Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jessie Wallace. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jessie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?
I often answer this question in my head. I always tell myself to write it down whenever another thing they did right pops into my head, but rarely do. Maybe I should start.
Either way, I’ll do my best to narrow it down to three of the most important things my parents taught me that I felt was “right”:
1. Every action has has a consequence.
2. Effort matters in the long run.
3. It is okay to change your mind and redirect.
1. Every action has a consequence.
If I did poorly on a test growing up, it’s because I didn’t apply myself and study enough.
If I woke up late, it’s because I failed to set my alarm.
If I accidentally totaled my car because I was recording my sister singing every word to “Gold Digger” by Kanye West and hit the gas pedal instead of the brakes, it’s because I was being negligent.
On the flip side,
If I won a district title in basketball, it’s because I showed up every day and practiced.
If I landed a dream internship in college, it’s because I attended job fairs, networked with whoever I could, and followed up on every message I ever sent out so no one would forget my name.
If I bought a house by the beach by the time I turned 27, it’s because I decided early on that I would play the long game and stay disciplined in how I saved my money.
My parents taught me to always be proactive so I don’t have to be reactive. If I get ahead of the little things now, I have less to stress about in the future. If I learned my lesson early in life, I got to worry less about tripping myself up later.
2. Effort matters in the long run.
“The only thing you can control in this life is your own effort.” -Mark Cuban said that once somewhere, but Mark and Alison Wallace preached it to their children every day growing up until they were blue in the face.
It applied to everything too.
My two siblings and I were never held to the standard of having to be the best at anything.
We were held to the standard of putting forth our best effort in everything—the classroom, field, court, in our friendships, relationships, internships, jobs. Any LACK of effort was obvious to our parents and was dealt with accordingly. So again, we learned our lesson early on. Show up. Put your best foot forward. Control what you can control. Rinse and repeat.
3. It is okay to change your mind and redirect.
This one has changed its meaning to me over the years, so I’ll try to keep my adoration for this notion concise.
Pride ruins a lot of people.
It can be the difference between staying in a relationship that isn’t meant for you and leaving to find happiness.
It can be the difference between staying at a job that undervalues you and finding one that sees your worth.
It can be what prevents friendships from evolving.
It can be the reason you don’t reach your full potential.
Far too often we let the fear of the unknown or fear of judgment stop us from making decisions that are potentially or inherently good for us.
From an early age, my parents taught me that it’s okay to change my mind, and if I did (which I did, a lot) they’d hear me out and support me however they could going forward. Some of those switches were hard.
It was hard giving up a full basketball scholarship to pursue less money at a school that I knew was better for me.
Thankfully it worked out. And is to this day, the best decision I ever made for myself.
It took years to convince my parents I was meant to live in Southern California. They were vehemently against it for the longest time then finally gave in when I was 23. They helped me pack my entire life up and drive my dreamin’ ass all the way there, only to be ready with open arms on our doorstep in Pennsylvania when I changed my mind a year later and drove home. Southern California wasn’t for me. Thankfully, it worked out.
It was hard to tell my parents I’d be giving up a full-time salary + benefits training job at that startup because I thought I was ready to go out on my own. They both looked me sideways but I think at that point new I had something figured out. Im lucky to say, it worked out.
I had to at least offer them an explanation and rough draft of a plan any time I DID change my mind. But good grief, if they hadn’t given me the space to swallow my pride without judgment, I might very well be…not here. And if I wasn’t here, I don’t know if I’d feel as fulfilled in my life. For that, I owe my parents everything.
To say these 3 lessons apply directly to entrepreneurship is an understatement.
Every move I make while trying to expand my reach online has a consequence. The more efficiently I can communicate, and the more consistently I can share my message, the better.
Effort matters. I don’t pressure myself to have the most lucrative and booming wellness app on the market…although that’d be pretty cool one day. What I KNOW I can control is my attention to detail, support for my clients, and making sure they can trust our platform to deliver science-based information that helps them lead a healthy, sustainable lifestyle.
