Igniting Your Plant-Based Business: Lessons from Katherine Lawrence's Entrepreneurial Journey

In our latest Plant Based on Fire episode, Bryan had an illuminating conversation with Katherine Lawrence, founder of the Food Saved Me Institute. Katherine’s story is a compelling testament to how a personal health transformation can spark a powerful, global plant-based business. If you’re an entrepreneur in the plant-based space, or dreaming of becoming one, her insights are pure gold.

Katherine’s journey began not in nutrition, but aerospace engineering. Yet, a personal battle with stage four endometriosis and infertility led her to discover the profound healing power of plant-based nutrition. What doctors called a "miracle," she found was backed by science, completely reversing her condition and leading to a family of three thriving, plant-based boys. This personal "wild ride" became the bedrock of her mission.

She quickly realized a critical truth for many passionate plant-based educators: 

"You really can't help many people if you don't have the money to support it."

This pivotal insight led her to build a financially sustainable model around teaching nutrition. The Food Save Me Institute now trains and certifies instructors in 16 countries, empowering them to build their own businesses by offering accessible, impactful nutrition classes.

What sets FSMI apart? Their genius lies in making plant-based eating relatable. Instead of solely focusing on major diseases, they address "daily annoying problems" like sleep, food addiction, and even anti-aging with classes like "Beauty and the Feast." Katherine shared a brilliant example of engaging men by focusing on topics like "sleep better, stress less" and even a class playfully called "Intercourses" (which, at its heart, is about cardiovascular health!). This strategic approach helps plant-based entrepreneurs reach wider audiences by meeting them where their interests lie.

Katherine's unwavering confidence in the science of plant-based nutrition has allowed her to navigate challenges and maintain her vision, even launching online courses and exploring AI to expand reach. Her story is a powerful reminder that turning your passion for plants into a profitable and impactful business is not just possible, but essential for the future of health.

Ready to ignite your own plant-based business? Listen to the full episode of Plant Based on Fire with Katherine Lawrence and discover how to build an enterprise that thrives while truly changing lives.

🔗 Useful Links:

• Website: https://foodsavedme.institute/

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/foodsavedmeinstitute/# 

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foodsavedme.institute/ 

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FoodSavedMeInstitute

Until next time, keep that fire burning!

Subscribe to the Plant-Based On Fire podcast on YouTube or your favorite streaming platform today and stay connected with our ongoing exploration of the complex plant-based business world.

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Episode’s Transcript

Please understand that a transcription service provided the transcript below. It undoubtedly contains errors that invariably take place in voice transcriptions.

Bryan (00:00.878)

Hey everybody, welcome back to Plant Based on Fire, where we talk about plant based businesses and their inspiring stories to thrive in our industry. I'm your host Bryan, and joining us today is Katherine Lawrence. She is a globally recognized nutritionist and board certified autism specialist. She has an immense business background, but she's also the founder of the Food Save Me Institute, where she trains and certifies instructors in 16 countries.

to build businesses teaching the proven nutrition class framework. So welcome to the show, Catherine. Thanks for being here.

Katherine Lawrence (00:35.707)

Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.

Bryan (00:39.458)

We were talking a little bit before the show starts and you've got quite the impressive background. Can you just walk us through that a little bit? You made this pivot from aerospace into founding this Institute. Talk to us about your journey a little bit.

Katherine Lawrence (00:50.966)

Yeah, it's been a wild ride. I think a lot of people in plant-based nutrition have like that one pivotal story that kind of changed their life. So I was an aerospace engineer doing my nerdy thing, you know, in the cubicle. And that was about almost 20 years ago. And I got really sick. I had stage four endometriosis and a lot of other reproductive problems. I was diagnosed with infertility and told I needed a hysterectomy at 27.

