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

Alright, Jessica thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

My journey to entrepreneurship started in 2018. I was on my own health journey, set to lose the weight I put on after having my third child. While challenging myself to embrace healthier habits, I fell in love with fitness. I was actually good at it, and I wanted to be in a gym all the time. As much as I wish I could say this was something I loved since childhood, it was never something I was interested in. I was not an athlete and did not really play sports growing up. After a year of working out and caring for my health, I remember feeling this overwhelming pull to pursue fitness professionally. I started to give in to my curiosity and look up schools and certifications. I was excited but TERRIFIED. I struggled to trust myself for a long time, especially regarding big decisions.

My struggle was that my past would scream at me, reminding me of my hard times anytime I thought about my future. Doubt would set in, and my mind would race, “How could I, a mother at 17 years old, divorced before I was 21, turned into a single mother of two, struggling, and broke even consider owning my own business?” I felt like all I ever was good at was messing up. Although I graduated high school as a new mom, I was an average student and went on to suck at college. In fact, I only made it a part of the year. I worked hard and worked several jobs, but nothing even close to what I was thinking about now.

Looking back, it is so interesting that when I considered starting my own business, I was in a much better place in all the areas I had previously struggled in. Financially, mentally, relationally, and existentially better – yet what held me back was fear of making mistakes the same way I did almost 10 years prior. Hitting the “submit” button on my school enrollment was the scariest thing I had ever done, but I knew I could not allow fear to hold me back. I was not who I used to be.

Fast forward, I obtained my certification in personal training through the International Sports Sciences Association in 2019 and started starting my own business in 2020. Again fear tried to settle in as I was working full-time, taking care of my family, tending to regular household responsibilities, coaching in a local gym part-time, and now trying to start a small business. Even though I was now qualified – my fear would tell me I would fail.

I started Wrk Inside Out in May 2020 but held on to my other full and part-time jobs. I juggled these things for 2 years. In the spring of 2021, I was having lunch with a friend and telling her how I wanted to run my business full-time, but I was waiting on a full client roster of 30 people. She knew my hard work and recognized that I was running on fumes. I was taking client calls between daily living, working my weekends away, and busy all of the time. It was getting harder and harder to keep up.

I told her that I trusted God no matter what and that I would quit my other jobs once I hit my 30 clients. She looked at me with a genuine smile and said, “What if God asks you to trust him before you hit your 30? Maybe he is asking you to trust him without having that cushion.”
I was unsure what to say, but I knew she was right. Was I really trusting God if I needed to see the unknown before I made a move? That is not really how God works.

Everything told me to take the leap, but I was so scared. I sat in my car one day and let out a child-like cry, “I’m scared.” I allowed myself to feel everything I needed to and then set out to establish Wrk Inside Out fully with the help of my local Small Business Development Center. I turned in my notice in November of 2021 and took the leap of faith to embrace entrepreneurship full-time in January 2022.

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

I am a wife and a mother of 3, the oldest of all my siblings, an active community member, and a lover of all people. All of the roles and responsibilities that I have in my life contributed to what I do for a living. I quickly understood I needed to be the best me to care for my family, extended family, and community members.

Wrk Inside Out LLC is a fitness and nutrition business offering in-person and online personal training, fitness classes, nutrition coaching, and one-on-one exercise therapy sessions for anyone recovering from an injury, chronic pain, or functional limitation. My area of focus for most of my clients starts with a delicate disruption of what they consider a healthy/unhealthy habit. I once heard it put like this – As a coach, it is my job to be a tour guide to a place they already know. We address previous patterns that are either helping or hurting them in physical, mental, emotional, relational, and existential health.

The thing that I am most proud of when it comes to the clients I have has to be their desire to change things – not for themselves, but for their families and loved ones. They are looking at the overflow of what their health means for everyone else. My clients have overcome addictions, gotten off of anxiety medications that they were taking for 15+ years, kept pushing regardless of the struggles of life, and some who started with pain are getting closer and closer to training and living PAIN-FREE.

I want people to know that choosing to be a part of Wrk Inside Out means their life will never be the same. We transform from the inside out while having fun and not conforming to the world’s standard of health.
We build each other up while holding one another accountable in pursuing excellence in all things, not just for ourselves but for everyone counting on us and future generations.

Everyone has a divine purpose, and mine is to help people live out theirs.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn was that my fight could not be against diet trends and supplement companies like every other person on Instagram. Instead, I had to shift my focus and concentrate on what was good. I did not want to be another voice, and I wanted to make a difference. During my time in school and as a business owner, everything I thought I knew about health and wellness was shifted.

Health has been overcomplicated, and people in the industry are making money from the ignorance of those looking to get healthier. The fact is, you can find just about anything to agree with you online. You will find an article for and against every food group, supplement, and diet. For a long time, I felt like I was fighting an uphill battle against all diet trends and supplement companies promoting quick fixes. Rather than calling out what was wrong, I started focusing on what was good. I put all of my attention on what would have a long-lasting impact on health.

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

Resilience is defined as the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused, especially by compressive stress. My personal resilience story is one reason why I am so passionate about helping others today. When I was about a year into my health journey, I decided to hire a coach. We only worked together for about four months, and within that time, he managed to run my metabolism into the ground.

I ate less than 1200 calories daily and weight trained for 6-7+ hours with an added 360 minutes of cardio per week. I was not losing weight, I was not putting on muscle, my hair and skin looked terrible, I was exhausted, and my libido was low, amongst many other issues. I was the smallest I had ever been, and I still felt as though I was not good enough because my “coach” continued to reduce my calories.

What’s worse is that as I tried to tell him how I felt, I brought my overtraining and low food intake to his attention, and instead of listening or talking me through his plan, he went off. He claimed I was not following his instructions correctly and decided he no longer wanted to work with me. Not only was I hurt by his poor coaching style, but I was left to figure it all out on my own.

It took over a year for my body to heal from the overtraining and extreme restriction. I got myself back to a healthy weight, stronger, and healed my relationship with food. It took a while, and there was a lot of unlearning that I had to do. However, I learned so much from the experience. Not only for myself but for everyone I would work with after that.

Contact Info:

• Website: wrkinsideout.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wrk_insideout/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WrkInsideOut
• Linkedin: Jess Fester

Image Credits
Cozy B Photography