INTRODUCTION

This Book Is for the Wellness Community

There is a powerful movement happening, already in full swing pre-COVID-19 and accelerated by the pandemic. In nearly every country on earth, billions of people are prioritizing their health and happiness like never before. They are recognizing that their best life is not found through the endless accumulation of money and things, but rather through meaningful relationships, memorable experiences, a sense of purpose, and optimal health.

People are waking up to the truth that sustained happiness requires a definition of health that goes far beyond the expectations of prior generations. Rather than simply pursuing a body and mind free from disease, they are pursuing a vision of health that optimizes every facet of their lives, addresses their whole person, and increases their resilience to disease. People are looking for health that not only gives more years in their lives, but also more life in their years.

This new definition of health is called wellness, and chances are, you picked up this book because you already sense these trends. You have incorporated healthier eating, exercise, and multiple other wellness practices into your life, and you have a newfound sense of purpose. You have become a wellness evangelist with those you are closest to, and now you want to share your passion with others.

For all who feel the calling of life as a wellness professional, this book is for you.

You may already be a wellness professional. You've been teaching classes, training people, and delivering life-changing experiences for years. COVID-19 disrupted your life in 2020, and now you dream of leveraging new technologies to achieve independence, designing your own experiences, setting your own schedule, and being your own boss.

For all who seek self-employment in the wellness industry, this book is for you.

Or you may be dreaming of an even greater leap-creating your own neighborhood wellness business or launching a digital wellness brand. You've studied the experiences delivered by others and you know you can do better. You noticed the many For Lease signs in your neighborhood and have been thinking about business names, studio layouts, and experience delivery. You may be sharing this vision with potential partners and two or three of you are considering taking the leap together.

For all who audaciously dream of launching a wellness business that catches the next wave of the wellness revolution by employing others and serving thousands, this book is for you.

Or you may have already taken that leap and launched your wellness business and difficult realities have set in. COVID-19 hit your business hard, depleted your savings, and left you indebted. That economic catastrophe hit on top of your usual daily challenges of leaky roofs; toilets that don't flush; troublesome landlords; and the neighbor who makes too much noise, emits strange smells every afternoon, or complains about you doing the same.

Then there's your team. The ones you love but who can't seem to show up on time. The ones your clients love but who create drama behind the scenes. Or the perfect employee who just told you she has fallen in love and is moving out of state-next week.

All of these normal daily challenges sit on top of a simple and terrifying reality: without a continuous flow of new and returning clients, your business won't last, and the dream you poured your heart and soul into will morph into a nightmare that may take every last penny you have.

For all who are bravely facing the challenges of creating a thriving wellness business in a post-COVID world, this book is for you.

Or your wellness business may be stable but you're wondering, "What's next?" You successfully weathered the COVID-19 storm and surmounted numerous other challenges. You've received government funding and are back to taking home a comfortable income, your debt is manageable, your team is (mostly) reliable, and your clients are (mostly) happy. But the challenge of the shut down and the daily grind is taking its toll. Your days have begun to feel repetitive and you're secretly growing tired of it.

What began as your ultimate creative expression of self has turned into a really demanding job. You're working way too many hours and there is a tiny voice inside saying, "It's time to change it up or move on." Maybe your creative spirit has been captured by a fresh new idea. Or maybe you just need an extended vacation.

For all who have built a thriving wellness business and are now standing at a crossroads, this book is for you.

Regardless of which of these descriptions best reflects your reality, please know that you are not alone. Thousands of brave souls have walked the path you are on now, and many principles they have learned are timeless and universal. And many new principles are coming into existence post COVID-19. You will learn these principles in a simple and clear way in the chapters ahead.

The COVID-19 Thunderbolt

In the first half of 2020, COVID-19 hit the wellness industry like a bolt of lightning-sudden, unexpected, and devastating in its effect.

Simultaneously across more than ninety countries, the global wellness industry shut down. I know because the company I co-founded with Blake Beltram, Mindbody, handles the client bookings for much of the industry. More than 90 percent of the businesses on our platform were forced to shut their doors, either in response to government mandate or falling consumer demand, and more than 80 percent of total business activity disappeared-and it stayed that way for months.

In the midst of the dual public health and economic crisis presented by COVID-19, the seeds of our industry's future were being sown. Within days of the global collapse of our industry that began on March 11, thousands of wellness business owners were implementing virtual delivery of their services. Staying connected to their clientele and delivering wellness classes and appointments via Zoom, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other virtual techniques had become mission critical.

At Mindbody, our own software development team went into overdrive to accelerate the delivery of an integrated Virtual Wellness Platform, enabling wellness business owners of any size to upload both prerecorded classes and streaming video, restricting access of that content to paying clients only, and selling hybrid face-to-face and virtual memberships. And the people came.

In the weeks following the official declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw exponential growth of virtual wellness delivery as people sheltering at home logged into classes and appointments from their laptops, phones, and tablets. In the months that followed, as communities around the world gradually reopened and brick-and-mortar studios were once again allowed to welcome paying customers into their places of business, we saw that virtual delivery had become an important and enduring component of wellness-in addition to the brick-and-mortar offline experiences.

In short, the sudden bolt of COVID-19 lightning that so dramatically disrupted our industry in 2020 has become a spark that ignited yet another wave of wellness industry growth and innovation. This wave promises to be even larger and more exciting than the last.

My Journey to the Wellness Industry

This book is not about Mindbody or me, but in case you are wondering where the knowledge and opinions in the pages that follow come from, here's the short story:

I was raised in a small-business family. My grandfather, parents, and three of my four brothers were all small-business owners. I began working at Stollmeyer Lighting-our family's retail lighting store-when I was 10 years old. My dad and older brothers taught me to assemble and display light fixtures, sweep floors, and clean. Within a few years I was on the showroom floor selling light fixtures and in the back office learning how to keep the books and understand financial statements.

My family was proud of my entrepreneurial parents. My mom and dad were different from other people. They were independent in their thinking and daring in their pursuit of the American Dream. People in the community respected and looked up to them. My parents didn't have jobs; they created them.

But there was another side to this story.

What others outside the family rarely saw were the hard realities of making a living with a small business. Decorative lighting sales rode the crests and troughs of the economy. Stollmeyer Lighting flourished when homes were being built or remodeled. But when the inevitable recessions came-and there were several in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s-sales would plummet and the store would morph from a nicely profitable family business into a cash-burning machine, quickly eating into my parents' nest egg.

One of those recessions hit as I was entering high school in the early 1980s. Our comfortable upper-middle-class household was soon pushed into financial crisis. I was a strong student and could see the seriousness in my parents' eyes as they urged me to excel in school, go to college, and "get credentials" so that I might have a more financially secure future than they did. They vowed to pay for any university I could get into and encouraged me to dream big. I internalized their message and knew deep down that I would never ask them for a...