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

Carola , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

When I was little, I always thought that I wanted to be a scientist. My head was always in the clouds, wishing I was an astronaut and explore the Moon and Mars. All of this made sense, since my dad worked at NASA and I went there many times. Come high school and college, I major in Physics with an Astronomy minor. Now, I thought this was the path I should take because I was always good at math and science. Passion was something not really discussed, especially at school. The expectation was, you graduate, go to college, major in something constructive, and get a job. Thats’s it, that’s life. So, that’s what I did.

Throughout college, I always loved doing yoga and working out. At one point, I joined the Butokukan Club at my university and thoroughly enjoyed it. I know that this is a random statement, but it will become important later. However, life happens, and after graduating from college, I go to work for one of my physics professor, who owned his own company. I quickly realized that this wasn’t what I wanted to do. I applied at a local high school to be a Physics teacher, and got the job. Now, that was the hardest year I had to deal with. High school teaching was not for me and again, I did not feel passion doing it. It honestly gave me anxiety. I quit after a year and got a job at my old university for their office supply store and tried going back to school to do a PhD in Electrical Engineering, hoping to reach my dream of a scientist, unfortunately, I realized that I wasn’t enjoying the classes. I didn’t feel passion for it.

I changed my major to a Masters of Industrial Engineering. I found the business side of engineering interesting, but still no passion. I had already taken several classes and felt that if I quit, I was a failure. I also had a little one at home and pregnant with another on the way, so I felt that I had to keep going, hoping that this degree would help me and make my life easier. Unfortunately, it didn’t. It really didn’t provide me any opportunities, and again, I didn’t feel the passion for doing it. After being a stay at home mom for a couple of years, I decided to apply again to my local university in the Nursing department. This was a new opportunity and very different from what I had done before. While I didn’t like the job itself, I quickly learned that my passion was helping people. Looking back, I think I just didn’t know how I was meant to do it. I was in that job for 7 years until my husband got a new job and we moved to Texas. Again, I was left trying to figure out what to do.

I was at home for a year and decided to get my elementary teaching certification. I’m going to be honest, the kids were still young and I needed a job that would give me the flexibility to be present for my kids. Also, the summers and holidays off helped, so the kids wouldn’t have to go to daycare. I’ve been in this position now for almost 9 years, and its served it’s purpose. Right before COVID, I had started doing yoga again after many years and it helped my anxiety tremendously. Teaching is a career that you pretty much have to dedicate your life to. This is something I wasn’t passionate in doing. I started listening to a podcast from a girl I followed on Instagram. This was the best decision I ever made! From this, my passion was born. It led me to buy my first domain, Slipstitch and Mantras. I started blogging and documenting my crochet and yoga journey. I posted pretty much every other week about either topic. I felt that I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to post about yoga, so I enrolled in a 200 hr YTT (yoga teacher training) and then jumped the chance to enroll into the 300 hr YTT from the same school. I taught a couple of virtual classes and loved it! However, I felt a little lost, I didn’t know what I could do to bring this into a business.

Fast forward a year, I kept getting advertisements for personal trainer certifications. I had considered it in the past while getting my yoga certification, but I thought it was a dumb idea. However, I had been integrating strength training into my workout routine and was loving it! Yoga and strength training had become my passion. Therefore, I decided to take a risk and get certified in something that I considered scary. Although I had done the anatomy portion of the yoga certification, getting through this portion in the personal training program was brutal. It took me pretty much the full 6 months to get certified through NASM. I was FLOORED that I passed!! As this happened, my path was slowly becoming more focused. The funny thing is that I’m not a youngun. In my mind, I kept thinking, “I’m too old, why am I deciding to do this, I should just suck it up and stay in education, even though I’m miserable.” This negative self-talk has been my road block for the past 2 years. See, I finally found my passion, in my 40’s. What I learned about myself was that I love to teach others, just not in the environment that I was at. I want to help people, especially women, to feel confident in their skin and find time for self-care.

My path has led me to mostly women clients in various points of their life. I wanted to help them further, so I enrolled in a Women’s Coaching Specialist Certification. That’s the thing, I love to learn. However, I am horrible with the business side. Last summer, I beefed up my website and this year I enrolled in an Instagram Business course, so I am slowly learning how to promote myself and nagivate the world that is social media. So here I am, in the now, taking the risk to becoming successful in my business called Grounding Fitness. Off topic, so coming up with the name was another venture! It took me forever to find a name that not only wasn’t taken, but that it also felt right. I resonate so much with this name because in order to get to where you’re meant to be, you have to ground yourself first in order to be successful. This sentiment echoes not only for my business, but also for my life and wellbeing. THIS is how I want to help women. I want to help them not only one on one, but also virtually. I feel that going the virtual route will help me reach so many more women. Currently I only have a handful of clients, but the plan is for me to leave my teaching job and train full time. So far the risk I’ve taken has slowly paid off, but not in full. There is still SO much more for me to do.

