You are going to love this true story. My friend was seventeen and pregnant. What a hard place to be. She has since then dedicated her life to helping people improve their quality of life through body work and movement. Over the past 20 years she studied everything from massage therapy to Pilates, everything to do with focusing on cross training programs. She also leads a six month coaching mentoring program that teaches individuals to coach the tri core method which I believe she has personally developed including Pilates and some other big things that I’m not going to try to pronounce here but she is truly amazing. You’re going to want to take notes as you listen now to Stefannie DeLaMora.
Nora: Hi Stephanie, welcome and tell us here you were 17 pregnant and in high school. What did you do to help yourself through up until today?
Stephanie:
When I first found out I was pregnant at 17 I was still in high school and was very young. I decided that my mom was pro life so it was not an option to not go through this. It was a turning point moment where I really felt like her coming into my life was either going to make me or break me. I took the make me path. I studied on ways that I could get to a point where I could support us quickly. College wasn’t an option at that point because I needed to find a place to start a career really quickly. I found a massage therapy school. I’ve always been into health and wellness and fitness so it aligned with who I was already. Shortly after she was born I went to the massage therapy school which took me about six months to complete then within the first three months of graduating, I started my first job where I started my first business. I rented a space at a massage therapy clinic and started supporting us. My business grew pretty quickly. I’ve always been a people person and hustler….going out there and meeting people at coffee shops, everywhere in the neighborhood passing out cards and my business just grew from there!
Nora:
Great, ok I love that I bet your daughter Ariel just graduated from the University of Colorado today and I’m guessing she’s a joy in your life. I’m sure are glad that you decided to give her life.
Stephanie:
Absolutely she’s been my inspiration to push me through all of the hard times. When you’re a parent, falling apart and giving up isn’t an option. You have someone else depending on you and you have to figure out how to make it work and hold it together. There may be times when you’re suffering at night about yourself but you get up in the morning and go to work and keep doing what you’re doing because like I said, falling apart isn’t an option.
Nora:
That’s true, I love that, falling apart is not an option. I love what you said about how you were brave enough to promote yourself because that’s what we need to do. We are promoting ourselves whether we realize it or not. We’re either going to promote ourselves to a boss or to Human Resources to get a job or like you did to promote your business. I love that you had a passion for that. What made you choose massage therapy specifically? Tell me more about applying to the school, how did that work out.
Stephanie:
I found the program kind of by chance. I was actually trying to make some money so I was cleaning houses on the side. I was cleaning houses for my parents friends just because it was something I could take my baby with me and make a little cash on the side. I was listening to the radio and there was a commercial for this massage therapy school where they said I could earn up to $50/hr and be done in less than six months. I said that’s it, that’s what I need to do! I grew up in a very athletic family and active. We were always in to health and wellness so it aligned with my lifestyle. I liked the idea of helping people and being in the wellness industry and again, it was a good way to have some fast goals.
I actually called the school that afternoon and they said that we had a program that started three days ago but if you can get your finances together you can jump in. I was like I’m in! I’ll be there this Saturday. I graduated with honors. I love anatomy, physiology, all of that stuff is really fascinating to me. it was the drive that I had to make this work
Nora:
Well that’s wonderful, I love that. Boy you just jumped on board. What I do like and what I keep telling my friend that’s listening right now is you took what you were enjoying in life, you took some things that you already knew and a good background that all of us have….we think we don’t but its definitely there. I loved how you did that. What have I already been doing? What do I enjoy? OK so you did the massage school
Stephanie:
I practiced massage therapy for about four years full time. During that time I went from the massage therapy clinic to a high end fitness studio. It was a club like a health and wellness club. I was working in the spa there and I was really young still and I was starting to have back and neck pain. Massage is hard work so within that club they had just launched a Pilates for myself and I was amazed by the results I got. This is a way for me to teach people to be proactive in their health. Massage therapy was a lot of manual work. For those couple years I had a lot of standing clients and there were clients that would come in that had the same shoulder issue and I’d write stretch programs and strength programs for them. I told them they’d have to do these things in order for them to get better. It got to the point that I said ok, I’m not getting the results that I want from people. And I’m not making the impact that I really wanted to so when I found Pilates it was like a light bulb moment where I can teach people to take care of themselves. To be more proactive and an active part of this wellness lifestyle.
Nora:
I love that because it came from caring for people.
Steffanie:
It’s been a very organic progression.
