We were lucky to catch up with Brittany Just recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Brittany thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

This subject is something I express passionately and is something that’s close to home since my husband and I had chose to homeschool, or more so unschool our twins rather than put them in a public school. We believed if we could expose them to as many things as possible as early as possible, they’d be able to pursue their passions provided the right resources. Ultimately, our hope is that they live a more fulfilling life and career because they were given ample time to discover what they love and are most talented in rather than being taught the same thing every other child is in school. and come graduation they feel a lack of self-discovery. Not allowing them enough freedom to explore and even play more as an elementary age child and through high school puts pressure on them to pick unfulfilling careers that are widely accepted by society. What I would change about the educational system is a focus more on self-directed learning rather than having a set curriculum. I understand that it would require a lot more trust in our students, and a lot more individualized attention for our teachers. I also understand that measuring their progress would be much more difficult, but if we chose to focus less on meeting standards and inundating our kids with information, and more on a child’s genuine interests and innate abilities, even if it’s outside the box, we would foster a love of learning. When a person has a love for learning, the possibilities are endless, especially today with all the information at our fingertips.

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

My name is Brittany Just. I grew up in Strongsville, Ohio but have been in the Tampa area since 2016 with my husband Travis, and our twin 11 year olds, Arisa and Ren Just. My childhood was centered around sports or just being active whether I was playing soccer, softball, gymnastics, doing triathlons, skiing and snowboarding in the winter, and swimming in the summer. Now, at 38 years old, I am an online fitness and posing coach with WBFF Entertainment, helping women shape their dream bodies through customized diet and exercise programs, and posing sessions, as well as the cofounder of Rockbody Retreats, where we host epic getaways for fitness enthusiasts that want to get around other like-minded individuals and couples for some fun, fitness, relaxation, and community.

I graduated from Ohio state University in 2006 with a degree in Education, however I chose to explore a career in network marketing. It appealed to me because there was no ceiling and passive residual income was possible and that would allow me to continue to travel just like I had growing up any chance my family had during our spring, summer, or winter breaks. I valued my time over money and growing up surrounded by teachers like both my parents and all their friends, I assumed you had to choose a career that was on the lower end of income potential but gave you more time to be with your family, or choose a career that had high income potential in the corporate world, but you worked much longer hours. It wasn’t until I met my husband, who being 9 years older than me, had already discovered ways to have both time and money. We’ve been married now for 13 years and throughout our entire marriage, we’ve been working together to be financially stable while creating as many memories together as a family. The most valuable thing we’ve grown together is our network. Our network consists of people all over the world with different cultural upbringings yet with the same growth mindset, wanting to be independent and build a legacy for their family and future generations but also value time freedom the most and aren’t afraid to get uncomfortable in order to not fall into a life of complacency. Travis and I are so grateful for the network we have built. We support them in their endeavors and they support us in ours. Its been the biggest contributor to our success in our businesses.

Out of all the things my husband and I have done together, my personal identity falls somewhere in the relatively small, but every changing industry of fitness and wellness. It started in 2013, when I had decided to get my body back after giving birth to my twins a year and a half earlier. I found a coach to help me with my nutrition and workouts and she persuaded me to register for a fitness show as a goal to really hold me accountable. I had always made exercising a part of my day even in college after I had stopped playing sports. I had never prioritized lifting weights however until I started prepping for the competition. April of 2014 was my first competition where I stepped on stage at the WBFF (World Beauty Fitness Fashion) Fitness Atlantic show in Rhode Island. I was hooked. 8 years and 9 shows later, I am now WBFF Miss Diva Fitness International earning my crown in the Bahamas in May of 2021. I have had the freedom to create my own path that involves not only keeping my health a priority and leading by example, but helping others become healthier, find balance, become more confident and happy in their body, and feel glamorous now and again especially for the moms out there that need to feel that more often. What I had come to realize quickly was how many women out there have the desire to be healthier and more confident but have no idea where or how to start, especially with all the misinformation out there as well as the preexisting beliefs we all grew up with around food. Many of these women are not ready to make the stage their first goal but want to have a big enough goal to keep them focused and accountable. Giving my clients a goal is also important for me as their coach because it allows me to push them when they need it or give them a boost understanding what they are working towards. That is why we started Rockbody Retreats. Other than a fitness competition or a photoshoot, there’s nothing more motivating to get in shape than a vacation near a beach where you rock your body in a swimsuit all day! We set dates for a retreat and then we host an online fitness challenge for everyone that’s booked the retreat for 60-90 days leading up to it. It’s such a great opportunity for everyone to not only get focused on their fitness and physique goals as well as meeting each other prior to the trip. It’s really nice to see everyone meet each other in person after they’ve been supporting each other throughout the challenge. It’s been also so fulfilling to see the relationships that blossom during the retreat and how they continue well beyond. We welcome everyone regardless of size, shape, race, religion, or fitness level. We share many experiences together on the trip including workouts, meals, pool time, excursions, story sharing, and personal time with featured guests that are always industry experts, not just in fitness. Everyone leaves feeling not only reenergized but more connected and grateful for the friendships and memories they just made and inspired to either start a new journey or continue fostering their current one. We like to say these retreats aren’t just a trip, they are a journey. It starts long before the retreat, and continues long after. We’ve been blessed to meet so many amazing people, all with incredible stories of trials and success. They are all so resilient and their strength comes from the inside but our goal is to let it shine from the outside.

