We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jodi Medell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jodi, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
The biggest risk I ever took was leaving my thriving physical therapy practice in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to move to Crested Butte, Colorado, during Covid. My son was only ten at the time, and online schooling was draining the life out of him. Crested Butte had always been our place of joy — a mountain town where we’d ski, bike, and reconnect with nature — and their schools remained open. It felt like the right move for both of us.
I assumed I could simply rebuild my successful practice there and that everything would fall into place. The opposite happened. My business never gained traction, and after two and a half years, I made the difficult decision to return to Santa Fe and start over. Crested Butte, for all its beauty, is a tight-knit community that doesn’t easily welcome newcomers. Despite feeling at home there for years, we were still outsiders.
Yet, the move turned out to be one of the most transformative experiences of my life. Those years in Crested Butte became my dark night of the soul — a time of deep reflection, surrender, and personal awakening. I also got to be fully present for my son during the formative ages of 10 to 13. We spent our days skiing, mountain biking, dirt biking, hiking, and simply being in nature together. I never would have chosen to slow down and be that present if life hadn’t forced me to.
That chapter taught me that sometimes the greatest gifts come wrapped in loss. The years I spent with my son in Crested Butte are priceless to me. Today, he’s a confident, grounded teenager who lives authentically and finds joy in life — and I know that our time there helped shape both of us in ways success never could.
Jodi, 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?
My name is Jodi Medell, and at my core, I’m an entrepreneur and healer. I hold a Doctorate in Physical Therapy — the foundation of my skill set — though I’ve adapted it over the years to align with my deeper beliefs about true healing.
In my early 30s, I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, leaving behind a PhD program at the University of Michigan to simply work as a physical therapist. But it didn’t take long to realize that the traditional model of therapy I was practicing didn’t align with my values. One morning, I received a clear inner message to open a running store. Running has always been a deep passion of mine, and at the time, I was having all my gear shipped from Michigan. So, in August 2001, I opened The Running Hub — despite having no retail experience. It was a leap of faith and the first of my most cherished accomplishments.
In 2004, I sold the store to return to my true calling: helping people heal. I began working as a traveling physical therapist, later combining home health and outpatient work as a contractor. During this period, I made another life-defining choice — to become a single mom. My son was born in 2009, and that became the second of my most treasured accomplishments.
By 2015, I had begun studying osteopathy in Canada, which deepened my understanding of how the body, mind, and spirit integrate in the healing process. This new confidence led me to open my first physical therapy clinic — my third proud milestone. Over time, my curiosity about how healing truly works expanded beyond the physical body into coaching, consciousness, and personal transformation.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
For most of my life, the desire for success was my driving force. I was a high achiever from the time I was in elementary school, and that ambition carried me through my 40s and into my early 50s. Then came my dark night of the soul — a period in Crested Butte when I lost my sense of identity. No one there cared about my name, my credentials, or my accomplishments. I was simply an outsider.
That experience stripped away the layers of who I thought I was. It revealed how deeply I had been driven by my ego and how many of my choices had been rooted in needing validation and external success. Through that unraveling, I was invited — and at times forced — to release the grip my ego had on me and to open my heart to love, especially self-love.
Today, my motivation comes from a very different place. My heart is now my compass. I make choices that bring me peace, align with my truth, and allow me to fully appreciate each moment. Success, for me, is no longer measured by external markers but by the quiet, steady knowing of inner wellness and genuine self-connection.
If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?
In this lifetime, I’ve been on a mission to truly understand sovereignty — to embody my own authenticity and live from a place of heart coherence. Looking back, if I had begun my journey with the awareness that living truthfully and following my genuine passions were the keys to fulfillment, I likely would have devoted my studies to depth psychology, natural healing, and energy work from the very start.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jodimedell.com
- Instagram: jodi.medell
- Facebook: Jodi Medell
- Youtube: @JodiMedellCoach
