Five Minutes with Jillian Michaels

Jillian Michaels - best known for her tough-talking but highly motivating way of inspiring people on NBC's The Biggest Loser  - was at the on Saturday as a keynote speaker (along with financial guru Suze Orman) at the Get Radical Women's Conference.

This is the fourth annual Get Radical conference, which is organized by motivational speaker Doreen Rainey. Hundreds of women were there to learn from the experts what is holding them back and how to believe in their dreams.

Michaels has turned motivation into an industry. She turned her journey to wellness into bestselling workout videos, books and and her own company, Empowered Media. She says she is very excited, though, about her newest project - she is in the process of adopting a two-year-old girl from Haiti.

Reston Patch spent five minutes with Michaels, 38.

Reston Patch: Your message on The Biggest Loser was all about physical empowerment. Is that still your message? Or all you all about the overall picture now? 

Jillian Michaels: It never was my message. Fitness was always a tool to ultize to help empower people. I am a big believer when you are strong physically, you are strong in every facet of your life. It was always a bigger picture for me, however on a show like Biggest Loser, that really drills down on weight loss, it is all you got to see. That was a source of frustration for me over the years, which is why I felt the need to leave the show. I said "Look, I can do more, I can say more, I am about more."

At events like this, I don't usually discuss fitness. I am going to get it out of the way - eat less, move more, eat clean. Now let's really have a conversation about why you are not achieving the things you desire to achieve.

RP: That concept is so basic - yet why do so many people continue to fail?

JM: A couple of reasons, first of which often when you are dealing with a larger amount of weight, that weight is a symptom of a bigger problem. You can address the symptom all day long with diet and exercise, but if you don't get to the root, with diet and exercise, if you don't fix a lack of self worth ... you're still going to struggle.

It really is about finding those destructive behaviors, digging them out at the root and alternatively implementing nurturing behaviors and building self worth. Then it allows the other coping mechanisms to be helpful rather than destructive.

RP: Do you think success in some ways it starts with feeling better about yourself in order to achieve success overall?

JM: It is a chicken-and-egg conversation, absolutley. The reason that fitness is such an instrumental tool is you are able to create scenarios for people where they are able to see their strength. It is very tough to tell someone believe in yourself, the glass is half full, when it is a reality they have not experienced that.

With fitnesss, you can create an achievement and accomplishment they can believe in. And it becomes a gateway experience - if I can do this - and I never thought I could - then what else can I do?

Fitness, for me, accelerates my ability to show them their true potential.

RP: You have a compelling personal story. You started out being a fat kid. Are you an example if you believe in yourself, you can get it done?

JM: I definitely hope I am an example of ability to achieve anything you choose and live your own passion and bring your own meaning to the world. With that said, I was extremely fortunate to have key people in my life that did show me my true potential and did value me and teach me a failure was an entry point for learning, not a validation of being worthless. Those key lessons allowed me to get where I am today. I try to do that for other people.