My Story of How I Got into The Wellness Business
Many of you when coming to my office and looking at all the titles I have on my wall, which include one masters, two
post-graduates, and numerous certifications and diplomas, have asked me, “why so many and how did you land on the wellness business?”. To me this is a very legitimate question, given that while I was an undergraduate, I obtained a degree in Economics from an Ivy League University, followed by an MBA from a prestigious university in Canada, and work experience in the largest companies of this country. Furthermore, I went on and obtained a CFA and a CFP®: all indicatives of a very strong financial background. On the other hand, I didn’t stop there and got licensed in the aesthetics and laser world and worked towards additional certifications, including my current one in progress, the Registered Nurse Degree. To many this was not only a dramatic career change, but a waste of energy and resources. However, in time, I have been able to see how all of this is connected; almost as if some invisible hand was guiding me and shaping me into the person I am today.
I didn’t necessarily want all those degrees. The only goal I had clear at age seventeen was that I wanted to own my business, and that I wanted to start my family. I got my degree in Economics, because I didn’t really know what to study. Living in a small city made me fantasize about the world at large, so to me discovering this world was my main motivation at the time. My degree landed me a job at one of the largest companies of the world in the finance department. Of course, this was all new to me, coming from a very traditional family of Engineers. Yet this was only the beginning… after my years as an undergraduate, I ended up moving from Philadelphia to the Dominican Republic to Montreal to Boston to the Dominican Republic and to Miami, including four months in Asia. Each step required me to adjust and reinvent myself, and as I tried to figure things out, I continued collecting degrees. However, given my traditional background, once I had picked a career, I was supposed to do that for the rest of my life…
Life went on and I formed my family. I realized that to meet the demands of family life, the only way possible was by having the flexibility that being a business owner gives people. The desire of owning a business was too strong, and I found myself longing for that independence. That’s when the importance of my financial background became apparent to me. Not only did I have the background, but also the experience to run a business. The missing link was the business idea… and this would only come by paying attention to what life was showing me at the time. This opened a whole new “Box of Pandoras”. Again, I was exploring new waters.
So I ended up managing part-time a medical office, to adjust the demands of my family life. Managing a medical office was new to me, and this is when I fell in love with the field of aesthetics and wellness. Curing disease was okay…not too exciting, not too dull. There are many reasons for that, which I will cover in a future blog, but preventing disease and maintaining your well being, as we age gracefully, is fascinating. Not only do you apply it to yourself and you are cognizant of little things that you can do to improve your quality of life, but especially you learn to see the person as a whole. Yes we all want to be beautiful and look “forever young”, but beauty requires a whole person approach and complete focus on all aspects of a person. And this is where my background adds to all of it. Not only am I now able to successfully manage an office, but I can apply the principles that I learned before, including those discovered as a financial planner: when you look at a financial situation, you have to consider not only current cash flow, but insurance, investment, and all other needs… The same applies to prevention and wellness. Beauty comes from the inside out. It is the culmination of a process that reflects how much we love ourselves. If we love ourselves, we will exercise, eat healthy, sleep well, control stress levels, build a healthy environment and relationships, and of course take care of our appearance.
To make a story short, one day as I sat in the medical office I was managing, David suggested I get trained in the aesthetics equipment and actually do the procedures myself to be able to better manage the office. That was the beginning. To learn to walk we first have to crawl, and that was my first crawling experience as a business owner. One thing led to the other, and as my personal life started to crumble, I passionately followed my dream and started my own wellness practice. The rest is history…
I realized that life doesn’t cease to marvel me….once our minds are clear, unimaginable doors just open up and it is in the worst of these circumstances that when we dig deep enough we find the courage to be ourselves and answer our questions. It all made sense. I was now using EVERYTHING I had learned before and every step of the way felt like a grand ploy to take me where I am today…