It's a long story, but the short story is rather than having the hysterectomy, I started to discover plant-based nutrition and some key people and organizations helped me along the way and educated me. And we were able to completely reverse my condition, which was a lot of the doctors called a miracle, but it turns out, it turns out there's a lot of science to support, you know, a healthy reproductive system with plant-based eating. So we reversed my condition. And then I noticed

All of these other things were getting better. Like I lost 55 pounds and I got healthy and I got off my cholesterol medication and I thought, huh, maybe there's something to this. I did go on later to have children. So I have three boys. They're wild. They're all fully plant-based. Yeah. But I remember thinking one night like, this is crazy. I was told there's no cure for this by my doctor repeatedly by several doctors. There's no cure for what you have. You have to have this hysterectomy and

Bryan (02:04.024)

that's amazing. Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (02:18.742)

At the time, I didn't really know much about nutrition. I certainly wasn't raised to ask questions in that kind of setting. so once I started to see the benefits of what I was learning and I just wanted to talk about it with other people, I think that's what happens to a lot of us. And I decided, well, I'm going to leave engineering and go to school for nutrition. And I've been immersed in it for about 18 years. And I've just continued to see more and more amazing things and people healed.

Bryan (02:33.676)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (02:48.063)

by plant-based nutrition. so that's what I've made my career out of, teaching people how to teach others and how to spread this message.

Bryan (02:57.88)

feel like that's what makes our community just so amazing. Cause we've all had this little moment of a transformation that just like, just gives us that skinship on that front. well, congratulations. Like it's so like, that's something that I know, like my social studies teacher way back when, you know, we did the whole study of world war two and like the biggest takeaway was like, think for yourself, make your own decisions. And, and I'm so proud that you were able to stand up and at least say, look, maybe I'll do this, but

Katherine Lawrence (03:02.796)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (03:08.397)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (03:22.179)

Mmm.

Bryan (03:27.844)

I want to try these other things first and they, those other things worked and, my goodness. And I guess that that's what sets you up so well to be taking on the FSMI that you're working on because like, this is a global Institute that's training. mean, this is a massive undertaking that you've embarked on. Can you tell us a little bit more about your goals and what you've been up to with, with the Institute?

Katherine Lawrence (03:30.167)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (03:44.044)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (03:54.413)

Sure. So the Institute, I would say it's been a long time coming and people, just like when I became plant-based, people thought I was crazy. Like you're doing what? So about 12 years ago, was teaching nutrition classes just out of love and passion, you know, and I just, wanted to share this message. And then I realized, I'm not really making any money. And there's a lot more to this than just going out and cooking recipes and things for people.

And so I really struggled and I think that's where a lot of educators are, like people who are passionate about plant-based nutrition. We just want to tell everybody, but then there's all these other things that go along with it to make it financially sustainable. So I saw a lot of people and myself out there trying to do something to help people and you really can't help many people if you don't have the money to support it. So I founded a sales business.

Bryan (04:38.444)

Mm-hmm.

Bryan (04:48.535)

Right.

Katherine Lawrence (04:53.19)

in 2015 selling a product. And it was based on, I didn't want to follow their traditional model, you know, of getting customers. Mine was based on, I'm going to teach nutrition classes. That's going to be my lead generation. I'm going to bring in all these health conscious people and they're just naturally going to love my product. And what I learned was really important that the more money I made and that like the more successful that business was,

Bryan (05:01.484)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (05:21.366)

the more I could offer the public, the more classes I could teach, the more people I could train. And it just kind of snowballed. And it was so eye-opening to me because the basis was always, I wanna help people eat more plants and I want them to feel better and live longer, but I have to be able to support my family. And if I wanna bring others on board, I've gotta show them how to pay their bills with it. And so...

Bryan (05:24.928)

Mm-hmm.

Bryan (05:35.725)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (05:47.049)

It was exciting over nine years that we had the business. taught 20,000 students in-person classes that were all free. mean, it's amazing. All completely plant-based, printed, booklets. I mean, just top-of-the-line classes for free. And so I feel like we really made a difference. But then on the business end of it, over that nine years, we sold $18 million in our product. And it was just, it was staggering. So I decided, my heart...

Bryan (05:57.08)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (06:16.413)

is still with teaching. And I thought, I can do more if I can teach people how to do what I did, because I was having to turn down, like, no, I'm not going to travel to different countries to teach and all that. I was like, what if I could teach them? So several years ago, I invested the money from the business and I closed the business and started our nonprofit Food Save Me Institute. And that is our foundational program.

where we teach people how to build a business or if they have one, how to streamline it, how to use nutrition classes for lead generation. We've always taught the classes in person though, over a one week period and we've got instructors in 18 countries. And again, I got to the point where people wanted to teach and I couldn't always do it on my schedule or their schedule. So just last month we launched our program online.

