Summary 

Ever had one of those moments where fear takes over and you make a decision you know you wouldn’t normally make? In this week’s episode, I share a wild story about getting hacked while traveling with my son and how an unexpected trip to the Apple Genius Bar revealed more than just a tech fix.

This isn’t just a cautionary tale about online scams—it’s a powerful lesson about mindset, support, and what it really takes to hit your body and life goals without spinning your wheels in confusion.

Learn more about The Unstoppable Group: https://www.burnstressloseweight.com/group

Check out my private podcast for lasting weight loss here: https://www.theunstoppablemombrain.com/bodyreset

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• The real story of how I ended up at the Genius Bar after a very convincing online hack attempt
• Why fear-driven decisions can derail us faster than we realize
• The surprising connection between tech troubleshooting and lasting weight loss success
• What it feels like to have expert support that diagnoses and solves the root problem
• How to find your own “Genius Bar” for weight loss, stress, and big life goals

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Featured on the Show:

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Download the full transcript here.

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  Hey friends, welcome back to the Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast. Today we're talking about the Genius Bar, you know, the Genius Bar in the Apple Store where they can basically be like magicians and they can solve all your problems. I have to tell you the wildest story that happened to me a few months ago. I'm going to share exactly what happened, why I ended up at the Genius Bar, we're going to talk about me being hacked online. Don't worry, everything is okay now and what it has to do with weight loss, with your body goals, with hitting your wildest dreams. So if you see me, by the way, on video, I'm in my car, I'm watching my daughter play soccer practice, kind of, I'm also just wanting to zone out and do my own thing, and I realized that I had this story I've been wanting to tell all of you. And because you know what I've been doing, if you've been following the podcast recently, I've just been bringing my camera along. I've been bringing my podcast mic along, and whenever I feel inspired, I have just been going with the creative flow to share the story, to share what I've been learning. And I hope that you're enjoying the series this way of me recording this podcast episode. It's been so, so great for me personally. I've just been able to be so much more productive by allowing myself to maximize and tap into my creative flow when I'm the most creative. I don't need my notes, I don't need my step-by-step. We've been talking about this on the podcast, if you've missed the last few episodes, then you can just go back. I've been talking about where this entire series even started, and if you're brand, brand new to me, then welcome to the podcast. I'm Dr. Priyanka Venugopal. I'm a physician turned stress and weight loss coach, and my entire mission with this podcast is to bring real life story, my real lived experiences in being a very busy professional working mom with overachieving perfectionist tendencies and how I navigate the real world, my real human brain full of doubt, full of fear, full of all of the emotions that we all have and how I still keep my foot on the gas to achieve real things, and it's how I've lost over 60 pounds. It is how I have maintained it now for multiple years through a lot of failure and a lot of travel. Being a mom to two kids who have a lot of unpredictability just living the busy life. So if that sounds interesting to you, I want you to buckle up for today's story, the Genius Bar, and how it applies for you in achieving your next wildest dreams. If you want to walk into January 1st of next year down on the scale, this is my promise to you. If you do the work that we are talking about on this podcast, if you have the right mindset, if you put in that intentionality and effort into the mindset, this is not something that will drop outta the sky, you have to really know how to do this. If you get coached and alongside mindset and coaching, you have a science informed strategy, you will not just lose 10 to 20 pounds by January 1st. My promise is you will likely get back 10 to 20 hours per week, not per month or per year, per week, because you will not be in rumination and confusion and overthinking and second guessing any part of your strategy. That's my kind of promise to you. I hope you pick up what I'm putting down because it has not just changed my life and my entire experience of being a mom who wants to feel her best in her forties. It's translating to my, that was my digression, this is what happens when I wanted to chat kind of style episode. I have to tell you about the genius bar. And how I got hacked and what happened. So let me, let me rewind a few months ago. My son, who is an avid swimmer, like I shared in last week's podcast episode, when I tell you when he loves something, he has the personality. He has a level of grit and perseverance that I don't even have as an adult. Even with mindset work. He was just born this way. He really, when he loves something, he goes in 100%. I don't have to push him to pursue those things. He pulls me along, which has been really lovely as a mom not having to push her kid to do things. Now with my daughter, it's a very different story. I have different lessons that I have learned from her that's for different episodes. So for my son, I shared last week that he tried out for multiple teams. He got rejected from all of them, and then over the course of the year, he decided that he was going to try it again the following year, but to get better, he knew he had to practice more. He had to practice harder, he had to practice differently. He had to get faster. He had to improve his technique, and so he would make us take him to the family pool even on days that he didn't have swim practice. So typically he would have swim practice three times per week, but on the other days of the week, he would say to us, can we go to swim? He wants to teach his sister how to swim. Her swimming was like very weak actually last year. Like she couldn't. Swim more than just like a few strokes. So he was like, this is gonna be good for her. And I also want to practice my swim like this is my kid. He is now 10, but he was nine at the time. And again, I just think it's so, so hilarious how he functions. But he discovered, I think, of course, through the influence and help of my husband, because he gets some of this from my husband. This is so not me. This is very much how my husband's brain operates. They go down rabbit holes that like, I don't even understand how they find some of these things, but they found a swimming skills app that would show him how to do specific swimming drills to