Nora
I love your heart because people know if we really care about them. Here you’re saying I’m doing this method to help people and that’s what got you into Pilates which I haven’t done myself. When it comes to stretching, that’s something else for me. Ok, wow! How did you go from you have your studio to high end. There must have been something that occurred in there that you connected, you networked or how did you end up able to take that step up.
Steffanie
When I was renting the space in the massage clinic, there wasn’t a lot of support there. It was like I paid rent and I ran my business there. The high end club was closer to town because my daughter was ready to start school so I had to be ready to do pick up and drop off and have the flexibility to be a parent as well as working. I needed something a little more convenient. Also working for a bigger company there were benefits. They had child care there after school, they did offer health care, 401K so I decided to take that route and go to a more secure place. I was there for about 3 ½ years and it was a really good launching pad to the next step in my life.
I actually started doing the Pilates there. I commuted from San Antonio to Austin for almost two years to complete the program. Luckily my parents were there so they were a good support system to help me out during that time.
Nora:
Right, and we do need that support system. Three are probably more people around to support us than if we’ve had relationships, family or friends that might have been there. Just talk it out….love each other and talk it out and see what you can do.
Steffanie:
I also found that the people that surround you are always willing to help. They may not be family. Moving to AZ I have no family here but I have the biggest support system and community of people. It’s putting your pride aside and just acknowledging that I need some help. People are always willing to step up and take part in that.
Nora:
Asking for help. We all like when people ask us for help
Steffnaie:
I enjoy helping other people, I definitely went through a phase where “I don’t need anybody, I’ll do it myself” and that’s a hard place to be.
Nora:
It does take humility. I love the saying that we’re better together. Nobody does anything on their own by themselves. I think that is awesome with Pilates that is a wonderful for your body. So you commuted and then you got a certification?
Steffanie:
Yes so I got my certification and I completed the program. The timing was really interesting. Because my boss at the high end club asked me to start working for the fitness department outside of the spa when I started teaching Pilates and she was recruited to move to Scottsdale, AZ and run a high end club in Scottsdale. She was there about 2-3 months and she called me one day…..to back track a little bit, after I finished my Pilates training I wasn’t really sure I was going to be able to make a full time career out of it. I was starting to feel a little discouraged, it was a little bit more of a challenge than when I got into the massage business so I started to look at other opportunities like….do I need to go back to school. I hadn’t gone to college and I was starting to feel like I wanted to go back to school to become a physical therapist . How do I do the thing that I love but give myself a little more security. I had actually gone to college orientation because I was starting from scratch with 0 college credit. I was looking at probably eight years of education before I could actually practice and on day three of orientation I remember sitting in the Subway parking lot sobbing and saying I don’t want to do this….I don’t have eight years….my baby is already five and she’s going to be a teenager before I can even support us.
I went back in and finished the day. I came out that evening to a voice message from my former boss and she said “Stefanie, this is Deedee and I am calling to offer you a new life”. She was offering me a job in Scottsdale. I listed to the voice mail, I went home, I talked to my stepmom about it and she was like….go check it out, what do you have to lose? I came out and I loved it, the facility was beautiful, the job offer was amazing. I went home and it was a little scary at that time I was 24, my daughter was seven, almost eight so the idea of moving away from all of my family and everyone I know to take a job may or may not work out. I remember sitting in the kitchen with my stepmom and she was like, “we’re not going anywhere”. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll be here for you”. She really gave me that foundation and comfort of just saying “take a chance, what do you have to lose?”
Nora:
I always tell people that nothing is permanent, it’s not like….ok you made the move, now you need to readjust. I use this acronym TFA…Try Fail, Adjust….Try, Fail, Adjust. Not that that would be a failure if you moved and it didn’t work out but I love that you had the courage as a single mom with your daughter just starting school. You took that plunge and that’s wonderful
Steffanie
It has worked out really well. We moved out and I started working at the health club. I was there for seven years. At that point I had given up massage for the most part. I still did it on the side because I had some clients that I would go to their house. For the most part I was teaching Pilates exclusively at this club. During that time I continued my education in fitness. I did a bunch of other certifications. I went through the National Academy of Sports Medicine, I did my cross fit training. I have Olympic weight lifting certification. I studied all areas of fitness and all different fitness worlds. That’s what lead me to start my first business. I learned all of this information and learned all of these new skills. I worked in a corporation where my job title was a Pilates instructor and you can’t do all these other things.
After seven years there I decided that I had a strong following and all of this education, so I’m going to start my own studio. I cashed in my 401K and the little money I had and invested in the equipment. I had a studio that was not much bigger than 900 sft with low ceilings and I started it. It was successful! It was scary bt also like exciting because I took a leap of faith and it was one of those things that I left on a good note so if it didn’t work out I could have probably gone back to the facility I left.
