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

Laurén , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the story behind how you got your first job in field that you currently practice in.

My position in my field, “Holistic Health” as a licensed massage therapist known as “America’s Holistic Sweetheart” is a cumulative experience. It’s one that I’ve created. It’s taken me over a decade living uncomfortably, yet believing, that “there’s gotta be something more” according to that Sugarland song. Plus it’s bigger than me, it’s being brave both for myself and others. Figuring out that if anyone has got to do it, its got to be me and I must live my truth and lead by example.

The current place in the journey can be pinpointed when you look back on your life from your now; your current, orbital perspective. Connecting the dots that have lead you to here and they finally make sense. They call that wisdom, I think? However, they are much different from the way you lived them. You know, throwing handfuls of dots at the wall in the midst of chaos hoping a few would stick. Praying some would be for-filling and lucrative enough to get you to the next step or dot in this case. That’s exactly where I find myself now, but it all started as a hybrid Jersey girl, and yes quoting Bruce Springsteen “living on a prayer”.

My Italian grandmother raised me while my parents worked full time for State Government in the Garden State. Although I grew up 6miles from EWR and could see the Twin Towers in the distance from my bedroom window, we had a garden and Grandma taught me the importance of whole food nutrition ie from garden to table at a young age. She also employed many natural remedies for colds, fevers, everyday ailments, made exquisite herbal teas and even drank the discolored water she boiled vegetables in- which I thought was weird as a kid until I learned that it contained many minerals and nutrients that were extracted during the boiling process, I was always at a healthy weight until my parents changed my diet (or as I like to call it live-it because we are not It’s and don’t want to die) in my teens, coupled by puberty which made me go from a 98lb 14yr old to a 280lb 17yr old until I got it under control slimming back down to a 135lb 18 year old maintaining this weight until present (20+ years) after making it a point to understand how thoughts, emotions, foods express themselves physically in the body.

My mother who was politically appointed got me a job with State Government the day after my 18th birthday although all I ever wanted to do was pursue a career in the healing arts being inspired by my grandmother and innately creative in general. Perhaps an art therapist or gynecologist? Since art, music and yoga were tools I found to get me through my teenage years. I made myself a promise to get out of State Gov’t by the time I was 30 and pursued my first degree in Liberal Arts. However, I didn’t feel fully supported in my Liberal Arts pursuit at that young age because my parents philosophy was ‘you get a job with a steady paycheck and benefits, ride it out until you can retire in your 60’s and hopefully don’t get hit by a bus or die soon after that.’

I started to become inspired by my customer service position for the DMV (aka ‘the portal to hell’ as they accurately called in that TV series Reaper) especially the document fraud aspect. I wanted to move up the ladder as a supervisor and changed my major to Criminal Justice. I concluded the life theme of both artists and public servants was that they are all ‘humanitarians’. However looking around at my coworkers I saw that they were super stressed, miserable and just holding on for those benefits. I decided to enroll in massage school to combat my own stress and have a career change backup. At that time in NJ the duration of school was 12 months. The State approved a modified schedule for me to work the 7-4 shift opposed to the 9-6 shift for one year. Almost at the 9 month mark, the State changed the law to extend massage school to a 15 month program. Unfortunately the DMV wouldn’t approve the modified schedule for an extra 3 months so even though I completed the program, I accumulated too much tardiness to pass overall.

I did make it up the State Government ladder as the youngest in my position in the State. This included supervising up to 50 subordinate level employees at a time, responsible for their breaks, coverage, driving routes and learning all about compliance, applications, technology, data entry, punctuality, effective communication, business dealings such as opening, closing, accounting and deposits, I can only look back and say this experience was one of the major dots that conditioned me for the success I’ve reached now. Not to mention working in a cultural mecca face to face with people from all over the world and becoming inspired by their stories and experiences which cultivated a desire in me to want to travel in my youth not waiting until my 60’s! Which posed another question, how am I going to do that with limited vacation time and on my minimal salary?

My 30th birthday came quick and went. I turned down a career as a Port Authority Police Office twice- much to my parents dismay. Leading up to 30, I started volunteering at the New York Open Center, the largest Holistic urban learning center in the world which allowed me to work with and personally assist many big names including celebrities in the Holistic Health field like Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, David Wolfe, Ina May Gaskin and many more. I was published in 4 book collaboratives and two became best sellers on Amazon. As my rebellion, I Founded the 1st Holistic Chamber of Commerce in the State of NJ.