Bryan (06:54.723)

Yeah.

Bryan (07:06.83)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (07:10.091)

So now people can take it anywhere they take it. That's the world today. They can do it in the middle of the night in their pajamas. And that allowed us to bring the cost down again, which was exciting. So now we're exponentially growing new instructors teaching plant-based nutrition. And it all started from me teaching these classes and not having a financial way to support at large scale. so.

Bryan (07:10.573)

Wow.

Yeah, that is it is.

Katherine Lawrence (07:37.739)

So just that one thing, it's blossomed. It's really exciting to watch when I talk to our instructors and all the different things that they're doing with it. So that's our primary program is our business builder and nutrition instructor program.

Bryan (07:51.242)

it. That is just amazing. Such a good success story there. it's so, I don't know. mean, like I know I took my plant-based certificate with Cornell and stuff, know. I did that in the evenings, you know, after the kids were asleep, I watched an hour and did my homework. you know, so that's phenomenal. Congrats on launching the online version.

Katherine Lawrence (07:53.664)

Thank you.

Katherine Lawrence (08:05.044)

Yeah, I used to be an instructor for Dr. Campbell's program.

Katherine Lawrence (08:15.359)

You know, that program, thank you. That program is part of, is what led me here because I took Dr. Campbell's program and I was an instructor and a manager for a few years. But when I finished the program, I have all this amazing nutrition science. Like it's so good. But still, how do I connect that into a business? And how do I have marketing materials and put together classes? And so that was...

That was one of my early steps. I love their program.

Bryan (09:01.408)

it's me or you we're having some internet problems

Katherine Lawrence (09:05.887)

Bryan (09:09.4)

Can you hear me okay?

Katherine Lawrence (09:10.835)

can hear you. Can you hear me? says it's... Hmm. Let's see. Can you hear me?

Bryan (09:18.434)

Are you still there?

Katherine Lawrence (09:23.241)

Can you hear me? my goodness.

Bryan (09:27.593)

It's coming in and out a little bit. Okay, no worries. I think you're back. I can hear you now. It fully uploaded it. It fully uploaded it in the recording, so we'll just trim that piece out. No worries.

Katherine Lawrence (09:30.047)

Okay, where did it cut off? Can you see me? I can see you.

Katherine Lawrence (09:42.751)

Okay, do I need to, I don't know where that happened. Should I start?

Bryan (09:48.844)

No, that's okay. I'll just ask the next question and we'll have your wrap up on that previous one. Sound good?

Katherine Lawrence (09:55.143)

Okay, yeah, do you need to re-record? it's still recording, okay. I'm sorry, I don't know what happened.

Bryan (10:00.044)

Yeah, it's still recording. We're all good. No, that's OK. Sometimes these things happen with the internet bandwidth issues and stuff. well, yeah, we I find what you just said amazing that you've launched this online course and you used to work with.

Katherine Lawrence (10:06.869)

We've been having a lot of storms in Texas.

Bryan (10:20.03)

the other program there. And I guess to me, the question that I have curious in my head, and I hope it's curious and other listeners here is, is the branding, the brand messaging thing, right? Like you've, you've defined this brand of the food, save me Institute. You know, how do you, how did you get that brand established and what, what do you think sets that apart from

Katherine Lawrence (10:32.798)

Mm-hmm.

Bryan (10:44.502)

In my opinion, a little bit of a crowded nutrition education market. mean, especially when we get into the non vegan or non plant based ones, right? So how do you find yourself pushing forward in that brand?

Katherine Lawrence (10:53.161)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (10:57.823)

Well, Food Save Me was the name of my former sales business. And so we had built a reputation on what we give to the community through our free nutrition classes. That was always really important to me that people see us as something that's providing we genuinely want to help. And with the Institute, I think it was just a natural implication of education.

And there are a lot of great nutrition programs out there. But what I found is that from my personal experience, there's no one connecting at all, right? There's a lot of great places to get nutrition education and learn so much. And for example, become a certified health coach. I know there's some there that are good. And there are some that have classes that are wonderful too. I've been a PCRM instructor for 16 years in the Food for Life program.