At that point, I felt like I have enough skills in my life that I’m always going to be ok. If the job didn’t work out I could always go back to teaching Pilates, I could always go back to massage, there’s always an opportunity for me to be safe so I wasn’t going to fall apart if it didn’t work. I took baby steps….my first facility was 90sf. And I was there for about two years. Things were growing and progressing so I decided to step it up a little bit so we moved into a 2500sf space and then we had a little staff, we brought in some other trainers and started running some more group stuff. I had that second facility for five years. That business was called Day of Fit. Mostly it was personal training but we did do some small group training and it wa.s good. It was a great business. We did everything from Olympic Weight lifting to Pilates in one hour session. We had a really good mix of fitness in a one hour program. It was a great business and it was successful. What I found was that I worked myself into a point that I had a job again. I owned a job and that’s where I’d say that I didn’t have the foresight to see that. To see, what did I want long term, what was the big picture here. I have a skill, I have a little bit of money so I’m going to start a business. There was no thought process as to where that business was going to go.
Nora:
So like an end game I tell people that sometimes I start with the end and I work back. What do I do to reach that. I love your story and your bravery about what you did. What you said about doing it in increments, you didn’t try for that 2500 sf space. You started with the 900sf. Often times you scale your business too fast and too big rather than doing it in increments where you get that down then you grow. I love your wisdom in that. I am excited to hear the next part of your story.
Steffanie:
I had the studio for almost eight years. In about two years before we closed it I developed a program called Tri Core. That is our studio now. Tri Core basically was again, I was trying to find ways to help more people. I went from doing the massages, to going into fitness, teaching people how to be proactive in their own health and now I am in a place where I am personal training. I was maxed out with work and I can’t take any more clients on. I was trying to have other people work as coaches as me but it’s really hard to manage independent contractors and help them build their business. They’re not your employees so that became a little tricky and I started to feel a little frustrated. I wasn’t living up to my potential to hit the audience that I wanted to hit. I wanted to help this grow bigger, I want to basically go and be evangelical about this fitness thing that I created. That’s where the Tri Core product came about….how do I take the way that I coach people and the way that I work with people and build it into something that is duplicatable and that we can bring it into a group setting so the idea behind Tri Core is it is an endurance, strength and mobility in one hour program and we do everything from strength training to some weight lifting, cardio and we do 30 minutes on the reformer so you get this mixed cross training program that embodies everything that you really need in a fitness program. It keeps the body moving and keeps it healthy and that’s where the whole concept was born.
We launched the Tri Core program in my old studio. We did a six week free trial for 30 people. We did measurements, to make sure that we’re getting good results and we’re getting good feed back. The two different products didn’t work. My personal training clientele in Scottsdale was like most over 60. Because of the Pilates background I did a lot of work with Chiropractors, physical therapists where we were kind of bridging the gap between recovering from injuries or post surgery recovery. After you get to a certain point with your insurance it’s ….. ok you need to keep working out but they didn’t know how to keep their bodies moving well.
I was working with a lot of folks in that situation. People in to personal training didn’t like the loud music and the intensity of the work out so it was like oil and water. It was two different products and I was trying to make them fit into one place but it wasn’t fitting. It wasn’t taking off like I wanted it to so I made the tough decision because it was a successful business and I had a beautiful community of people that I loved but at that point I knew where my long term vision was going so I had to come to the realization that this had to end for me to go to a new beginning. Am I willing to scrap something that is working in order to pursue this new vision and this new dream? I decided yes!
Nora:
Did you write down goals or were they in your mind?
Steffanie
Not in the beginning, going back to a single mom at 17 I never envisioned where I am now. It was kind of like what’s next. It wasn’t until I started writing out the Tri Core program when I had the experience, the knowledge, and maturity to really see if I was willing to step back. What is my long term goal? How do I start something new that has exponential growth possibilities? Where can I take this? My long term goal with Tri Core is that it will become a franchise product where we can have multiple studios over the country or world. It goes back to my vision and my purpose is that I wanted to be successful and make money but at this point I know what we do changes lives. We’re making people better and they’re functioning well. My biggest thing with Tri Core and with what I do and what I’ve always done with my business is “I don’t care what you look like, I care what you feel like” It’s about long term quality of life, can you enjoy life? Do you have pain and don’t move well it’s hard to enjoy life or being in the moment when your back hurts or your neck hurts.
