WBE Feature – Women‘s Month & Stress Awareness: Workplace Wellbeing

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios. It’s time for Women in Motion. Brought to you by WBEC West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women in Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on the show we have Lindsay Johnson with FitPros. Welcome, Lindsay.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:00:45] Well, thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:47] I am so excited to get caught up with you. Uh, for the folks who aren’t familiar, tell us a little bit about FitPros. How you serving folks?

Lindsay Johnson: [00:00:55] Absolutely. So FitPros is a workplace well-being service provider, and we help corporations offer on site and virtual well-being services that help them connect with the culture and with their personal health.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:07] So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Lindsay Johnson: [00:01:11] Yeah. So, uh, I’ll try to give you the quick version. Um, but the fun version. So, uh, backstory is that I worked in corporate marketing for over a decade, and I, like many people, I was burnt out, I was overweight, I was unhealthy, I was drinking way too much, and I finally hit a wall. Let’s see, it was like 2011. And I said, I just can’t do this anymore. And so I started this, this journey. And then let’s skip ahead to 2013. I decided that I was going to stop drinking alcohol, and I decided to go on a retreat, a yoga retreat. Mind you, I’d never done yoga before. I was not, I had no idea what a downward facing dog was. I went on this yoga retreat and I woke up out of a meditation and I said, I think something has to change. Something has to change. And so, um, and I was only 90 days sober at that time. And so I decided to become a yoga teacher. And so I actually followed a teacher to India, and I got my yoga teacher training certification. And this was probably only a few months after the first retreat. And then in addition to yoga, I decided I was going to become a personal trainer and a health coach. And so and you can tell from my personality when I decide I’m going to do something, I just really jump right in, try to speed up and skip ahead.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:02:29] I did that for about two years. I was personal training women primarily and helping them attain their personal fitness goals. I was also, um, working on myself, doing a lot of inner work, and I also started competing in fitness competitions, and so I got down to 10% body fat. I was still, you know, sober at this point. So a couple years in, skip ahead to, uh, June of 2015, my youngest brother died in a car accident. And so when that happened, I hit another just, uh, rock bottom and decided that I needed to get away. I needed to get away from it all and just recenter my thoughts. And so so I went to Asia, I started backpacking and had some just really miraculous experiences. And I started writing a business plan. Uh, you know, I just, I connected my background of corporate marketing and sitting in that stale cubicle with a mean boss, and, um, and then I connected it with my new found passion for health and wellbeing and helping other people. And, um, when I got back to the States, I reached out to a friend and I said, hey, I have this idea. What do you think? And she’s a brilliant graphic designer and said, let’s build a brand. And so Fitpro was born officially in January of 2016.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:51] And then, um, when you started to, you know, try to get clients and explain the, the value proposition. What was that like? Because now this is it’s a different animal, like training an individual to be a client of yours, as opposed to explaining to a corporation the benefits of a workplace wellness program.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:04:12] Yeah. Great. Great question. Um, you know, I was when I was teaching yoga, I skipped over this part, but I was I was also teaching at Corporation, so I was living in the San Francisco Bay area at the time. And, um, I had the opportunity to teach yoga at a handful of tech companies. And so these were employers that already, for themselves, saw the difference of their employees when they went back to their desk. And I personally, as a teacher, was able to witness that myself. Um, and so I think employers, um, many employers know, especially today in this post-Covid remote world, which we can get more into, um, know that their employees are dealing with with things and they’re going to bring it to work no matter what. And so how can the employer help set the employee up for success? Because that’s truly going to help their bottom line when the employee is at their most productive. And so I truly believe at least the companies we work with at Fit pros see the positive ROI on investing in their investing in their employees.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:15] So is that, um, who your ideal client is? Is that kind of startup or that kind of tech tech type company that can has the vision for this type? Of culture they’re trying to have in their workplace.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:05:31] No. Well, no. Um, in the beginning of fitpro. So 2016, 2017, because it was started in the Bay area, that was tech was a lot of our clients. Um, and but today, I mean, we are a global company and so we are helping corporations, um, large and small. We have, you know, we have some clients, um, as small as 50 employees, up to, uh, 20,000 employees is probably about. Oh, no, we have a very, very large, uh, popular company I cannot name, um, who has probably nearly 100,000 employees. And so that’s the outlier. Our very sweet spot is probably 200 to 5000 employees.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:10] And then what’s the service you provide for them? Yeah.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:06:14] So, um, we provide virtual and on site services, everything from physical fitness classes. So yoga, boot camp, boxing, um, we also specialize in speaker sessions. So we call them health talks. And that is across the spectrum from financial well-being to mental health to physical development, um, to diversity, equity, inclusion and chiropractic care, you name it. We have hundreds of of professionals around the globe that speak on topics. And then a third category is a team building sessions. So that could be anything from cooking classes, trivia. We do magic shows for the family. Um, and I’ll throw in a nugget there because your family is so important. And so we know that a lot of employers also want to support their parenting groups. And so, you know, we we really like to offer the spectrum of, of sessions. Um, and this is, you know, the statement I usually say is all of us, all of us on listening in today are going through something, but we’re not all going through the same thing. So the best thing an employer can do is offer a variety of of well-being sessions and activities that engage their employees. In. The number one differentiator with Fit Pros is that we focus in live, live engagement because, um, you also get the on demand recordings with what we do, but we really focus in live because in today’s world, we’re we’re very disconnected from when when we were primarily in the office, we were able to pass the hallway and talk, talk about those conversations that help us belong and feel like a community. And now people are feeling so disconnected. So, um, we really are intentional about the live engagement within our programing.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:03] Now, it sounds like, uh, your menu of offerings to any given company is pretty holistic, like, it’s a wide range. It’s not you’re not you’re not defining fitness and wellness very narrowly. You’re taking kind of this, uh, wide net kind of point of view when it comes to this. Um, was that by the demands of your customers just telling you that or is that something how you believe that wellness really is all encompassing?