improve his technique and improve his speed. Again, the way that he is, he's like, we have to do this multiple times per week. He had a whole regimented routine. Again, like he's just so disciplined. It's something that I have loved learning from. So we would go to our family pool on the days that he did not have swim practice. And we would pull up this app and it would give him drills to do. The drills would be like weird things that I'd never seen. Like you have to swim a single arm butterfly, or you had to do a single kick freestyle, or you have to do this like twisting, turning, I forget what it's called. Like you have to, it's like you roll on one side, then you kick, and then you roll on the other side. It's like all kinds of drills basically to improve your skills and techniques so when you swim the actual stroke, it's much better. So he did this with so much dedication. He learned about the fact that this app, the owners or founders of this company also host swimming camps a couple of times per year in person. So these people that have been teaching him on this app specific skills, specific technique, I mean they are top-notch, excellent at teaching him these skills and they show underwater camera videos of what he should be looking out for, like the position of his hands. Really micro, fine-tooth detail. It's like having a trainer that's giving you just like fine tooth detail on your form, and I think my son is such a visual learner that he really took to it. So he discovers that they have this camp and he asks me and my husband, can I do this swim camp next year? So we hummed and hawed about it a little bit, but finally, I think I've shared with all of you on this podcast earlier this year, I just decided if I can say yes to something and I think it's going to be fun for me, I'm going to start saying yes to things. I'm going to stop overthinking every single decision. If it feels like a yes, I'm not going to second guess it. I'm just going to let it happen. So he asked. We were like, yes, we're going to make this happen. My daughter had a different soccer thing happening that weekend, so we decided this was going to be my son and i's first solo trip, like parent kid trip. I wish I had started these earlier, but now I'm bitten by the bug. I have to do these more. It was amazing. Me and him went to Florida, which is where the swim camp was. We were there for a few days. It was like a three to four day swim camp, so they had a regimen in the morning, they had to practice in the afternoon. They did next level assessment, like they actually videotaped your stroke under the water. They did an assessment of exactly what you're lacking, where your gaps are. It's like a lot of what we talk about in this podcast, like where is your technique lacking? And imagine if you know exactly where your technique is lacking, you just solve that. Guess what happens? You'll get faster, right? You get better. So I'm not gonna make this episode about that, but you get my drift. While we were there, this happened on the second night, we just come home from practice. He's just showering. We're about to go for dinner and I was on my laptop. I hesitate to even tell you this story because I have made fun of and laughed at. I mean, laughed out loud at my friend. This happened to her and okay, let me just tell you the story and then you tell me if you're gonna laugh at me. If you laugh at me, I see you and I understand. I will not take personal offense. I was just looking up, I was on Google Maps, looking up the location, and I was about to call an Uber to go take us to this restaurant. We're having such a great time. Me and him are connecting. It's amazing. I'm just feeling so grateful to us having this experience together and just like, I'm like riding a high, I'm like big, big cheese smile on my face and all of a sudden on my laptop. The entire screen goes blank, not blank, like black, like it shut off, it goes blank, like another screen populates and it says in very official seeming writing. It was very official, my friends. I know you might think it wasn't official. It looked so official from Apple. It said one of your accounts has been compromised. I don't remember the exact lingo. I'm just going to paraphrase like your computer has been compromised or hacked. Don't worry. Just click this link. And we will take care of you. Now, here's the thing. Before I clicked any buttons or clicked any links, I tried to escape. I did like you can't do control alt delete on a Mac, but I tried doing that. I tried hitting the escape button, and it also had like a timer going, like there was a flashing red light, so there was a timer going with the entire thing. So I was getting this feeling of like, oh my God, like scared. I was feeling very scared. So this entire thing flashes forward. Like the red blinking lights, your computer's been compromised. You have 60 seconds. I mean, it was like next level. And I think about this now and I'm like, Priyanka, this was so obvious. How foolish were you to think that this was really Apple? Like Apple would not do that, but there was a logo in the corner. The logo looked, so really, you know how you can tell when a logo is fake? Like it looks fake, like something looks off about it. It just looks so real, and the escape button wasn't working. Nothing was working, and I was like, I can't do anything. So I clicked the button, friends, I clicked the button, and then it said, call this number and we will help you basically get un- hacked. I'm laughing at myself right now because I can just hear myself. I'm hearing myself as I even tell you the story, and I'm like, how? Foolish, foolish. But let me tell you, like fear makes you do foolish things when you make decisions. I mean, this is just, I'm gonna take a little side note here. When you're feeling afraid, when you're scared, it is the worst place to make a decision from, and it's like the most primitive part of your brain. You do foolish things, like I click the button and I call the number. I'm a smart person. I mean, so you would think I'm a smart person, and yet, and I literally made like fun of my friend and I, I feel so bad that I did this, but it was in good humor and it was with her. She was laughing too. I was like, I cannot believe you got caught up in this hack. And here I was and I got caught up in the hack because I was so scared. So lesson one, when you are afraid, don't make a decision from fear. Do not make any decisions from fear. My friends like lesson number one. Okay, so I made a decision from fear. Click the button, call the number, and this dude picks up the phone and he was so helpful on the phone. He's like, how can I help you? Don't worry, we're gonna figure this out. Tell me the digits of any, there's like some numbers on my screen. What's the number on your screen now? This is when my Spidey sense finally picked up and I was like, Priyanka, this is not right. This is not right. Something is running amuck here and I'm like, this is not good.

