We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Clarissa Thomas a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Clarissa, thanks for joining us today. So, what do you think about family businesses? Would you want your children or other family members to one day join your business?

Family business is…
– just that, a family endeavor – there is no separating the business from your family. We’ve learned that honesty with our little family is actually better that trying to protect our children from fear.
– all about personal growth, drive, and regulation
– all about the cup – half full, half empty
– extremes of both positives and negatives
– complicated
– where family values also become business values 0r can be the complete opposite
– where you learn boundaries
– where no one supports you until they need a job or want product for free
– a place to test your own values and creativity
– where our girls are learning to hold responsibility, be accountable, and work with others who are different (older, seasoned in work, strangers, races, genders, etc)
– is going to be as good as you make it
– where work never ends and you have to learn to celebrate mile markers before you move to the next, always have a next mile marker to move to, and intentionally take time outs – burnout is a real thing.
– an deeper rick with possibility of massive reward

Stories-
– my background with my father working for his parents and my husbands background
– watching my husband navigate his career under his parents and the complicated process of succession
– owning our own businesses and me choosing to move to working together to save our marriage
– working with my in-laws, husband, husbands extended family, my dad, my aunt, and my kids

I LOVE how you said, “shape your view” in the prompt because our views are NOT stagnant – they are created though our experiences and can be changed so it takes mental upkeep.

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

Originally, Adagio FIT was a mind + body company where Clarissa provided health coaching, personal training, and nutrition coaching to women around the world. Her work focused on hormonal harmony to achieve greater health. Then seasons changed and Clarissa needed to change too. Incoming: Build it Beautiful.

Clarissa recognized the need to partner with her husband in one main venture so that harmony in their marriage could happen and their business could grow exponentially working together. She went from building muscles to building with stone in their business, American Stone. The change wasn’t without trepidation or bumps, but she was surprised at how much she enjoyed her new work. Right away Clarissa found that she could use all the same talents of design, foresight, and teaching in her new position, and loves working with her hubby. And she’ll even break out the dance moves at work occasionally :)

She has found so many similarities in designing and building with stone as she has in how she has intentionally spent her life – Building it Beautiful. And thus, the new focus and new season came into view. She has since built the scaffolding of Build it Beautiful to share with all architects of life. And that’s YOU!!!!

And she knows it because she lives it.

Clarissa has always had an affinity for excellence and beauty. And she has been graced with the gift of designing, teaching, and coaching like no one else does. With these talents, she has taken her mess and made an applicable to all, life changing message.

Clarissa has had a life of rocks handed to her. She has carried them, destroyed with them, and built with them. She has learned that building with rocks is the most rewarding way to use the rocks we are handed.

For example, when she was ten, Clarissa developed some behavioral problems – anxiety, aggression, and anger – but had always assumed those would go away once she was an adult and matured fully. Boy was she wrong. After her third daughter was born, her symptoms were severe and she found herself furiously packing her bags to leave her family, believing with every ounce of her soul that she was the reason for all the family problems. She was broken and ached to disappear. Here anxiety was through the roof and completely debilitating mentally and emotionally.

Thankfully her husband helped her get to an amazing therapist and after years of therapy and research, she was finally given a name for her disorder – PreMenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. PMDD is an abnormal reaction to normal shifting hormones with physical and mental symptoms that are difficult to treat. If left untreated or unchecked, it could quickly be fatal.

A diagnosis label may not be great for everyone but it was everything for Clarissa. After 20 years of thinking she was hopeless, there was understanding and a place to move forward from to accept and heal. Now, having the right tools of fitness, nutrition, and mental health management are now more important than ever before. These tools help minimize, manage, and cope with her PMDD, a disorder that doesn’t have a cure yet.

Today, Clarissa’s mission is to teach others that they have the ability to create a beautiful life even when circumstances aren’t ideal. She uses her years of experience, coaching and training to educate others to take the rocks we’re handed in life – the hardships, the setbacks, the seemingly insurmountable challenges, but also the good, the pleasurable, the dreams – and transform them into something extraordinary. Something with impact.

She is fulfilled watching others build with the tools she has worked for years to find and put together in this program, Build it Beautiful. The meaning of her old business Adagio FIT is gracefully balanced, steady, and strong and that is exactly what this new focus is all about in Build it Beautiful.

Clarissa and her husband Dan are multi generational entrepreneurs. They live a life full of Glitter and sparkle with her three girls and ridiculously adorable puppy. Clarissa has owned 4 of her own businesses since she was 19 and now her and her husband run American Stone and five other businesses together. She is currently Mrs. Utah County 2024, and has been second runner up 2022, first runner up 2023, and second runner up in 2024.

She believes in choosing Christ, sparkling, and getting red marks. She currently serves with youth in her community and feels deeply of the incredible capacities, capabilities, and gifts the next generation has.

Clarissa is a certified personal trainer, sports nutrition specialist, certified virtual coach, and group fitness instructor in, WERQ, barre, TRX, and LaBlast.

Outside of health and business, Clarissa loves art and design, renovating homes, traveling, lipstick, and being poolside with her Glitter Force – in the sun with some dark chocolate and a good book.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

2020 – moving into virtual – a pivot to make that was circumstantial
2023 – closing my coaching business to partner with my husband’s business- a pivot to make that was intentional but made a whole cascade of events in a year that changed who I was and my life’s trajectory

Any advice for managing a team?

I’ve been working on a project this year in our business. We are implementing the program Systemology into our workplace to create easier training and future replication. Having systems in your business is KEY to growth…. I’ve learned that through my own personal ventures. I can talk about the stages of Systemology and how it works towards success in our business.

Second would be Words Matter. What you focus on, will come right back to you like a boomerang. How to work with your employees and teams is a shadow of things to come. It will not matter if you success or fail at projects/endeavors, if you don’t pick your words carefully and affirm others words carefully, you won’t thrive in business.

Contact Info:

• Website: american-stone.com | builditbeautiful.com
• Instagram: @americanstone | @mrs.clarissa.thomas | @build.it.beautiful
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danzeclaire/ | https://www.facebook.com/AmericanStone
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsclarissathomas
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@adagiofit?si=aLw_pV7M3pobgyQg | https://youtube.com/@americanstone2210?si=wZhNDRrMNe00iDxh