Lindsay Johnson: [00:08:30] Uh, I mean, it is a belief of mine that that it is all encompassing. Um, but I would say it was it was certainly hand in hand. Um, when Fitpro started, um, prior to Covid, we were primarily an on site company. And so we would bring professionals into corporations and perform the service. Um, as time went on, we in Covid, we had to get we had to perfect virtual. So we had to perfect the virtual services. Um, and. So that so today, um, you know, we we also rolled out another, uh, program, uh, last year called Fit Pros Live. Um, and just as of January of this year, we launched our app. And so, um, you know, even back when we started, one of our core values is making well-being accessible. That has not changed. And today, with the app that allows us to be in the hands of people wherever they are and our platform, our Fit Pros Live platform offers 400 or more live sessions throughout the year that employees can tune into and engage with the the speaker. They can engage in chat with the audience. Um. And did that answer your question.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:46] Yeah. And so there’s also it’s the live element is super important because it’s obviously bringing a lot of people together at one time. For one thing it’s a shared experience. But like if I miss that, is there still a library of, um, classes or workouts or, you know, different things that I can kind of get access to, you know, without a schedule, like just, you know, when it’s convenient for me 100%.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:10:13] Yeah, absolutely. Um, yep. We we include all of the recordings from all of the sessions. So things definitely come up and people miss the session so they can check it out at a later time. Yep. That’s that’s absolutely included with the platform.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:25] Now for the listener. Um, stress is so, uh, on a lot of people’s minds. Uh, way too often I think, uh, you know, for everybody’s own well-being. But any advice or tips you can give somebody listening now, when it comes to stress management, is there anything like somebody listening could take action right now and kind of lower their stress or manage their stress better?

Lindsay Johnson: [00:10:51] Breath. Oh my goodness breath. We I remember during yoga teacher training the the teacher said, um, breath is the first thing you come into this world with and it’s the last thing you leave with its breath is always with you. And so if anyone this is obviously a no cost thing that we can all do, I like to plant my two feet on the ground and put my hands on my belly and take the biggest belly breath that I possibly can. I expand my tummy. I expand my lungs, inhaling. I bet you guys are doing it right now, aren’t you?

Lee Kantor: [00:11:24] I am, I’m a big believer in in deep breathing.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:11:29] Oh, amazing. Do you, do you do some yoga yourself?

