Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Allison Malafronte. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Allison , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you share a story about the kindest thing someone has done for you and why it mattered so much or was so meaningful to you?

It actually relates to this moment, the photographs you see here, and this article. My day job is Community Manager at Collective615, a beautiful co-working space in Nashville for entrepreneurial women and an event-rental venue for all. The owner and my boss, Kathy Thomas, is a professional photographer and in addition to Collective615 owns Kathy Thomas Photography and 24th & 10th (visual branding through professional photo and film). So entrepreneurship is her expertise!

I have been considering starting something to share my floral watercolors, home décor, and design, and Kathy has been encouraging me to host my first floral watercolor workshop at Collective. She did a branding shoot for me recently in the space focused on my art. I brought all my “props” with me, including my watercolors, brushes, palette, and a box of all my paintings and sketches, which I really had not shared publicly other than a few posts here and there over the years. Her response was so enthusiastic and encouraging – there were members working in the co-working space and she took a pile of my paintings around and showed everyone. As a result, I had my first art sale right there during the photo shoot!

Kathy then proceeded to sit down at the computer and started searching domains and IG pages to see if the name that I had been thinking about for this, Garden of the HeArt, was taken. She then said, “You are setting up an Etsy shop for this before you leave here today, just so you know.”

We then continued with the photo shoot and when I saw the pictures she took, I literally got tears in my eyes. It was like I was seeing myself as an artist for the first time, through her lens.

Your question asked why this mattered so much to me. I think it’s because it felt like genuine support from someone who really believed in me. Kathy is incredibly busy and juggles many responsibilities as both an owner of multiple businesses and a mom, but she insisted that we do this shoot so that I would have this ready to start promoting. She made time to do it with everything else she had going on (she literally was booked for a commercial shoot that day and was late getting there). This is the type of leader and supporter she is, and it meant so much to me.

And as a result, my interview responses for this – which were intended to just focus on my health and wellness practice Alive & Well – now also include this budding passion project, Garden of the HeArt.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a holistic health and wellness coach, and I provide health-coaching services (one-on-one or small group), meal plans, and educational workshops to individual clients and organizations through my company Alive + Well: Nutrition for the Body, Mind, and Spirit.

How I got into this industry is a bit of a long story … but to (semi) summarize … I have always had an interest in health and wellness and spent many years reading about the ways in which nutrition can play a significant role in our physical and mental well-being. I was in my 20s when I read a book called The Maker’s Diet by Dr. Jordan Rubin (who is the founder of Garden of Life), which really opened my eyes to how food is currently manufactured (especially in America) versus how it was originally intended to be, and how food in its pure, unadulterated state has medicinal properties that can do much to help and heal us.

Several years later, when I was leaving magazine editing and writing, I knew that health and wellness was the path I wanted to pursue. I had spent many years in fitness and had a position as a Community Leader at Athleta, where I learned through planning events and community engagement about the vast world of health and wellness. Someone who taught a class for us was a certified wellness coach, which I didn’t even know existed, and when I learned more about what she did and how she helped people, I knew I wanted to help people in this way too.

I chose the International Association of Wellness Professionals for my training, as I wanted to take a 360-approach to health and consider all the aspects that contribute to well-being. In the middle of the certification I went through probably one of the hardest seasons of my life personally, and through my faith, love and support from family, and learning the power of coming into agreement with the truth of what God says – and the neuroscience of retraining your brain toward healthy, life-affirming thoughts — I came out the other side stronger. I knew at that point I wanted my practice Alive + Well to go beyond healthy eating so I could help people not only with nutrition for their body but also for their minds and spirits.

To answer your question about the problems I solve for clients, I think the main one is that I am am an encourager, supporter, and an empathetic listener. We are taught in our training to “be the guide, not the guru.” People have an inner wisdom and that if you can help clear the clutter and confusion by asking the right questions, they will come to the conclusions themselves. And that is how sustainable change happens: not by someone telling you what to do or making you feel guilty about the way you eat or whether or not your exercising or asking you to do some drastic diet but by slowly adding in things that are good for you and noticing how that improves your skin, sleep, energy levels, etc. so that you will actually want to continue.