Bryan (11:44.824)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (11:52.807)

And so they have curriculums and everything. But what I wanted to do was different. I wanted to, I needed, I needed to build a business. And so our program focuses on how exactly how you do it, how you lay out a class so that at the end you can make the pitch for your product or service. And we teach them how to make the pitch, how to tell their story, why they shouldn't be making the pitch throughout the class.

It's all that, and we teach them the marketing. And then for our class curriculums, we touch on, you know what I learned? I wish everybody cared about the big diseases. I do, know, heart disease is our number one killer and people don't talk about it. It's not in the news. But what I found in my sales business, just out of survival, is that people were interested in those daily annoying problems. And so those are the classes that we give our instructors.

Bryan (12:33.826)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (12:49.406)

nutrition for better sleep, food addiction 911. Okay, I'm gonna say that again, because I did something weird. So those are the classes that we give our instructors to teach. Nutrition for better sleep, food addiction 911, immune boosters, meal preps. And we do touch on some of the more, I'm passionate about women's health. So we have a nutrition for ovarian cancer. We have an African-American nutrition class.

All these sort of daily things. our latest class is beauty and the feast. And I was thinking about how do we, if you're thinking about this from a business perspective, you want to get into different market segments, right? And I thought, how do we get to primarily women? I was thinking about for this class, and maybe they're not interested in their health, but they're very interested in their skin and looking young. And so our latest class is beauty and the feast, how to eat for anti-aging. And it's just been wild.

So that's some of the things that differentiate us. Not everyone cares about these, about diseases in their health, and I wish they did, but they do care about these little everyday annoyances. So we take, we have the curriculums, but we've developed everything from a business perspective. Like we have beautiful full color booklets for our instructors that they give their students.

Bryan (13:58.722)

Yeah.

Bryan (14:10.19)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (14:13.242)

And these are already made. So now all of a sudden the person doesn't have to be a graphic designer and all that. And the student has those to take home and it's got their sales information. So everything is designed that way. All the marketing, it's made to set a, I think set a standard and reflect the quality of the instructor before they even attend the class. So ours is completely business focused based on my experience. I would say that's the difference.

Bryan (14:21.024)

Yeah.

Bryan (14:41.998)

love it. I no, I mean, that makes sense. And you've got some amazing names for these classes as well. So that's cool. I love the naming on it too. I'm curious, like in this age of AI and all that kind of stuff in this online space, you've just launched the online courses and stuff. How have you seen the digital marketing play into your growth at the Food Save Me Institute? know, especially like this global audience, like you're, are you in other languages besides English as well?

Katherine Lawrence (14:42.781)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (14:47.801)

Hahaha!

Katherine Lawrence (14:54.758)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (15:11.899)

We are, well, first of all, I'm fascinated with AI and that's my kind of daily indulgence is reading the AI updates. Just, I think that's the old engineer in me. But yes, we are working on moving into Spanish first. And I think there's so many great AI tools that are gonna help us reach more people, but help our instructors reach more people. And there are good programs that can edit video, because we provide our instructors with class videos to show to you.

Bryan (15:23.458)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (15:41.7)

So I think that's going to be an exciting next step for us. As far as research, I do want to touch on it. There's some fabulous AI that can scan and review research, which I think is exciting, not just for someone like me who's a content researcher, but just for your average person wanting to. I found one the other day where you can.

Bryan (16:03.235)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (16:04.956)

You can scan research and it gives you summaries, but then you can communicate with the AI and ask specific questions about this certain study if you didn't understand something. So I think AI is a game changer, but I think it's gonna have such a positive effect for people who learn how to use it and incorporate it. I've found that in creating a class, it used to take me a really long time.

And there's a lot of detailed steps of creating classes. And I was just talking to our staff the other day at FSMI and about how I've been able to shorten that time because there's tools and skillsets that I don't need to have. You know, that AI can help me shorten that so that we can get more of this valuable content out to our instructors. We also have nutrition classes that are available to the public. So it helps there as well. But, but

Bryan (16:49.249)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (17:01.819)

At the end of the day, our nutrition instructor business builder program, it's really to help instructors open new markets for their business. And so if I can give them, I want to give you an example. One class we're working on right now is called, well, I'll tell you the back story. We always want to capture different groups, right? I was talking to my husband and I said, why are most of our, you know, most of my nutrition classes I teach live, it's women who show up. And I love

Bryan (17:23.402)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (17:30.308)

but that's great, but where are the men? And he said, men only care about sleep and sex. I was like, what? He said, yeah, make a class on those, they'll show up. So I tested it. made a nutrition, it's sleep better, stress less. And sure enough, half the class was men. And I thought, my gosh, this is, you know, because men need the message just like women. And so then we started to pilot testing a class called intercourses.