At the age of 31, I became vested in my pension and resigned in good standing from the DMV. I founded my first company, Dr Ren Recommeds, a community owned Holistic Lifestyle platform recommending Products, Places and Practitioners. I sold my Honda Pilot for 10k cash and hitchhiked and couch surfed out to Northridge, CA. There I took a couple of stipend jobs working with the Topanga Canyon’s Children’s Organic Gardens affiliated with C-SUN advocating for them to keep their Organic Certification which eventually led to myself receiving a CA State Senate Award at the Integrative Health International Conference from CA State Senator, Joel Anderson. I volunteered with the Hollywood Heart Foundation and worked with Parashakti facilitating dance workshops whom had her ‘Estactic Dance’ documentary produced by WB; which was a catalyst for traveling and emceeing concious film festivals, music festivals and health conferences around the world.

I decided to go home to NJ after this sabbatical in the Fall of 2014 and stay through the Holidays to figure out what I would do next. I also got a call out of the blue one day from a former coworker that I was featured as an Alumni in the Union County College newsletter for all the dots I was throwing at the wall, this was a catalyst for my first of four appearances on the Dr Oz show for the dollar fastest health fixes segment featuring inexpensive herbal remedies for everyday ailments. Of course the Dr Oz appearances that led to being invited to the White House for the Precision Medical Initiative where I advocated face to face with the FDA for food label transparency; which we are seeing emerge now and during this process, earned my sobriquet of “America’s Holistic Sweetheart” bestowed on me- or I like to say Jedi knighted- by the founder of the NYOC’s successor. However, in the back of my mind, I still had this yearning to complete my massage program and looked into it numerous times.

Back on the East Coast for the fall of 2014, through one of my mother’s connections, I manifested the first Holistic Lifestyle television shows on public access, an official IMdb listing that led to two ‘Higher Achievement Awards’ from the ‘American Naturopathic Medical Association’. This catalyzed my travels on a shoe string budget to almost 2 dozen countries where we showcased the origins of Holistic Health, bodywork, indigenous practices, herbal medicine and so forth to make it less apprehensive for our viewers to want to integrate an alternative approach into their wellness regime. I also learned bodywork and massage techniques they don’t teach in school directly from the source such as Thai massage in Thailand, Acupressure in China and Mayan abdominal massage in Belize just to name a few. My show aired from 2014-2018, the last episode airing right before I moved to Bainbridge Island, WA with my infant son (whom I gave birth to in a pool in my living room with a doula, midwife and placenta encapsulation specialist present) to take a 2yr luxury spa contract as an Assistant director.

When my spa contract was up, I decided to move to TN to be closer to my parents for the free babysitting and because I was getting more offers to travel . Their retirement plan from State Government paid off and TN doesn’t tax your pension! They now live on 30 acres with an annual property tax the equivalent to their quarterly electric bill in NJ. Thank goodness I chose to move when I did because 3 months later is when CoVid started to emerge putting a hault on any travel, life in Seattle hit the fan and I know I would have felt more pigeon held to get out of there. Before moving to TN, I started inquiring with various massage schools there and didn’t find one I resonated with or would fully honor my transcripts. Once in TN the therapeutic touch industry went out the window; but thankfully doing VA work through my DRR company picked up. I saw everyone was now desiring to take their heath into their own hands or finally start that business using their stipend checks that I stayed busy and provided for.

I helped care for my parents 90 year old neighbor during this time whose mind was still intact, Her story was very inspiring. She was an awarded and well known pioneer of the nudist movement. Originally a photographer from Germany, she married and immigrated to the Springfield, MA area. She got divorced in her 50’s, bought a camper and took off across country to CA, She was an original student of the Esselyn Institute (Swedish massage) and later came to work as an LMT and rep my favorite brand of massage tables. She told me she’d love to lend me her table to give her and her daughter a massage and get started, encouraging me to go back to massage school. Through many synchronicities and finally finding a school that would accept my transcripts, I did and finally completed my goal of formally finishing massage school becoming an LMT. It was a true blessing to have to go back to massage school in TN because of the professors and people I met; and some now work for me!