Entrepreneurship is all about decision-making on the go. Some decisions stick right away, and others have to be experimented with before expanding on or throwing out. Ether way, growing a business is a never-ending series of trial and error. It’s imperative to find balance between flaunting your natural born swagger to build a charismatic brand, and checking your ego at the door to make sure it works.
See?! It all connects! It’s almost like my parents knew what they were talking about all along.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Picture this: A successful tri-sport athlete turned-division-1 recruit with a crippling eating disorder.
Hi, my name is Jessie Wallace.
And I’ve spent my entire life learning how to find a balance between exercise and food that allows me to feel, move, and look my best.
I was a successful multi-sport athlete my entire life. I mostly excelled on the volleyball and basketball courts, and in the shotput and discus circles in track & field, so much so I was fortunate to receive scholarship offers to multiple colleges for all three sports.
In addition to my lifelong athletic pursuits, I struggled with a crippling eating disorder for about 10 years— between the ages of 10 and 20 to be exact. Imagine the turmoil a teenage brain must go through to have such high highs in competition and such low lows behind closed doors. It was a conundrum I wasn’t sure I’d ever break free from.
Then, during my junior year of college, I read a book by Robin Roberts (a personal idol of mine) called “Everybody’s Got Something”, with an underlying lesson of “Make your mess your message.”
Since then, that’s exactly what I’ve tried to do as a coach.
Despite having felt very alone in my struggles with food, I knew I wasn’t the only one. I spent enough time on social media and rummaging through every stupid Google article pertinent to “getting skinny”, “losing weight”, “being healthy” to know that.
Exercise, training, and competition were actually what made me feel more in control than anything during those confusing adolescent years. But I recalled only loving and trusting a few coaches in all my years and seasons of sport.
My “mess”: a volatile relationship with food, and a growing mistrust for people who are supposed to lead, supposed to speak truth and support their followers (or in my case, athletes).
Noting my passions for exercise, healthy eating, and understanding my grievances with both, my mother suggested I try personal training “on the side” until I find a “big girl job” I like more once I graduated college. Little did she know that suggestion would lead to the birth of Outlive Health & Wellness, a business venture that would begin 7 years later and make a sizable profit in its first year.
My “message”: I get it. I’ve been in the deepest of holes with my relationship with food. I’ve worked my body to complete failure on more than one occasion. I’ve also experienced the greatest of victories both in competition, building a healthy body through exercise, and overcoming my disordered eating past. Now, I want to help any and everyone find their way. The health and fitness space is cluttered with inconsistent information, fad diets and quick fixes. Unfortunately, finding your way won’t be quick, but it can be simple.
My goal with Outlive is to create a network of trustworthy health professionals across ALL scopes—Personal Training, Dietetics, Physical Therapy, Pediatric Sleep Consulting, Endocrinology, Wholistic Health Practices and more— to bring you unbiased, science-based information about your health that you can use to make better decisions for YOUR body.
We’re not here to tell you what to do. We’re here to teach you what you need to know so you can make an informed decision about how to live your life in the healthiest ways possible.
Our team strives to take the guesswork out of health-conscious living and give you the resources and confidence you need to feel strong, move without pain, and look the way you’ve always wanted to look.
It is possible to find that balance, and insight from an unbiased and reliable outlet can help bring that possibility to life. Outlive Health & Wellness is that outlet.
Have you ever had to pivot?
The chain of events that lead me to answer interview questions like this is a culmination of pivotal moves and decisions made in the last 5 years.
Let’s start with COVID. I had been dabbling in online training leading up to March 2020, but never went all-in because I had been working 50+ hour weeks at a personal training facility in Pittsburgh, PA. I also held three other part-time corporate jobs at the time simply because I wanted to make as much money as I could, pay my bills, enjoy my life, and save a little along the way. I decided that if I was meant to grow in the online space, the opportunity would present itself organically.
When COVID hit and every gym in America was shutdown, the facility I worked at decided to invest in their own custom coaching app to serve its clients. I offered—and graciously accepted the role—to manage the app’s growth, programming database, and clients. Pivot #1.
