her focus into the podcast.
In their words
It doesn't matter how much money you have, it's not political or racial or anything, it is available to everyone.
Gina Ryan
There's a difference between solving problems and generating possibility.
Niiamah Ashong
It is this world of endless possibility that is peaceful, it is calm and it is exciting.
Gina Ryan
Key moments
04:38 – What Gina Ryan stands for
11:51 – The Anxiety Coaches Podcast
13:53 – From nutritionist to podcast host
17:59 – Consistency as her edge
20:31 – A new angle on familiar topics
25:40 – Lived experience as an advantage
31:19 – Called to something more
35:53 – Solving problems versus generating possibility
42:01 – Something more as a podcast
44:35 – Ground under an elusive idea
About Niiamah Ashong
Niiamah Ashong is a coach to outlier leaders, host of the Outlier’s Edge Podcast, and founder of the Trailblazer Collective. He coaches leaders who are creating something only they can make: a company, a body of work or a movement. Make a difference with your difference.
Work with Niiamah: 1:1 with Niiamah | World of Difference
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