I decided to not want to rent an office and focus on mobile massage to save on rent, It started with friends, family and neighbors growing into the extended community. I didn’t realize at first what a hub for retirees, work from home millennials, people with second homes, and the influx of tourism this area holds. I currently employ a team of over 20 mobile contractors providing a safe, supplemental income opportunity for experienced health professionals. We specialize in the luxury mobile spa concierge spa servicing Middle, TN. I mention safe because I did derived a-lot of safety protocols and procedures as a Compliance Officer with DMV. We have a procedure in place for cold-calls opposed to by referral or venue, meaning we will work on them in one of our co-op locations instead of going to their home at first. We use a gps phone app, Life 360 so we always know where our therapists are and periodically review defense protocols, although most people under estimate that massage therapists do know where to press to paralyze you.

In a nutshell I’m grateful for my first “job” any everything I picked up along the journey that has played a role in my success today. My goals and aspirations have always been to ‘heal the world’ starting within, then family, then community, and ultimately one dot or person at a time. I’ve learned people recognize the 101, so massage as therapeutic touch or stress relief and once you gain their trust, you can go deeper down the rabbit hole and this out of all the dots thrown at the wall is what has finally and literally paid off. I do try to explain like ‘The Massage Sleuth, Ian Harvey’ in his book ‘Massage Is Weird’ where he says ‘massage is like pizza, all bread and cheese’ but essentially once you’ve had pizza out of a wood burning oven you’re probably not going to order the fast food version again or at least you’ll be able to tell the difference. He also mentions that Massage Therapists in his opinion are the epitome of a true Holistic practitioner because we work with the body, mind and spirit all at once, and what sets us apart is our ability to intuit and channel healing.

I still plan to grow my company, Mountain Mobile Massage but my big audacious goal always has been to host a day time tv talk show on Holistic subject matter or travel channel show focusing on America called ” Holistic America with Laurén Laurino”. I will be launching my podcast, Holistic Talk Radio this year as one of the dots in that process and do have a book focusing on a college kids guide to navigating campus nutritionally on the vision board.

Laurén , 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?

I feel I covered this in the first question.

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

My very first appearance on the Dr Oz Show was nothing short of what you could imagine behind the scenes in the green room. They gave me my very own dressing room, bigger than my own bedroom with a Dr Oz hat, coffee note and handwritten thank you note. My mom was with me and Dr Oz himself went out of his way between takes to shake her hand and genuinely tell her how proud she should be for raising a decent human. Wendy Williams hair and makeup artist got me all glammed up and it really was a glamorous experience that I will forever be grateful for. I remember wearing a bright red designer blazer and gold necklace a friend gifted me. The value of these two items alone could have probably bought enough food for me to feed myself for a couple months. Fast forward to the very next day…. in the welfare office renewing my food stamps, sporting my usual, very worn jeans, tennis shoes and sweatshirt. Yet I greeted everyone I encountered that day the same as I did in the FOX studio, eye contact and a sweet hello.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

So my mother, the politically appointed one, to her defense, was one of 3 managers that climbed the ropes from a young age to her position. In my opinion, probably one they kept around to train the others who were retired and collecting a pension from some other prestigious career but happened to be acquainted with whatever governor was in office and was handed the equivalent management position as an added bonus salary.

Although these other managers would sit in their office for the most part collecting their salary and calling my mom for guidance when the emoji poop hit the fan, mom was out there on the front line working next to the part timer or newest hired clerk interacting with the general public even though she didn’t have to. She taught me where to go to empower myself; the procedure manual and who to call, helpline to find my own answers. She knew it’d be the only way I or my co workers would retain the information we needed and expedite the customers experience.

Thru this and from the eyes of a business owner now, I learned humility. I learned that you need to get out there and do the hard work, the dirty work to earn your teams respect. To show them you are one of them and not above them., to include them and prioritize their constructive feedback. I have received so much praise from my current team and and so awestruck by being able to even mildly create a similar rapport to what my mother has instilled in me.

Contact Info:

• Website: mountainmobilemassage.net or drrenrecommends.com
• Instagram: mountainmobilemassage or americasholisticsweetheart
• Facebook: mtnmblmassage or americasholisticsweetheart
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenlaurino/
• Twitter: laurenlaurino
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/dHtG87an-QA?si=sMSUCytPSv9R9sDz