Lee Kantor: [00:11:32] I have dabbled I haven’t been able to be as consistent as I’d like, but I go through periods where I do it and then I stop doing it.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:11:41] Yeah. And that’s so natural. We all do. I was just talking to my mother in law about this yesterday. Um, because she was getting hard on herself about meditating. And I said, you know, one thing that a teacher told me was that meditating is what we make of it. A lot of people think they’re doing it wrong because they can’t concentrate. And wrong is only in our mind because the thoughts will constantly come in our mind. Um, so that’s okay. But what I like to do and what I suggest for people when those thoughts come in, so let’s just say, you know, we’ll take it back. We’re taking that big belly breath and we take a couple of moments to inhale and exhale. And that thought comes in and you’re like, oh, I don’t want this thought here. I like to think of it as elf on the shelf. And so I visualize this little thought and I put it up on the shelf. And that helps bring me back. And I just again put my hands on my belly, inhale and exhale. And it just really helps ground me and recenter.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:42] Yeah. And it’s not something you have to do for like an hour. Like just a couple of breaths kind of can recenter you.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:12:48] It’s so true. Oh my goodness.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:51] Yeah. It’s one of those things, um, when you learn that and you really apply that, it it does make a difference and it is noticeable difference. And I just think it’s, it’s so counterintuitive that your breath, which everybody’s breathing at all times, is the thing that can really, um, kind of get you out of a stressful situation. You can recenter.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:13:15] It’s so true. It’s so true. It’s when I, um, when I am preparing to go speak on stage at a conference or whatnot, I get so anxious even before talking to you today. Lee, I am so anxious. I, um, to manage my stress. I in my hand right now. You probably can’t see it, but I have this little rock, um, that says strength on it. And so I find that as a little tool. And so that might be another thing for people. Um, I’ve seen, I’ve seen people put, like a rubber band on their wrist and just kind of tap it gently when they’re feeling stressed. Um, do you have anything like that, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:48] I have, I have a little stone that says create. That’s my kind of mantra of life. Um, I would want to be a creator. Um, so that’s what I use to kind of center myself. And I have that around, around me. And then I try to be mindful and be in the moment, like doing this job. As long as I’ve done this job, it forces me to be in the moment. I’m wearing headset, I’m talking a microphone, I’m talking to a person kind of intimately, and I want to stay locked in and I want to be able to react to what’s happening. So I think it’s I mean, I’ve been doing this for so long, it kind of helps me stay kind of in the moment in real life as well.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:14:31] Yeah. Yeah yeah, yeah. Especially. Yeah. In a role like yours. Yeah. You can’t, you can’t just start thinking about something else or typing something else. And I think a lot of a lot. And just to kind of tie it back, you know, a I don’t know that. Statistic off the top of my head, but a majority of people are still working remote or hybrid, and it’s so easy. In zoom meetings I do this too. We get distracted and we’re trying to do so many things at once. A role like yours, that’s not that. That is impossible. Um, but I think that, um, you know, tying it back to, to Fitpro sessions and a reason we are focused on live is because that does help people stay intentional about the accountability piece. Um, you know, when something’s live and your colleagues are expecting you to show up to this session, um, let’s just because with our with our app platform, it includes challenges. And so one of the unique things that we have is it’s called check in challenges. And so, um, let’s just say a company wants to do a challenge for one quarter and per month. There’s approximately 30 to 40 sessions that fit pros offers, so employees can check in for however many they attend. Well, you know that that accountability of of oh, either a my colleagues are going to show up or B, I want to beat my colleagues like I want, I want to I want to win in this competition. Um, it helps kind of piece together the again the accountability piece, the showing up, the being present and um and help it helps build that company culture and help someone with their own well-being at the same time.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:09] Now, um, is there a story you can share? Obviously don’t name the person or the company, but they came to you and they were at, you know, a place. And then after working with you and your team for a period of time, they got to a new level. Um, can you share that kind of before and after, uh, with either an individual or a company you work with where you really made a difference?