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

I look back on my career journey and it has been intertwined with my marriage and raising our twins. Early on in our marriage and right after giving birth to our twins, my husband and I had hit rock bottom financially. It was in 2011 during the Great Recession when the housing market crashed. We had just purchased our 5,000 sq foot dream home with 8 acres of land in the country a few years earlier but hadn’t planned for our income to fall backwards. We had all our eggs in one basket, trying to grow a nutritional supplement business with loyal customers and reoccuring orders. However, supplements were not a necessity when people had to pay their bills and feed their kids and our customer retention dropped significantly leading to a massive drop in our income we relied on to cover our bills every month. We filed bankruptcy and had our cars repossessed. Our parents helped us buy diapers and formula as we tried to revive a failing business. We eventually decided to start over in a new industry of travel. We worked hard day and night through many seasons to grow our network and sell vacation club memberships for a company called World Ventures and several years between 2012 and 2019 turned out to be the most rewarding, fulfilling, purposeful, and adventurous years of our marriage. However, everything came crashing down again at the end of 2019 when our company stopped paying us and filed bankruptcy. We held on for a long time trying to bring it back to life but it was too far in the hole. At this particular time we had been traveling the country full time in our rv. It was something we had always had on our bucket list as a family and unfortunately chose to do it right before our livelihood fell apart. At the same time, Covid hit and everything coming to a head forced us to make our way back to Florida and recreate ourselves once again. Having multiple streams of income was our biggest priority, however we are too unemployable so getting a job was not an option. Travis and I have always been solution finders and have proven to ourselves over and over we can make anything work that we put our mind and energy into. So we decided to list our class A rv on rvshare.com and start making money renting it out to families wanting to get out and take a vacation without leaving the country since Covid didn’t allow it. It became so lucrative, our one RV turned into 4 so far in just two years and yielded a multiple six figure income for us. Working with my husband on all our different projects has been challenging but very exciting for us. We love to mastermind together thinking up new ideas and figuring out how to execute it. It’s important to know our roles and what our strengths and weaknesses are. Being in alignment with our goals and dreams has kept us hopeful and motivated to keep fighting for our time and financial freedom!!

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

My husband and I have relied heavily on referrals for the growth of our businesses and therefore, we understood how important it was to have our core values in place such as good communication and transparency, managing and exceeding expectations, respect, and leading by example. We love to create space for people to be able to share about themselves, their struggles, their pain, their successes, their passion, and their purpose. We also love to create opportunities for people, whether it’s something that Travis and I can personally give or a connection made between the attendees on our retreat led to a new opportunity or collaboration. We believe our Rockbody Retreats have been just the perfect environment to allow for both. In fact, a collaboration was born after our second retreat when we met with a very reputable power fitness couple out of Kansas City that led to our retreats doubling in size. Micah and Diana LaCerte have made a name for themselves in every area they put energy into. They are most well known for their transformation gyms and online programs called HitchFit, ranked top 10 in the World for online personal training programs. We had 24 rooms sold for our third retreat in May of 2022 at the Marival Distinct Luxury Resort in Nuevo Vallarta with Micah and Diana helping us promote it and lead it. Now we are gearing up for our fourth retreat in March of 2023 at The Fives Oceanfront in Puerto Morelos and we doubled our growth again, selling out in just two months at 50 rooms, many of them filled by individuals and couples that attended our previous retreats. We have added some more faces to our leadership crew with power couple and owners of Icon Meals, Todd and Deborah Abrams out of Dallas, TX as well as Magnum Neutraceuticals Owner Markus Kaulius out of Vancouver, BC. We have Rockbody Adventure trips, Rockbody Extreme, and Rockbody Exotic trips we will be putting together in the near future! So the most effective strategy in growing our clientele has come from collaborations and maintaining our integrity by adhering to our core values.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rockbody.live
• Instagram: @rockbodyretreats @brittjust_wbffpro @teamrockbody
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/Brittjust
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChHUK985nkqRnpP2cTrISwg

Image Credits
Bustraan Studios