As unfortunate as COVID was, it was the perfect time to jumpstart an online training career. With my new responsibility as head online trainer, and my three newly-remote corporate jobs, I decided to chase a lifelong dream and move to San Diego, California. Everything I did was online at the time, so I figured “why not?” Pivot #2.
During the year I spent in San Diego, I continued my work with SHAPE Coach and began offering personal training sessions on Zoom. I learned how much potential growth the online space offered, but desperately missed the human interaction that came from working with people in person. Then came Pivot #3.
I quit my other part-time gigs and went back to the drawing board on where I had to go to make this hybrid training lifestyle work. San Diego didn’t offer much in the way of 1:1 studios, so I looked for openings in other states; I was willing to move back across the country if it meant satiating my desire to train physically and virtually.
Side note: My parents had given me until my 26th birthday to “figure it out” before losing their minds over their daughter not having a salaried job with benefits (you know how boomers can be). So I was on the clock through all of this decision-making, job-hopping and cross-country moving.
In one last effort to make training my full-time career, I applied for a 3-month unpaid internship at one of the country’s leading sports performance facilities, Cressey Sports Performance, down in South Florida. I knew I’d make SOME kind of connection there that would lead me to whatever was to come next in my life. I had no home to live in, no direction beyond those 3 months; I just knew that I wanted to train people at a gym and as many people as I could online. I’d act accordingly until I could make that my reality.
Luckily, during my time at CSP I made connections for both a great personal training studio in Palm Beach, FL—1Fitness—and an online personal training startup that I’d end up working for the next 2 years.
Working remotely for that startup confirmed two things for me:
1. The corporate life is not for me.
2. I can do this on my own.
I just needed to bide my time and LEARN how to sustainably run an online platform before branching off and doing it on my own, LEARN how to oversee 100+ clients and manage their fitness hopes and dreams responsibly, and decide what more I could offer to people who want to improve their lives through healthy decision making.
Once I felt that I had adequate experience, I decided to venture out on my own (at least that’s what they told me to say when they fired me for failing to hit a mindless corporate metric) and create The App Outlive: A virtual health platform equipped with custom personal training and dietetic services from the most qualified and passionate professionals you’ll meet.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I grew up believing the notion that to be successful, you are to go to college, get a degree pertinent to a field you want a job in, find a job you like—one the pays well and offers good benefits, of course—work for 8 hours a day, put money aside for taxes and retirement, and then hope to God you hit 65 and get to leave it all behind.
I remember being a sophomore in college and telling my best friend that I’d “rather scrape a cheese grater across my forehead than spend my life working in an office,” so I don’t think that lifestyle has ever really sat well with me, but it was all I knew. For a long time, I felt aimless and guilty for not thinking the way I was taught to think, like I was actively taking steps backward in life for not following this arbitrary expectation.
There I was. Fresh out of college working 5 jobs and trying to become a full-time personal trainer: a field with very little projected growth. Less than 50% of trainers worldwide are considered to be making a “full-time living”. My parents were skeptical but believed in me enough to let me dream. Plus, I was good at coaching. From the start, I had a knack for teaching people how to weave exercise into their lives to make them feel, move, and look better. In efforts to lead a life with more personal meaning, had to let go of the traditional timeline and “path to success”.
Doing so has opened an entirely new world of possibilities for me.
I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world to be in the position I am in today. I am in control of my income, benefits, schedule, workflow, expenses, investments, goals, everything.
I GET to train everyday moms, dads, kids, professionals, athletes, and seniors online and in a gym.
I GET to have my own branded virtual health platform.
If I don’t like the way something is going, I get to change it. If I love an idea, I get to expand on it.
There’s no red tape except for my own nerves, but it’s rare I ever let those win.
Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was inevitable, but I know I am exactly where I’m meant to be, and doing what I’m meant to be doing. I attribute that freedom to following my gut and always putting forth my best effort, even if it’s not the message society fed me growing up.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: j.wellness
Image Credits
Will Fritz, Jia Wang