  Meanwhile, I also, I have to, I have to share, I was also texting my husband on my phone because my phone was not compromised, but there's another secret, tiny little part of me that was like, what if I'm like compromised everywhere? What if there's like a spy watching the hotel room and my phone is compromised and my laptop is like, what if everything's compromised? I really went to this crazy place because I was so scared. Anyways, I got my senses back and even as I was texting my husband about like, what was that? I'm just, I'm remembering his response. Oh my gosh. 'cause he was also not home. He's with my daughter at some like tournament soccer thing. And as he's texting me back, I'm like, Priyanka, this is totally a hack. And I closed the laptop. Okay. So I did come to my senses a little bit on the later side, but we did eventually get there. And meanwhile, my husband is basically text yelling over text, like in all capital letters, stop engaging, exclamation point, hang up, close your laptop. Do not click buttons. All the emojis are coming in because he cannot call from where he's at. So anyways, now we have officially been hacked. I'm feeling very afraid. I have come a little bit to my senses. I was able to close my laptop, but I am feeling still, like what do I do now? I'm scared of even opening my laptop because the entire thing I think has been compromised. And here's what I do. So I call Apple and I'm, again, I had a little bit of fear like, is this the real apple? 'Cause I'm calling from my phone. I'm like, is this the real apple or is this like the fake dude? I don't know. It was a real apple. I found an Apple store that was 10 minutes away. Luckily, that was really nice. Convenient. Thank you, universe. This is where the Genius Bar comes in. I made an appointment with the Genius Bar, got an Uber and got there. Now the entire ride there, I'm like in a very tense state. My poor son, who was like so hungry for dinner after swim practice, he was like, are you okay? Like you look so stressed. What are we doing? What's happening? He's like, you've been hacked. And now my son, his Spidey senses are up. He gets kind of anxious, a little bit about it. Anyways, we are in the Uber car. I'm feeling tense, but I'm also feeling like I'm going to get help. I'm so glad I had that ability that the Apple store was there. I was able to go get help, got to the Apple store. I had to wait for a few minutes to wait my turn. And the Genius Bar person, I wish I could remember his name to give him credit, and I don't remember his name. He's like, ma'am, what's the problem? I have like almost tears in my eyes because I'm just feeling overwhelmed and scared. I'm in the city all by myself with my kid, and I've been hacked. Right? So I tell him the whole story and this is what he says to me. He was like, don't worry, I see this all the time. You're completely okay. I have a plan. This is how he started out the conversation. Can I tell you, before we even opened my laptop, before we even solved the hack or solved the problem, the sense of relief that I felt was enormous. It was like I was holding this a hundred pound invisible backpack on my chest that I was like, thank you. Like it's like he took that backpack from me. He opened up the laptop and he started to explain to me and diagnose. Like exactly what happened. And meanwhile, my son in the background is asking this guy a million questions about hacking. How does it happen? And this guy was so amazing. I am such a fan of this genius bar. They have saved me on more than one occasion. I mean, this is the first time I was hacked. But with other devices, they have helped me solve the problem, diagnose the problem, and then treat the problem he's explaining to me and my son. This is how hacking works. This is the difference between hacking on Mac, hacking on a PC these are the things that we need to look out for. He did an entire run of diagnostic tests on my laptop. He showed me where to check to see if like some kind of invisible Trojan horse has been implanted onto my laptop. I'm being dramatic, but like this was kind of how he explained it. He like went