Bryan (17:38.422)

You

Katherine Lawrence (17:58.275)

And honestly, Bryan, it's a lot like, I mean, it's basically cardiovascular health and heart disease. But if I call it that, they're not going to show up. So we call it intercourses. We talk about ED and circulation. We talk about size and performance and how nutrition affects it. my gosh. Seventy five percent of the class was men, you know, and they're like elbow and their wives like write that down, you know. And so I think so that's going to help.

Bryan (18:08.643)

Right.

Bryan (18:23.99)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (18:26.551)

our instructors get in front of, know, maybe they're trying to find more men to coach or whatever it is their product is. So that's gonna help them. I think that sort of thing is really fascinating from like a human behavior perspective. What makes people get out of bed, commit their time to you in a class to learn something that they may not have been open to, honestly.

And so I think that's the opportunity with plant-based eating. It's all in how we present it. If people see that, wow, I'm actually gonna, it's gonna help me sleep better or have better performance or battle my food struggles. I think that's our most effective way to get the message out.

Bryan (19:10.966)

I love it. I think that AI is going to usher in a completely different realm for us in the sense of, you know, it's going to change the way we work on every level. And so I certainly hope it gives people more time to sleep longer and to get in the kitchen and cook some amazing food and get back to our roots of like, you know, knowing what's in our food and it's not processed and it can be healthy and

Katherine Lawrence (19:15.749)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (19:22.575)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (19:31.663)

Yeah.

Bryan (19:38.976)

and have more time to exercise everything that you're talking about. So I'm so glad that you're here creating these classes to teach these people how to grow this. Cause I think this is this creativity is the next path forward for us as we let AI take over some of the stuff we don't want to do on that front. So I'm curious, like, you know, and this, and this dovetails into what we're talking about with AI, because like you're a person who's and I've done the same transition careers a couple of times, right?

Katherine Lawrence (19:41.88)

Yes.

Katherine Lawrence (19:53.868)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (20:06.584)

Yes.

Bryan (20:06.732)

And I think AI is going to force us to transition it. How did you navigate these challenges and maintain that confidence in your vision as you went through those twists and turns?

Katherine Lawrence (20:10.007)

Yes.

Katherine Lawrence (20:18.12)

that's it. You know, I was thinking about that this morning because launching a business is scary. And I've always, I've always done it a little bit differently, right? When I started the sales business, the other business owners thought I was crazy. Like you can't build a business on vegan nutrition, you know? And then we were this massively successful business. I think that, I think it's always the science actually that brings me back that...

and in my former business and in this one now, this is the best diet for people to eat, more plants. And even if they're not gonna go fully plant-based, know, average American gets one or two veggies a day, if I can help them get four or five, I know, I'm confident in the science. And so I feel like even if I stumble or maybe I launch something that's not so popular or I start to doubt myself, I'm like, hold on, you know, this,

this way of eating changed my life. I would not have children, like every day I see my children, are a reminder of the power of diet change. And then I think I've accumulated enough students and feedback and you hear from them, you know, years later. And so I have these testimonials. I know that it is the ideal way of eating and I am absolutely positive in that. And

Bryan (21:18.552)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (21:40.008)

For those who are faith-based, I believe we were originally created to eat this way. This is the way our body works the best. so I rest in that. It doesn't, you know, I'm gonna figure out the business and the path, but I know, I mean, I know I'm my healthiest. I know the people that I work with are healthiest. And so it kind of helps to, cause gosh, you know, online is overwhelming on these, on social media.

Bryan (21:45.378)

Mm-hmm.

Bryan (21:50.542)

Yeah.