Another one of my strengths I think as a coach is helping people find joy in developing a healthy lifestyle, especially healthy eating. I have spent so many years (and I have a huge hand-written recipe book to prove it!) culling recipes from multiple sources, testing them out, editing them, replacing ingredients, inventing new ideas in the kitchen to find food that not only fuels a healthy lifestyle but that also actually tastes good so you will not dread eating it! On top of that, I make it simple and fun. My meal plans have turned out to be my most popular offering — which I wasn’t expecting, but it shows how much people need help streamlining and organizing healthy eating for themselves and their families. And it makes me so happy to know lending a hand with that.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

Well, honestly, I think at this point (which is mid-life) I can look back at the different professions I have had so far (first advertising/media planning, then editorial and writing for art magazines, then health and wellness, and an artist) and see that I do think things all eventually work out and you do sort of end up using all of the experience and skill sets in some capacity. But hindsight is 20/20. While I was an editor at an artist magazine for eight years in New York City, I thought I was living the dream. And I basically was, but I wonder if I should have gotten out of that sooner since the writing was on the wall (no pun intended) that print magazines and publishing were declining. Then I was a freelance writer, editor, and project manager for many years and initially thought I was finally going to have the flexibility and freedom from corporate restraints that I longed for, but there was a price to pay for that financially.

I have nine nieces and nephews and the older three are college and post-college age, and I really do try to think this through before I offer any advice on this topic because professional “success” really is different for each person. Even the definition of success varies by person. But I think the point is there are no mistakes. There are just detours, U-turns, and pivots, and as long as you keep moving and learning and growing, there are no dead ends. And even at your lowest points and places of your path you will look back and see that you actually did learn something … either what you want to do more of or what you want to do less of.

All I know is that at this stage of my life I want to do something that is in service to others and that brings some light, joy, and peace to people’s lives. I hope that Alive & Well and Garden of the HeArt do that.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have built resilience through the years just by having to get back up when I fall down. Which has happened several times! Whether that was a job loss or just feeling like I had gotten off-track or something else. Sometimes it’s hard to quiet all the voices of what society expects or what the traditional rules are and try to find your purpose and path. And then of course there’s the financial aspect, which you cannot ignore. You need to find a way to make money from what you do, and that is unfortunately something I did not have a natural inclination toward. But lately, especially at my current job where I seeing all these amazing entrepreneurial women and the what they have accomplished and how hard they work at it, I understand what it takes to and the hustle involved. And I am learning from that.

Resilience is one of my favorite words, and I also equate it with perseverance. There are so many times in life, professional or personally, where any one of us could throw in the towel. But what I’ve learned is that there is always a new beginning on the other side of an ending or low point as long as we keep going. Resilience happens when you have to push back against a strong force against you. It happens in the gym, that’s how we build our muscles and get strong. I no longer see challenges or adversity as something to cave under, but something to push back against … it’s an opportunity for growth!

Also, I would like to take this moment to give my parents a shout-out. When I needed to make a career change twice in my life, they were there to support me. I remember a specific conversation with my Dad sitting across from me at my kitchen table discussing going in this direction of health and wellness coaching and he encouraged me to try it and that he knew I would be very good at it. My mother has done this as well, especially when I was leaving advertising to try to get into editorial.

That kind of support — like Kathy gave me this week and that my parents gave me at key times — really makes a difference in someone’s life when they are trying to do something outside of the box or strike out in a new direction. If you don’t have that support, I would encourage you to be that for yourself until you have it. Think of how far you’ve come, how many skill sets you’ve acquired, how many challenges you’ve already overcome, and how the business you are starting or the services you offer can change someone’s day for the better. Quiet the numerous voices and expectations and tune in to what God has for you and what you believe is right. And if it’s wrong … that’s OK. You can always make a U-turn!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wellness360coach.com/allison-malafronte/
• Instagram: @gardenofthehe_art
• Other: Sign up here for Alive + Well’s monthly e-newsletter to receive free resources, recipes, offers, and more:https://mailchi.mp/1a1a7b6197d1/aw-e-newsletter-landing-page

Image Credits

Kathy Thomas Photography