Lindsay Johnson: [00:16:32] Yeah, I got a couple really good nuggets. I think the most recent, um, that made me cry because I’m. I am a new mother. I have a six month old, and, um, a gentleman came to a meditation, and mind you, um, it’s I’m so thrilled today in today’s age that we are seeing more men. But eight years ago, when I started Fitpro, a lot of men weren’t showing up very much. But today they are. And that that really fills my heart. Um, so this was a new father. He showed he, um, was in a meditation. Um, at the end of every session, our pro drops a link in the chat and encourages people to tell tell us about their experience. And so this gentleman filled out the feedback form, and he shared that, um, seven weeks ago, his daughter was born, um, and she’s been at Saint Jude ever since her birth. Um, and I think as a, as a male, um, in a father, um, you may perhaps are not as connected to the baby just because the mother carried them or, um, and so, um, he also shared that, and then he hadn’t been with her for seven weeks. And so, um, he was able to share that, that meditation, he sat in on a fitpro session, uh, whatever the speaker said, whatever the focus of that session was, um, really, it helped him go to a new level of connecting with his daughter, and he just felt this new closeness that he hadn’t been able to experience yet. And so I hope, I, I hope I expressed everything that he did top level, because the emotion when I was reading his words, I just I started bawling. And it just, um, when you can have an impact on that, that end user, that employee, um, is just that’s why we do this. Um, it’s, you know, of course. I’m sitting here and we’re working with corporations. Those are our direct clients. But truly, who we’re doing this for is the end employee that attend the session. Um, and in a story like that, it just it just reinforces why.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:48] Yeah, the impact is real. I mean, it’s tangible. That left a mark on that person and it’s going to carry with him and, and potentially make him a better father, a better spouse, you know, it’s a better employee. I mean, they’re all connected completely.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:19:04] Another quick one is we were doing, um, on site self-defense workshops in San Francisco. Um, and it was it was for a big tech company that was right downtown in the heart. And, um, someone got mugged. Um, one of the employees at this company got mugged. And so the company decided they’re going to do these consistent on site, um, self-defense workshops. And, um, the I just remember I attended this one, and, uh, a woman pulled me aside after, and she’s like, so and so was my friend. And, um, I was going to walk home with her that day, and I’m I’m so grateful that I now feel armed with knowing how to handle those situations like that. I could I will protect myself, but then I could also protect my friend. And so you know that again, it’s it’s these are real life things that people go through. Um, and so how can we arm people with the tools to, to handle that?

Lee Kantor: [00:20:00] And it says a lot, uh, for the culture of those organizations that are investing in fit pros for their employees and themselves is that they care about the totality of their employee, not just the work they’re doing while they’re there.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:20:18] Yes, 100%. They they realize that we’re all humans. We all have human issues. We we in it, you know, we have work to do. But if if we don’t feel whole in all the other parts of our life, then we’re not able to show up and be our best.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:36] Yeah. And this is something that is I’m sure helps in retention. It helps in when you’re trying to recruit new employees like this pays dividends. And there’s probably, I’m sure, a tangible ROI that’s associated with it. This isn’t just kind of a fluffy, nice to have. This is stuff that really pays off for those companies and it pays off for the employees. So it’s a win win win all the way around.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:21:03] Yeah, you nailed it. And, um, brought up another topic I think. Well, well wellness um, has such had and still has kind of a bad connotation that you can’t really find the value, the ROI on, on wellness. Well, you can um, you can a these tangible stories, you know, attaining the feedback that we do. And then we share that feedback, um, with the employer anonymously. And the employee note has the option to be anonymous if they so wish. Um, we have these feedback links, but then, um, at least at Fit Pros, we, um, have the check ins and we know how many employees are registering for events, how many are attending events. Um, and then also the engagement, which employees, which teams are engaging in the sessions and the commentary and the social hub wellness, the feed in the app. So my point is, like we do have ways to, to to tangibly let a company know your employees are seeing a difference. So, um, it’s critical.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:10] Now, before we wrap up, um, can you share why it was important for you to get certified and why being involved with WebEx West was a good investment for your organization?

Lindsay Johnson: [00:22:23] Absolutely. I remember a handful of years ago, someone asked me if I was part of Webbank West, and this was when I first started the company. And, you know, early on, entrepreneur. I was like, no, no, no, but I’ll look into it. And then three years ago, um, we joined again because it’s just Webbank has such a great reputation. Um, I’m so proud to wear the logo. We have it on our website, we have it in our emails, we put it on our, um, our, uh, our fliers. And so, um, it’s, we think is such a reputable, um, business. Um, also the connections I’ve met a lot of phenomenal women, um, through the webbank. And so, um, I’m really appreciative for the connections and, and the opportunity for referrals. Um, although I haven’t gone to the conference, which I believe is coming up very soon, I’m so excited to in the future, I think there’s a lot of opportunity with the uniqueness that is put into the curriculum with Webbank events. And so and then finally, I have attended a handful of really awesome training sessions. I think Webbank is so intentional about teaching people how to make the most. Get the most out of their certifications. So, um, it’s just it’s not like your normal. I’ve. I’ve joined a lot of, uh, certification type, uh, programs in the past, and, uh, Webbink takes the extra steps to ensure that people are getting the most out of it.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:50] Well, if somebody wants to learn more about fit pros and have more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website? What is the best way to get Ahold of you?

Lindsay Johnson: [00:23:59] Yeah, our website is fit Proz.com. Fit Proz.com. And email is helloapp. Proz.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:07] Well, Lindsay, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work.

Lindsay Johnson: [00:24:12] Thank you so much. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you and Webbank for this opportunity.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:16] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women in Motion. Are.