through step by step by step, and the entire time I just remember feeling I am being held by this stranger who doesn't even know me, but he knows me enough to know my problem. He has done this clearly hundreds of times. He knows exactly how to solve it, and he's clearly not bothered. He's not bothered at all. He even told me like, if this ever happens again, this is what you would do. You would basically just shut off your computer. Well, good to know that. Now I know I would never have known had I not talked to this guy, and here's kind of overall what happened. Like I went through this entire experience. It was terrible. I did feel very afraid for quite a bit because. It was new for me. I'd never been hacked before. It felt very, very scary technology and like my laptop, it's like my main mode of communicating. Like it's, it's one of my main modes of communication is through the internet. I'm thinking about all of my work that I have on my computer. I was thinking of, I was like flashing forward to worst case scenario, how everything is compromised, how I'm gonna have to start from scratch, and I don't know if I can ever trust technology ever again. Like I was literally going down that road. But the Genius Bar, this person that had clear expertise and experience was able to, in one minute relieve me of that burden, relieve me not with like flu, flu talk and just like surface level toxic positivity. Like don't worry, I've got you. He actually had strategy and data to back up what he was saying. He said, I know exactly what's going on. This is exactly why you have the problem. This is exactly how we're going to solve it and if this ever happens again, this is how you're, what you're gonna do next time. He went through, he fixed the entire thing. My poor son is like. So hungry at this point, but his emotional and mental curiosity was being fed because this guy was so good. He was answering all these questions for my son. He was like, I also have a kid who's very curious about things, and so he just was so, so great engaging with my son, answering all the questions I wanted to give this guy the biggest hug and just like make him my family. That's how I felt about him and it made me realize why am I even sharing this genius bar story with you. I think about coaching and having an experienced person help you navigate a serious problem like the Apple Genius Bar. I think that the Unstoppable Group is like the Genius Bar. Not to say that I am a genius, but I think about the Genius Bar as the place where you can get so much relief, so much help, so much clear and simple diagnostic tools like you diagnose the actual problem so you go and solve for the actual problem. I saved so many hours of me not trying to tinker and figure this out on my own. Now I do wanna say this, could I have figured this hack out by myself? Yes. Can you lose weight without a coach? A hundred percent. Can you feel better and achieve all the wildest goals and dreams that you have? 1000000%? Like there's no doubt in my mind about it, but you will take longer and you will stumble more and you will experience more failure. You will waste a lot more time when you don't have the experience of a genius bar. The support of a genius part in your corner. I know that I would've eventually figured out this entire hacking situation. I would've used my phone. I would've looked it up. I would've pieced it together. I would've stumbled around a little bit. I would've felt probably a lot more fear around it. I would've been a lot more unsure. I wouldn't have been sure did I actually hit the mark? Did I actually do what I was supposed to do? Did I really get rid of all the, you know, downloadable Trojan packets that might be there? I might've had some fear, but it would've eventually gotten there. What was so impactful for me, and what I really want all of you to think about if you want this, is having a genius bar in your corner. A place that you can go to to ask questions, to diagnose your real problems, to solve them clearly and simply with the real solution, in my experience, will save you hundreds of hours of time in confusion and overwhelm.