I am excited and scared at this new venture. I’m not as savvy as the younger trainers, but I know that I can be just as successful. If I can just get out of my head, I know that I can help so many. I want everyone to know that no matter how scared you are, you should never stop looking for your passion and achieving your dreams. The only one that can get in your way or stop you is yourself. You’ll never know the depth of your help on others, unless you loose your fear and try. With this, I leave you with a quote from Dalai Lama, “With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.”

Carola, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

When I was little, I always thought that I wanted to be a scientist. My head was always in the clouds, wishing I was an astronaut and explore the Moon and Mars. All of this made sense, since my dad worked at NASA and I went there many times. Come high school and college, I major in Physics with an Astronomy minor. Now, I thought this was the path I should take because I was always good at math and science. Passion was something not really discussed, especially at school. The expectation was, you graduate, go to college, major in something constructive, and get a job. Thats’s it, that’s life. So, that’s what I did.

Throughout college, I always loved doing yoga and working out. At one point, I joined the Butokukan Club at my university and thoroughly enjoyed it. I know that this is a random statement, but it will become important later. However, life happens, and after graduating from college, I go to work for one of my physics professor, who owned his own company. I quickly realized that this wasn’t what I wanted to do. I applied at a local high school to be a Physics teacher, and got the job. Now, that was the hardest year I had to deal with. High school teaching was not for me and again, I did not feel passion doing it. It honestly gave me anxiety. I quit after a year and got a job at my old university for their office supply store and tried going back to school to do a PhD in Electrical Engineering, hoping to reach my dream of a scientist, unfortunately, I realized that I wasn’t enjoying the classes. I didn’t feel passion for it.

I changed my major to a Masters of Industrial Engineering. I found the business side of engineering interesting, but still no passion. I had already taken several classes and felt that if I quit, I was a failure. I also had a little one at home and pregnant with another on the way, so I felt that I had to keep going, hoping that this degree would help me and make my life easier. Unfortunately, it didn’t. It really didn’t provide me any opportunities, and again, I didn’t feel the passion for doing it. After being a stay at home mom for a couple of years, I decided to apply again to my local university in the Nursing department. This was a new opportunity and very different from what I had done before. While I didn’t like the job itself, I quickly learned that my passion was helping people. Looking back, I think I just didn’t know how I was meant to do it. I was in that job for 7 years until my husband got a new job and we moved to Texas. Again, I was left trying to figure out what to do.

I was at home for a year and decided to get my elementary teaching certification. I’m going to be honest, the kids were still young and I needed a job that would give me the flexibility to be present for my kids. Also, the summers and holidays off helped, so the kids wouldn’t have to go to daycare. I’ve been in this position now for almost 9 years, and its served it’s purpose. Right before COVID, I had started doing yoga again after many years and it helped my anxiety tremendously. Teaching is a career that you pretty much have to dedicate your life to. This is something I wasn’t passionate in doing. I started listening to a podcast from a girl I followed on Instagram. This was the best decision I ever made! From this, my passion was born. It led me to buy my first domain, Slipstitch and Mantras. I started blogging and documenting my crochet and yoga journey. I posted pretty much every other week about either topic. I felt that I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to post about yoga, so I enrolled in a 200 hr YTT (yoga teacher training) and then jumped the chance to enroll into the 300 hr YTT from the same school. I taught a couple of virtual classes and loved it! However, I felt a little lost, I didn’t know what I could do to bring this into a business.

Fast forward a year, I kept getting advertisements for personal trainer certifications. I had considered it in the past while getting my yoga certification, but I thought it was a dumb idea. However, I had been integrating strength training into my workout routine and was loving it! Yoga and strength training had become my passion. Therefore, I decided to take a risk and get certified in something that I considered scary. Although I had done the anatomy portion of the yoga certification, getting through this portion in the personal training program was brutal. It took me pretty much the full 6 months to get certified through NASM. I was FLOORED that I passed!! As this happened, my path was slowly becoming more focused. The funny thing is that I’m not a youngun. In my mind, I kept thinking, “I’m too old, why am I deciding to do this, I should just suck it up and stay in education, even though I’m miserable.” This negative self-talk has been my road block for the past 2 years. See, I finally found my passion, in my 40’s. What I learned about myself was that I love to teach others, just not in the environment that I was at. I want to help people, especially women, to feel confident in their skin and find time for self-care.