Bryan (22:06.688)

It is, yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (22:08.346)

the nutrition messages are so conflicting and some of them are so finite. I'm like, that's ridiculous, but I can see how it's overwhelming to the average person. And I think that's why I made all of our programs to be very simple, very clear. And I know that I'm on the right side of the message for other business owners. I could imagine if I was promoting.

Bryan (22:14.028)

Yeah.

Bryan (22:31.352)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (22:34.169)

you know, whatever the latest is, carnivore and all that, would I really be helping people? I wouldn't feel good at night. So I know that this is the best approach to promote and educate on. So I'm gonna stay with it and figure it out because there is no other, like this passion, I think a lot of business owners feel that way, like you and I, there's just no, it's just flowing out of you. You just have to figure out, okay, how do I package this?

Bryan (22:38.99)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

Katherine Lawrence (23:00.959)

and get it out. You couldn't, I'm not gonna wake up tomorrow and start, say, we need to do carnivore. The science doesn't support that. That's, know with every inch of my body, that's not gonna do it. So in my mind, that would not be, that would also not be a sustainable, profitable business plan is to promote something that doesn't have the scientific support. It's gonna be a flash in the pan sort of.

Bryan (23:07.33)

Yeah.

Bryan (23:11.67)

Mm-hmm.

Bryan (23:20.738)

That's right.

Bryan (23:26.893)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (23:27.084)

So these are the things that I rely on on the challenging days. I mean, I'm in Texas. Did you know that I'm in North Texas? So when I became plant-based, yeah, when I became plant-based 20 years ago, I mean, I lost friends and thank goodness things have changed since then. But it's, you know, I don't live in the easiest place to do and teach this. But there are people out there who need us.

Bryan (23:33.876)

Yeah, that's right. That's right. So you're in the heart of cattle country. Right.

Bryan (23:44.077)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (23:54.204)

and they're kind of hidden among us and they come out and they feel like, my gosh, someone else thinks like I do. I think that's a really, there's a whole lot more people out there curious about plant-based eating who really want to help their health and they just don't know where to go.

Bryan (23:55.16)

That's right.

Bryan (24:12.014)

So what imp, I mean, you've got the financial success, you've got countless testimonials from what I've seen and like, what impact are you the most proud of achieving throughout your journey on this?

Katherine Lawrence (24:28.119)

well, I'll give you two answers.

Bryan (24:32.216)

Okay.

Katherine Lawrence (24:34.326)

The one is I want every single person who wants to teach healthy eating to be able to teach. So that's what I'm most proud of, that we have our business program, we've made it affordable, and I feel like we've removed all the barriers I've been hearing for years about schedule and cost and all that and pace of the class. But I also, I'm a student, I've learned, I learned in the last several years.

I'm still a student of this. So what I'm most proud of is one of my sons is neurodivergent. And it was, it's kind of become my next story, understanding, you know, one realizing, wow, there's so much more I still have to learn in this field, but understanding like how to support him, how to get him to help himself and how to educate him. think all of my work before and all of these

All of this nutrition stuff helped me to recognize what was going on with him and how to help him. on a personal level, I think that's my most rewarding thing is that I'm able to provide something for my son that I wouldn't have if I hadn't been on this journey.

Bryan (25:46.744)

Yeah.

That's amazing. Amazing. Great. Great points. And I think that I hope that helps other people stay motivated. I mean, the work that we get to do is, just deeply personal. And I think you've already touched on this, but the way that you pivoted your career is also the way you've helped avoid burnout and just the smiles on people's faces and the testimonials that you and I see in some of the stuff we do.

Katherine Lawrence (25:50.167)

Yeah.

Bryan (26:13.814)

I'm curious as we look forward though, what's next for Food Save Me Institute? Congrats on the online courses. I'm sure you've got more coming. What are you, are there new markets, new products, new services? What are you expanding into? What's your vision?

Katherine Lawrence (26:20.374)

Thank you.

Katherine Lawrence (26:27.861)

Well, I did a TEDx talk a couple of months ago and we have been shocked and surprised by the response. I think it's been out for three months and we've got over 200,000 views. A lot of people in my, thank you, the TEDx, the talk is on supportive nutrition for neurodivergent children. And so I've heard from a lot of parents, what I think is interesting, I've heard from a lot of people our age,

who have been diagnosed with autism or ADHD and they need support too. They're like, now it's okay to talk about it. what's next for us is we've created a master class for neurodivergent nutrition and we're doing a lot in that space to support people who are neurodivergent, but then also parents. So that's a big project that we've just released the beginning of that's in work and then also a community.

