We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Malorie Lakosky. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Malorie below.

Alright, Malorie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with a fun one – what’s something you believe that most people in your industry (or in general) disagree with?

Most people think that it’s easy for young, active people to recover after an injury. I’ve heard, “they have so many options” and “it’s just easier when you’re younger.” That wasn’t the case for me.

I experienced a low back injury when I was 27 years old that resulted in chronic pain, physical therapy, injections, surgery, and more physical therapy. I thought each new strategy that I tried was going to get me back to “normal,” but none of them did. After my last round of post-surgery physical therapy I was still experiencing pain and didn’t know how to return to the activities I used to enjoy, like hiking and playing volleyball. It was a bummer to say the least.

Eventually, I started talking to other people and I discovered that I wasn’t the only person who struggled. In my opinion, it’s so hard for young people to recover after an injury because it seems like it should be easy. A young person in pain “shoulds” all over themselves. I should be able to grocery shop without hurting. I should be able to play basketball. I should be able to lift 15+ pounds at the gym.

Being injured at a young age impacts your self esteem differently than if you were injured later in life. It feels like you’re missing out or that you aren’t contributing. It also feels like you have less things to aspire to. The experience can be incredibly isolating and until someone shows you that you can rebuild your capacity to do things, getting out of your current state seems impossible.

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?

My experience of pain and navigating our healthcare system greatly impacted my work and business. In 2020, I participated in Lara Heimann’s comprehensive anatomy-based yoga teacher training (the LYT Method) and upon certification I started teaching smarter and safer movement patterns to friends and family. This evolved into teaching yoga full time at a sheltered workplace for adults with traumatic brain injuries. While teaching, I realized that there are lots of people who have gone to physical therapy, but don’t know how to adjust their activities of daily living and movement practices to best support their healing and recovery. People tend to plateau and settle for what they were able to achieve during physical therapy, rather than striving to return to the things they truly love. Which, quite frankly, is crazy. They really could be doing those things!

This realization snowballed into my business idea: connect people to the right coaching, education and accountability so that they can return to the activities they love.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

In order to create my business I have changed a lot of things, including my mindsets. When I was in school, I always got good grades. I achieved those grade by starting my assignments early and making sure that I did EVERYTHING correctly before turning my work in. It’s really hard to run a business like that because no one gives you a clear cut assignment or rubric. You don’t know what works for your customers until you interact with them. So, instead of having everything perfect, I had to start offering services and getting feedback to find out what works- eek!

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

This may be a little atypical, but the book that has most impacted my entrepreneurial style is Untamed by Glennon Doyle. She writes about “dropping keys,” which is the idea that you don’t have to do everything for someone to make a difference. The most powerful way to empower other people is to give them permission to do things themselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wellnessweirdos.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wellness.weirdos/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wellness.weirdos.yoga