My path has led me to mostly women clients in various points of their life. I wanted to help them further, so I enrolled in a Women’s Coaching Specialist Certification. That’s the thing, I love to learn. However, I am horrible with the business side. Last summer, I beefed up my website and this year I enrolled in an Instagram Business course, so I am slowly learning how to promote myself and nagivate the world that is social media. So here I am, in the now, taking the risk to becoming successful in my business called Grounding Fitness. Off topic, so coming up with the name was another venture! It took me forever to find a name that not only wasn’t taken, but that it also felt right. I resonate so much with this name because in order to get to where you’re meant to be, you have to ground yourself first in order to be successful. This sentiment echoes not only for my business, but also for my life and wellbeing. THIS is how I want to help women. I want to help them not only one on one, but also virtually. I feel that going the virtual route will help me reach so many more women. Currently I only have a handful of clients, but the plan is for me to leave my teaching job and train full time. So far the risk I’ve taken has slowly paid off, but not in full. There is still SO much more for me to do.

I am excited and scared at this new venture. I’m not as savvy as the younger trainers, but I know that I can be just as successful. If I can just get out of my head, I know that I can help so many. I want everyone to know that no matter how scared you are, you should never stop looking for your passion and achieving your dreams. The only one that can get in your way or stop you is yourself. You’ll never know the depth of your help on others, unless you loose your fear and try. With this, I leave you with a quote from Dalai Lama, “With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.”

Fast forward a year, I kept getting advertisements for personal trainer certifications. I had considered it in the past while getting my yoga certification, but I thought it was a dumb idea. However, I had been integrating strength training into my workout routine and was loving it! Yoga and strength training had become my passion. Therefore, I decided to take a risk and get certified in something that I considered scary. Although I had done the anatomy portion of the yoga certification, getting through this portion in the personal training program was brutal. It took me pretty much the full 6 months to get certified through NASM. I was FLOORED that I passed!! As this happened, my path was slowly becoming more focused. The funny thing is that I’m not a youngun. In my mind, I kept thinking, “I’m too old, why am I deciding to do this, I should just suck it up and stay in education, even though I’m miserable.” This negative self-talk has been my road block for the past 2 years. See, I finally found my passion, in my 40’s. What I learned about myself was that I love to teach others, just not in the environment that I was at. I want to help people, especially women, to feel confident in their skin and find time for self-care.

My path has led me to mostly women clients in various points of their life. I wanted to help them further, so I enrolled in a Women’s Coaching Specialist Certification. That’s the thing, I love to learn. However, I am horrible with the business side. Last summer, I beefed up my website and this year I enrolled in an Instagram Business course, so I am slowly learning how to promote myself and nagivate the world that is social media. So here I am, in the now, taking the risk to becoming successful in my business called Grounding Fitness. Off topic, so coming up with the name was another venture! It took me forever to find a name that not only wasn’t taken, but that it also felt right. I resonate so much with this name because in order to get to where you’re meant to be, you have to ground yourself first in order to be successful. This sentiment echoes not only for my business, but also for my life and wellbeing. THIS is how I want to help women. I want to help them not only one on one, but also virtually. I feel that going the virtual route will help me reach so many more women.

I am excited and scared at this new venture. I’m not as saavy as the younger trainers, but I know that I can be just as successful. If I can just get out of my head, I know that I can help so many. I want everyone to know that no matter how scared you are, you should never stop looking for your passion and achieving your dreams. The only one that can get in your way or stop you is yourself. You’ll never know the depth of your help on others, unless you loose your fear and try. With this, I leave you with a quote from Dalai Lama, “With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.”

Have you ever had to pivot?

Wow, I feel that pivoting has become part of my life! I started my life with wanting to be an astronomer/scientist, but then it didn’t interest me as a job anymore. I decided to work for my professor and then left that to work as a high school teacher. Hated that job and went to work for the university I graduated from. I enjoyed helping the graduate nursing students and stayed in this job for 7 years until we moved to Texas due to my husband’s job. Pivoting again in my career, I became a bilingual 4th grade teacher and am currently at this position. I again am pivoting in my career, to finally follow my passion in helping women. A little pivot also happened in my business when I thought I wanted to only be a yoga teacher and had my website “Slipstitch and Mantras”. I quickly learned that I wanted to add personal trainer to the mix, and learned to re-do my website and rename it Grounding Fitness. Although scary, pivoting has become my way of life!

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

Beyond training and knowledge, I think that the most helpful thing to help you succeed in your career is your passion. If you are doing something that you are not passionate about, you probably won’t be as successful as someone who has passion and puts their whole being into their field. Another thing too that is helpful is surrounding yourself with people that have not only similar interests, but are also looking out for you. Having support is a huge thing. There will be times that you will doubt yourself and feel down. Having this support is wonderful to pull you out of your funk so that you can dedicate your energy into your business. Finally, another thing that I’m learning more about to help me become successful is social media. I need to get out of my head and post my knowledge and promote so that my business will grow. I’m learning, and honestly, that is the BIGGEST part to succeeding.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.groundingfitness.com
• Instagram: @grounding_fitness
• Facebook: @groundingfitness
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/carola-stephens-6117203a
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@carola_stephens

Image Credits
The professional workout/yoga photos-photo cred to Rosy Zahn