  The worst thing I think that we can do, and I see a lot of women doing this, I know I used to do this a lot, is you just take the same plan and you just like say, I'm just gonna do the plan again. I just need to double down or just, I need to like try a little bit harder. And it's no surprise we recreate a lot of our results because the reason it didn't work, it's not because you're not disciplined. Discipline is literally, I mean, it's rarely the reason that you're not at your goal weight, not at your dream body goal, not at the goals that you have for yourself. It's usually not discipline. There is a mindset, there's a mindset gap or a science informed strategy gap. Discipline is really not one of them. So I wanted to just share the story because I really felt like this is an experience that can be yours too. When you feel confused about your results, when you feel unsure about how to navigate forward, if you feel like I'm quote unquote trying it all and it's not working, it's not because you are lacking discipline. It is usually because you have a blind spot that you're not seeing, you'll eventually find it. But to find it faster, it's like, I call this the attack in your ass. Like you can't see that there's attack in your ass, but you know you have a pain in your ass and maybe you're blaming your time, you're blaming your partner, you're blaming your kids, you're blaming your job. You're blaming how busy you are and how stressed you are. These are not the real reason that you're not at your goal. I know it can feel very convincing and compelling to blame these things, but these are not really the reasons. The real reason for most women is there was a mindset gap or a strategic gap in your nutrition strategy, in your rest and play strategy we talk about on this podcast, one of the things that I teach in my group is there are five pieces to a winning science informed strategy that will guarantee you success on the scale for you to achieve your body goal, nutrition, guilt-free, rest, play, movement, and mindset. You have to have a strategy for all five pieces and when you have a strategy that you know will work, it guarantees you success, supports your hormone health. Improves your vitality. You feel better without the deprivation. You will save hundreds of hours of time per year because you're not in confusion. You're not feeling the fear anymore. I can just imagine if I didn't have that Genius bar guy in that moment, I would've spun out for quite a while. That is sometimes a part of our journey. Sometimes we do need to spin out. We do need to figure things out. We do need to have the sticky, messy middle, which I talk about a lot on this podcast. We all have to experience a sticky, messy middle, but also I think that if you're a professional. Woman, if you're a professional working mom, you deserve to have a genius bar in your corner. You are doing so much. You're pouring into so many other parts of your life, and I think that if you're listening to this, you deserve to be poured into as well. To me, that is what the Genius Bar is all about. That is what the Unstoppable Group is all about. If you want to have a deeper dive on exactly how we work together in the Unstoppable Group, you wanna get a sneak peek on the strategy that we use, the mindset skills you learn. I have created a four-part private podcast. That really takes the 170, 180 plus episodes that we have over here on the Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast, and I have brought them all together into a four-part mini series that talks through the science of weight loss, like really what it takes to lose weight and not just be skinny on the outside, but not skinny on the inside. I really share my journey on how I lost a lot of weight, but I did not drop percent body fat. That all happens in episode one, like what is real weight loss? What do you want real weight loss to look like? Do you want to be feeling strong and feeling your best, or do you want to just be skinny? I talk about the difference in episode one. I get into the science and really talk about the role of your hormones and how those hormones are playing a role in your weight loss efforts. I touch on cortisol, insulin, leptin, estrogen. Oxytocin. I talk about all the hormones that are most impacting your wellness inside out for your body, for your mind. I talk about urges and cravings and my strategy on how to walk through the urge to snack, scroll, or procrastinate anytime, anywhere. I talk about how to burn stress at the root. I shared earlier in the episode that your partner, your kids, your colleagues, your bosses, your friends, your time. Don't have to change for you to feel better. And that is what we were talking about in episode two, which is covering stress and how to burn stress at the root. I get into the science of it, into the mindset of it. And then my last episode, episode four, covers accountability, super skills, how to create accountability, how to create that, drive, that intrinsic motivation to follow through even when you don't feel like it. Sometimes some of my friends will say like, I don't feel motivated today. I don't feel like it today. I talked to you about why you don't need to feel like it. You don't need to feel motivated to actually hit your goal. Imagine the power of that. To me, that just creates so much freedom that you don't have to feel like it. You don't have to feel motivated to actually achieve this dream. If what we're talking about on this podcast has been resonating with you, but you want the quick roadmap. The blueprint on how we do this work together in the Unstoppable Group, how you can have a genius bar in your corner. You can go and grab that four part private podcast, the miniseries over at burnstressloseweight.com/bodyreset. And if you love that private podcast, you love what you're hearing here and you know you want. The Unstoppable Group to be a part of your future. You know you want a genius bar in your corner. You can always get all the information for our next group, the dates, the times, the investment, all the nuts, bolts, and details over at burnstressloseweight.com/group. It shares all of our enrollment dates and when our next group is opening up, I hope you guys all have an. Amazing day. I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I did and really think about what it would feel like for you to have a genius bar in your corner. Have an amazing week. Bye. Thanks for spending this time with me on the Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast today. I hope that you are leaving today's podcast episode feeling a little lighter and more inspired than when we started. It turns out. That you don't need to have a stress-free life to hit your goals on and off the scale, but when you feel more empowered to respond to your real life stresses, with true strategy, we will game change how we show up, and how we hit our goals. If you wanna take what you are learning here on the podcast and put it into real life implementation, it might be time for us to work together in the Burn Stress, Lose Weight, Feel Unstoppable Group coaching program. Head over to burnstressloseweight.com and you can learn all of the details, the nuts, the bolts, when the next group is starting and exactly how you can join. Okay, friend, I'll see you next time.