Bryan (27:04.6)

Yeah.

Katherine Lawrence (27:25.367)

where we're providing sort of a membership, but interviews, lots of content, live cooking. I found that people come to this for different reasons, right? I came to it for my own health reasons and then again, for business, because I wanted to make a business out of it. But a lot of people need support and community and like those human touch points.

Bryan (27:38.541)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (27:52.15)

So we are moving into that as well, a membership monthly program. My focus though is releasing classes to our instructors, which we also put online for the public, that they can tackle all the things. I mean, that's my goal is to, you know, if you have high cholesterol, you want to know about it. I want our instructors to be able to teach a class for that. So I just...

Bryan (28:11.809)

Mm-hmm.

Katherine Lawrence (28:19.03)

I would like to have 40 to 50 class curriculums that our instructors can teach. That's just my passion is helping people understand that plant-based eating can benefit every aspect of their life. So that's we've got going on. A lot of neurodivergence, a lot of new classes and the community. Thank you.

Bryan (28:33.398)

Mm-hmm.

Bryan (28:39.618)

I'm looking forward to following you and watching that stuff come to life. For the entrepreneurs in our audience on Plant Based on Fire here, what's the one firestarter thing that they could do this week to ignite, accelerate their plant-based business journey?

Katherine Lawrence (28:57.823)

I think they need to go to our website, foodsaveme.institute, for a couple of reasons. Yeah.

Bryan (29:00.398)

All right. That's my next question. How can we support you? What are the best ways to get in touch?

Katherine Lawrence (29:08.713)

Well, as for the entrepreneurs, one, take a look at our business builder class because it's made for people who are selling a product or service. It's also made for business owners with brick and mortar just to draw in more people. And then it's made for people who just want to like their business is teaching classes. They just want to be paid. We have instructors making eight to 10,000 a month teaching for school districts, corporate wellness, home health and all that.

So, but we also have some free resources. That's why I was saying to go there. We have some free downloadables that are really great, especially for people in business that they can get for free. I have some of them printed here, but all kinds of fact sheets and things that they can download and share that are professionally made and really can attract new people and help them share more information. I forgot the second part of your question.

Bryan (30:03.53)

No, that's okay. I mean, so hit us with the website one more time. Like what are the best ways to get in touch? And then what can this community do to help support you?

Katherine Lawrence (30:14.076)

thank you. So our website is foodsaveme.institute. The best thing that people can do is check out our programs and share our resources. And we are a 501c3, so we accept donations and grants, which are fantastic if you want to support our work in reaching more people. But ultimately, sharing the programs. have low-cost nutrition classes.

I mean, if you've ever thought, I wish I could teach people about this lifestyle, but also do it in a sustainable way, then check out our certification program. It's all there. I mean, it's all packaged. You don't even have to do anything. You could be teaching next week, just going through the program, which is exciting. Yeah.

Bryan (31:01.55)

That is awesome. Well, we'll make sure some of those links and even a link to your Ted Talk are in our show notes for those of you that want to follow Katherine and learn more. And I highly recommend you check out her website. It is jam packed full of some cool business tips and tricks. And I hope some of you out there that are listening want to get into some of these classes, you'll take Katherine up on that as well. that is.

Katherine Lawrence (31:09.012)

Thank you.

Katherine Lawrence (31:24.702)

Yeah.

Bryan (31:25.804)

all the time we have for today's episode. I feel like we could keep going forever here, but I hope we have you back when you have some new launches and announcements to talk to us.

Katherine Lawrence (31:34.325)

it. Thank you so much for having me on today. This is fun. I love what you're doing highlighting plant-based businesses. This is, mean, I think it's definitely needed.

Bryan (31:43.902)

Awesome. That is all the time we have for this episode of Plant Based on Fire. Thank you again, Catherine, for joining us and sharing your insights and experiences with our community. Until next time, everybody, keep that fire burning.

Katherine Lawrence (31:51.26)

Thank you.

Katherine Lawrence (31:56.532)

Yeah.