We recently connected with Angela Gentile and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Angela, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

This is a great question! I truly believe that you have to train and practice to be ok with risk. So much of what we are taught makes us risk averse. We, especially as millennials, were conditioned in deference. And now, I think being able to counter those really harmful teachings and going in the most polarizing direction is key.

Risk taking starts with self awareness and self connection. When you know who you are and what you want, there really isn’t hesitation. You just go toward what serves you because being where you are, remaining in places or with people who aren’t working for you is way more of a risk to your happiness than taking a chance into the unknown.

I tend to think to myself: what if it works out rather than what if it doesn’t because no matter what, where I am in the current state, on the edge of making a change, isn’t where I want to be. So, no matter what happens, I have simply moved. And that’s always a win.

Having done this MANY times in my life, from quitting my secure teaching job, to closing down my business to choosing to couch surf, it is never easy. But with anything you practice, it doesn’t get easier, you just get more comfortable with being uncomfortable. You get more used to and comfortable in the unknown, familiarizing yourself with it, and trusting and listening to yourself.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a child-free Millennial who is living a life outside of the box and status quo! I say that very proudly and being the representation for other women who may feel trapped and confined by social norms is an honor.

I am a former public school teacher turned social disruptor, professional hype woman, entrepreneur, podcaster, speaker and badass unicorn. After my dad died suddenly, I realized I wasn’t living a life I loved and I was SO UNHAPPY. I had to let go of generational trauma, inherited limiting beliefs and my millennial deference. Grief can definitely be a wake up call, that’s for sure. It was the catalyst for me to activate my bravery.

So, I quit my job as a public school teacher and launched a successful fitness business, Sweat Remix. navigating an in person business to the online space during the pandemic was no easy task. And I rode the wave of virtual fitness, switched my entire business model which I never thought I would do. But I think that’s what being an entrepreneur is about: always pivoting, learning and growing. So, with that, I decided to take what I was doing with fitness and expand myself and the brand with a podcast, speaking events and now I help millennials move their life, shed limiting beliefs and take ACTION to bust out of the “should”, and live a life they love.

My combined practices of NLP coaching, my signature process, a global podcast, The Empowered Millennials. mixed with some badass life experience provides a space for people to be brave and confident to go after the life they really want.

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

Absolutely. There have been so many knock down drag out moments in my life, each one a lesson on self-love, resiliency and alignment. I think the one I want to share is the most recent and really something I never thought I would experience. So, last year in June of 2023, life showed up with all kinds of slaps and punches.

My fitness business was declining with memberships and I couldn’t sustain my small studio where I took clients and recorded my online classes. Plus, I think the signs to pivot were there and my heart was just not into it. So, I broke my lease and closed down Sweat Remix.

Within a week of doing this, my beloved doggo, Noel, my whole entire world, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It was the type of cancer with a life expectancy of a month if I declined treatment, which was amputation surgery and only prolonging her life about 3-6 months with the surgery.

I ended up having a tag sale, or a yard or garage sale depending on where you are from, sold ALL OF MY THINGS to help pay for my dogs surgery. I am talking all my clothes, shoes, furniture, household items, fitness equipment everything that someone would have in their life after building themselves a home and a business over the past 20 years of adulthood.

To top all that off, I was living with my family in a very toxic home. and was given two months to find a place. Can you imagine?Clearly, things reached an unhealthy level when your own family adds insult to injury. It was no longer safe to continue living there, but the timing of having to move could not have been worse.

So now here I was: grieving the loss of my business, my dog was dying, needing expensive surgeries and care, I had NOTHING, all while I had no income and needed a place to live. Sick. Life just shows up like that sometimes, ya know?

I ended up getting the surgery for my dog, went into medical debt, credit card debt and had no place of my own to live. It was from the grace of my wonderful friends who let me couch surf, stay in their extra rooms and even an airbnb apartment until I found a place to settle into, which was also a small basement apartment in my friend’s mom’s house.

I was 42 years old kicking off the new year, 2024, with a tripawd dog, $500 to my name, a few suitcases and a basement apartment.

Within only six months and the biggest hustle of my life; I worked like five jobs and had side gigs on side gigs. That was my goal for six months: get out of debt and get out of the basement. In just six months of dedicated commitment, I found an apartment and moved in to a place by myself and living alone for the first time ever, found a job in the corporate training space, using both my motivational and teaching skills, went back to teaching a few fitness classes a week and provided my dog one year of health and love before she passed away in July. And I am almost debt free. So, this has been a wild turn of events.

This was a period in my life where I didn’t think I was going to make it. Not just in the emotional sense, but the financial too. How was i going to live? It was a question I asked SO MANY TIMES.

But what I learned is that we are most powerful when we focus on a goal, one that brings up hope and joy. And when we align our actions to this goal, set the necessary boundaries to keep on the path, we are unstoppable and everything we want is possible.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn that I was a helpless and incapable. I think that deep conditioning came from a long line of victimhood, maybe out of necessity, from many women in my family. The phrase “I can’t” or “I could never” runs deep in my family vernacular.

Growing up, I was taught to be quiet and respectful. On the outside that is how it appeared and it pleased others. Internally, however, was the self-abandoning and self doubt. Being trained to deny your own needs, to give in rather than stand up can really prohibit your confidence and you end up distrusting your own intuition and ability to do anything. And that in turn can create a mentality where you are looking to be saved and rescued because you don’t believe that you can do anything on your own or even trust your own desires and vision.

Breaking that and having to rely on myself, fully, has been one of the biggest gifts throughout all this struggle. No one and nothing can ever take away my own agency.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theangelagentile.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theangelagentile/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@theangelagentile

Image Credits

hillary lynn photography