We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jessica Hagestedt a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jessica, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share a story with us from back when you were an intern or apprentice? Maybe it’s a story that illustrates an important lesson you learned or maybe it’s a just a story that makes you laugh (or cry)?
“I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.”
This phrase seemed to be more common, yet was less acceptable in my youth, than knowing exactly ones trajectory in life.
Yet, maybe a better way of explaining it for me was: I could not see what my calling was through the lens of my youth.
My entire life I had been immersed in sports. From ballet and jazz, to soccer and field hockey, I never had an off season and I thrived in an environment of constantly pushing myself, shifting my approach and working with others.
In college, I gravitated towards, what I refer to as, the “ology’s”: psychology, anatomy and physiology, sociology, anthropology, nutrition and toxicology. But my real focus was on my sport because I was never comfortable thinking of myself as anyone but an athlete, as that had been a given identity since I was 3 years old.
Upon graduation, I was not sure my path, so I dove into personal training as it was something that I knew I was good at and had potential to pay well (as long as you worked hard and put in long hours, which I was already accustomed to).
Although I excelled at first, I soon found myself burnt out and really struggling with what to do next.
Who am I?
What did I want to do with my life?
Who did I want to be?
Eventually, I landed on physical therapy; after all, it combined sports, the body, strengthening, healing and working with others.
It checked all the boxes for me.
So I went back to school to get, what turned out to be, an associates degree in science and in the process shadowed several physical therapists and ended up in an apprentice type job with a locally owned company.
During my shadowing, I was honestly pretty put off by what I experienced. The majority of the therapists I shadowed tended to seem a bit pompous or, at the very least not having the attributes I have experienced with the healers of my life*.
I brushed it off as being the culture in the large companies they worked for and, once I landed my apprenticeship at the small clinic, felt that conclusion justified as the atmosphere and attitudes there were more down to earth and had more of a warmth to them.
During this time however, I learned that the therapists at this clinic, although have that sense of warmth, could also be very high-handed as well and began to wonder if this common attitude had to do with the competitive nature of the process of becoming a therapist itself.
This hypothesis was confirmed for me when I was accepted into a local doctorate program and was on a tour of the school with current students and they showed an even higher air of pretense than I had experienced out in the field.
It was through this experience that I realized the question of ‘who did I want to be?’ became the pivoting point of my career and started me on the path that I am today of, not only healing myself, but helping other women heal their mind, body and spirits as well.
What I learned was that shadowing, interning and apprenticeships are not only extremely helpful to gain skills and tools for your given profession, but they can also be lessons in the leader you want to be. They can also possibly be money savers if you find that the field itself may shape you into a person that you do not desire to become.
I am now a Board Certified Holistic Health Coach, a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner and I still hold my Personal Training certification and as I continue to add to my certifications and knowledge, I walk into each situation and work with each client with the mindset of a student.
When you have an open and receptive mind, you not only open doors for others to heal, but allow the healing of any ills of your past to mend as well.
*This is from my point of view & is my personal experience, during that season of my life, with those I worked with and is in no way saying all physical therapists and/programs are like this. In fact, one of my best friends is a physical therapist. For me, at that time, I knew that had I gone into a competitive field with a tendency towards that attitude, it would have consumed me and highlighted a part of me that I felt was not conducive to a healing journey for my clients or myself.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Jessica, but through athletics, I acquired the nickname Birdie and it stuck!
Having been an athlete all my life and having struggled with eating disorders, body dysmorphia and IBS, I eventually found my path towards healing myself and a passion to help others to heal as well.
After over a decade of experience, I am now a Board Certified Holistic Health Coach, a FDN Practitioner & an ACSM Personal Trainer; in summary, I am a fitness, nutrition and healing nerd.
I guide burnt out women to heal from the inside out, be confident, listen to and trust their guts and feel like the bad asses they were born to be.
I do this through The BIRDIE Method that uses functional lab work to create a targeted and personalized approach to address the root causes of their fatigue, bloating, constipation, hormonal imbalances and more.
So many women think that they have to do it all and are living in a state of, or on their way to, burn out.
This way of life is normalized and even praised and, I am proud to say, that I am here to help shatter that norm.
Feeling exhausted, sacrificing your sleep, relaxation and self care for others, dealing with end of day bloat, constipation, gas, mood swings, feeling irritable and anxious is no way to live and may be common, but is Not normal.
I help women understand their body’s, show them through lab work that it is not just in ‘their heads’ and guide them on a path of healing the imbalanced within to help them feel complete, fearless and motived.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
In 2020, like the majority of people, I thought it was going to be a year like any other.
In fact, I thought I was going to be a very successful year for my business.
I had been working on turning my one-on-one programs to an online business so that I could create a community and serve more people at once. It was also at this time that I was looking to acquire a local bootcamp as I wanted to expand the health community within my city and share my love of movement with more people.
The last week of February, I signed the paperwork and became the new owner of Lake Oswego Bootcamp, a boutique, all women’s bootcamp.
The next week was my first week training them without their former owner present and the following week, everything shut down and I started to sweat.
When one week turned to two and was looking like it may turn to three, I really got nervous.
What was going to happen with the bootcamp?
How was I going to serve these women and keep a sense of community strong?
How long were we going to be in a lock down?
My plans of expansion of the camp and community, of possibly even having a bootcamp anymore (after all I was a new face in a tight knit, small community) were looking bleak at best.
Once it looked like this would be an extended state of being, I knew I must pivot to save the bootcamp.
Although I would have loved to take it outside, being in the Pacific Northwest during winter/early spring, it is either in the 30s and or raining, so outdoors was not an option.
Thus I turned to zoom. I had never used the platform before, but, like most things, I knew that diving in and just starting was going to be the best way to learn.
It tool a couple of months to get it down so that my camper would be able to hear me, the music and each other, but we eventually got there.
It is now 2 years later and the bootcamp is still here and we are meeting in person again (although still using safety precautions to be respectful to all members).
What this experience taught me is that having expectations going into a business venture is good, but always be OK with pivoting due to the unexpected. Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is an amazing way to help your business thrive and diving in before you are ready is one way to quickly gain knowledge and skills.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start?
This is a topic where there is a lot of contention.
I hear from a lot of sources that you should quit what you are doing to 100% invest in your business. That you can not be fully successful unless you have no ‘safety net’ to catch you if you fail.
Other sources tell you that you can use your current job to help fund your new business and that as the later grows, you can slowly let go of the former.
From my experience, I say “know thyself”.
I personally have tried both.
My initial one-on-one coaching started off with me diving right in, using the savings I had and being motivated by the need to succeed in order to survive.
Although it worked for awhile, it started to become more stressful than it was motivational.
However it did help me realize that I wanted to create online programs in order to serve more fully (and not get burnt out), and also helped me realize that I would work better with funding to help support my business as it grew.
That is when I acquired a local bootcamp and that bootcamp helped support my online business to get off the ground and still supports it during slow seasons and furthering my education.
Needless to say, think about which will motivate you long term, be it an all in approach, funding through other work, or speaking with a local bank of investor for initial funding. Either way, always create a timeline for your business and an option B because, as they say, failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.balancedbybirdie.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessica_bird_hagestedt/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfthMAAfLNfU8En3UEXVu7A/videos
Image Credits
Jordan McDonnell Rebecca Cafiero