Nora:
In our country right now we are in a health crisis in so many ways. I am 63. When I was growing up we didn’t hear of anyone having cancer. Our neighbor had cancer but it was almost unheard of.. My friends and I didn’t talk about food, we didn’t think about food, we didn’t exercise. It was very different then. People were healthier. Now it is a real concern. I was just saying to my GP “do you have any patients that come in here that aren’t tired? I love what you do because it is very well needed. So I love that as you grew in your business and became a more experienced seasoned entrepreneur, your thinking about goals, about the long term end game. Basically we all want to become what I say “financially independent and free”. I don’t like the term “retirement”. I wish we could take that term and that definition out of our culture because we need the senior citizens to be involved in our culture, schools with students, family. We talk about retirement but we should talk about “financial freedom” which is when you have enough passive income that pays for your expenses. That’s what financial freedom is. When you have passive income that covers your expenses. It doesn’t mean that I have to have over $1MM in the bank. That helps but you could stop working then if you don’t want to work but I hope that you just volunteer and do something wonderful with your live.
Steffanie:
I feel like I’ve seen a lot of people that have this vision of retirement where they stop working and then they stop living. That doesn’t make sense. Why would you do that?
Following back to what we talked about earlier. Finding something that you love. I have no desire to retire because I love what I do so my Pilates mentor is in her 70’s . She travels all over the world doing education programs and I don’t think she has any intention of retiring. If you look at the Pilates lineage they are out educating and out teaching, sharing, until the day they pass away. When you find something you’re passionate about why would you want to stop doing it. Especially once you get to that point that you are so full of knowledge and experience. I love sharing what I do!
It goes back to the idea of the Tri Core concept is finding a way that now we’re hitting a much higher volume of people,. Our classes are limited to 12 people but we’re offering 34 classes a week so we really have the ability to work with a lot of people.
The other part of what I wanted to look at was when I was personal training, it was expensive. It’s a very high dollar thing to do and most can’t afford it. I was looking for a way to bring high quality fitness to the masses so it was more affordable. How do I get to a point where my experience working with people 60 and up became managed care to take a look at all the things you did to your body when you were young and you didn’t think to rehab that shoulder or you played sports and you destroyed your body and now you’re paying for it so we’re trying to keep you upright and moving. I’m now working with a younger demographic ….. 20’s 4 40’s on average. Let me teach you how to be proactive and teach you how to keep your body moving well now instead of trying to manage the damage that you did at a young age and didn’t take care of it and now your older and in pain.
Quality of life, long term aging, how are you going to stay moving and maintenance. It’s much easier to stay well than to treat sickness
Nora:
What I like is that we’re here in the middle of the afternoon recording and we’re able to do this because how we earn income. You’ve gone from this young girl who was 17 and pregnant to now with your business that you’ve learned more about working on your business than in your business which is an amazing concept that I want our friend to understand as she listens
Steffanie:
That was a leaned phrase through this whole process. With my old business I found myself worked into a job. I had a lot of overhead and that business wasn’t going to survive without me being there 12-14 hrs a day. Growing into this business and looking at is from a bigger vision and stepping back is like…how do I create something that can survive without me. I am not the brand. The brand is something that is self sustaining and can eventually I can step back and have the freedom to say that my business is operating, I have people there that I know and trust and they’re taking care of it and I can have the freedom to come here and do this or go on a vacation or just take a day off. There’s beauty in that of knowing that getting to that point where there is a passive extent in the business and I can step away a bit. Eventually that will grow a little bit more on it’s own but I love it there so much that even when I don’t have to be there I’m there hanging out because that’s my community and those are my people!
Nora:
You moved away from your family but you found a new community. I’m kind of in a change transition myself. I remember one day thinking ….. ok ….. I was Vice Mayor of my city and I did a lot with the City. When I termed out I thought, ok I have a lot more time on my hands so I made a list of my different communities and there were 14. I’m in a Chorale, I’m in a women’s meet up group, church, a board of a non profit. It’s good to know where your communities are and where your help is. How can they get ahold of you?
Steffanie
TriCorefit.com, nstagram, facebook, social media is our big market where we share stories all day. You can see what is going on in the studio because we understand that it can be intimidating to walk into a gym for the first time so we try to make it as warm and welcoming as we can. I recommend to people to follow us on fb, follow us on Instagram, watch our stories and see that it’s not a room of super fit people just normal people working on ourselves trying to make friends and enjoy what we’re doing.
Nora:
This has been an honor to have you on my show. I love your energy and your smile. This will inspire a lot of women who need to start over. Thank you!
