Take Charge with Samantha Shorkey

Nov 04, 2019

Welcome to Take Charge!, a series of interviews with some of our favorite health and wellness thought leaders. Each post features advice on topics like longevity, nutrition, exercise, and physical optimization. You'll also receive guidance on how to follow through with your goals and work through feelings of fear and doubt. Plus, we compiled the best tips in this free ebook - click here to download it.

Today we're featuring Samantha Shorkey, the first-ever VEGAN World Naturals bikini pro, author, blogger and podcast host of “Jacked on the Beanstalk,” and coach to the winner of Bodybuilding.com's $200K 12-Week Transformation Challenge in 2015, beating out 345,000 other contestants worldwide. Since launching Jacked on the Beanstalk in 2013, Sam has been blazing trails and breaking stereotypes in the competitive bodybuilding world.

We met Samantha virtually through Matt Frazier's annual No Meat Athlete bundle sale and her inspiring Instagram account, which showcases plant-based nutrition tips, recipes and inspiring transformational stories. This interview series felt like the perfect time opportunity to get to know her better and find out her perspective on topics like morning routines, productivity, confidence vs. courage, monetizing with integrity and making travel fun. We gave her a few prompts and she had some thoughtful (and fun) responses that we're excited to share with you.

Samantha's Tips on How To Take Charge Of Your Life:

1. Without fail, before she does anything else every day, Samantha starts her morning by massaging her face with coconut oil then drinking a big ass glass of lemon water. When it comes to her best tips, she says, "I'm all about exuding a 'healthy glow' inside and out in the most natural way possible. And I believe these two (super vegan hippie) morning routines help to do just that! Stimulating your facial muscles with a coconut oil massage helps to bring oxygen to your face and increases blood flow which increases collagen production. Plus lemon water helps to hydrate (and we all get dehydrated overnight) and kick starts digestion for the day.

2. Samantha is a big fan of the “focus keeper” app, which is basically a productivity timer. "If you’ve ever heard of the “Pomodoro Technique,” it’s an app-based around it where you work for a timed session of 25 minutes then a bell goes off and you have five minutes to fart around and pee or grab a snack or do some push-ups or stretch etc. Whatever you want. Then after the five-minute break, you’re back to work for 25 minutes. Being self-employed, it really helps keep me from getting distracted when I've scheduled time to work. It trains your brain to hyper-focus for set periods of time but also gives your brain a little break so you don’t get burned out or turn stupid from staring at your computer for too long."

3. "Being 'confident' certainly doesn't come easy for me!", says Samantha. So she tries to focus on being COURAGEOUS instead. I find the courage to be vulnerable and let the world see the REAL me. I find the courage to get out of my comfort zone and accept new opportunities and situations that kinda scare the shit out of me. And if I find I'm being overly critical of myself, I will either break out my gratitude journal or go for a nature walk and start listing off all the things I'm grateful for in life and all the things I love about myself. And whenever I find myself doing unhealthy comparisons to others, I try to remind myself that pretending to be who I think society wants me to be or look like is stressful and boring. And in my experience, when I shift my whole focus to just being courageous and authentic, it's pretty cool that confidence starts to show up at the same time.

4. Samantha's best advice on achieving peak physical condition is: The four "S's." "That means smoothies, salads, soups and scrambles. Make these the majority of your meals and you will look and feel pretty damn good."

5. Before Samantha became a vegan bodybuilding coach, she was a karaoke host working onboard a cruise ship. "It was there that I met Tony Thompson who also happened to be Britain’s greatest true-crime novelist. I actually studied journalism and writing had always been my first passion (even more so than vegan bodybuilding.) And anyway, I had confessed to Tony that I loved to write but finding the TIME to write was a serious struggle. Before his cruise was over, Tony gave me a copy of his latest best-selling novel and on the inside of the cover, it read: “Thinking about writing isn’t writing. Talking about writing isn’t writing. Only writing is writing. So get writing.” He truly inspired me to finally start a blog that eventually launched my coaching biz and the "Jacked on the Beanstalk" brand. All this to say, my [monetization] advice is to stop thinking and talking passions and just start DOING them."

6. "I think it's important for everyone to see the world and experience different cultures," states Samantha. "Working on the cruise ship was a cheap way to do both for sure haha. I certainly don't "prioritize" travel but I do try to plan fun "girls trips" whenever I can even if it's just a couple of nights in Vegas or a week at an all-inclusive."

Want more tips to help you take charge of your life?

Click here to receive a free ebook with advice from health and wellness thought leaders who want to help you thrive. Uplevel and get more consistent with a balanced diet, impactful fitness routine, and positive mental health practices. Find the motivation to achieve your goals and release feelings of doubt, fear, stress, and anxiety. Gain clarity, a sense of purpose and the drive to follow through so you can take charge of your life like never before!

Get more from Samantha on her website, Instagram, Facebook page, Twitter, and YouTube channel.