Money Manager Ditches Hong Kong and Wall Street For Matchmaking

Expectation vs. Reality.

We see it all the time on funny memes and viral social media posts, because it’s so relatable. The expectations we build up in our minds, the high standards we set for ourselves—sometimes we need to be humbled and brought back to reality.

As a new(ish) mom, nothing is more humbling than the realities of all those highlights we see on social media; think fall family photoshoots where you just know the toddler was screaming two seconds before getting that ONE shot that you need for a holiday card, or the trip to see Santa that ends with mom sweaty off to the side from wrangling a wriggly kid in an hour-long mall line.

(See my son's first meeting with the Big Guy himself... I'm off to the side trying to calm him to no avail).

Beyond our own expectations, there are the expectations that are placed on us by others. Those societal expectations weigh even heavier in certain cultures, and going against the grain can mean more than just a side-eye from a stranger.

For Cassindy Chao, being a second-generation Asian American whose parents moved to the states from Taiwan came with a lot of unspoken expectations.

“I was born in Queens, and my parents were very much about education; go to good schools, study hard, you know, be in the sciences or whatever,” Chao said. “And it didn't gel with me. I flunked out of my calculus class. I flunked out of chemistry. Clearly, that wasn't the path.”

Despite the failing grade in calculus, Chao found herself studying numbers; double majoring in Chinese studies and economics. The combination led to huge success in the banking industry- working on Wall Street and then Hong Kong at big-name institutions like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

“Everyone thought I was really good at numbers. The reality was, I'm really not very good at numbers,” Chao joked. “I'm okay, not great. I always just didn't feel like I shined there. I'd be in meetings and it's very hardcore… I’d sit there in meetings, having worked all night, but just being so bored. So bored.”

She worked in finance for ten years, but said she never loved it.

“It didn’t resonate with me,” Chao said. “I was having much more fun just thinking about who and who would be great dates, and who would match better.”

Whether intentional or not, Chao was paying homage to her roots by taking an interest in making a match; Though not exclusive to China, matchmakers have been part of Chinese culture dating back to ancient times, when engagements and marriages were more of a group effort focused on family reputations and social status. To this day, older generations still work to set up their children with a life partner. Despite this cultural acceptance, it did not make the switch from finance more palatable to Chao’s parents… at least at first.

“Every parent, whether you’re Asian or not, is worried about their kids and they want them to be financially independent, financially sound,” Chao said. “They didn’t come from Taiwan to the United States for me to be a matchmaker… I clearly wasn’t going to be a doctor, but certainly not a matchmaker.”

The expectation did not match Chao’s reality. After that decade in the banking industry, during a stint working in tech, Chao started to study again; at this time, for more of a hobby to escape the high-pressure workplace she was in… not numbers, but something similarly calculated.

“I love people. I really like to find what's special about them. And I love matching people… It’s just not what people are going to see when they first meet me,” Chao said.

Though she had a whole career in between, Chao’s first foray into matchmaking started at Wellesley College in the 1980s, where she launched the Asian Association’s Blind Date semiformal out of her dorm. Well before those finance jobs would take her around the world into some of the busiest boardrooms, she would find her peers matches by asking questions that included what their favorite cereal was.

Those early days at Wellesley came with a lot less pressure.

“It was so much fun,” Chao said. “I didn’t know until years later that it could be a career.”

Think about it- most everyone is looking for love or to be loved. It’s already a billion-dollar industry when you consider online dating services alone, nevermind the amount many spend trying to conform to what they believe will make them more desirable to a potential life partner. It makes sense that matchmakers help keep this love economy going, but it begs the question- what sets someone apart as a professional rather than simply a friend who wants to set you up?

“There’s a phrase called profitless prosperity, and that’s something to avoid,” Chao said. “Everybody has an inner-Cupid, we all want to help people match, but sometimes we do it pro-bono, for free; that’s profitless prosperity. What’s important is to make it into a business, because it does take time, and to really value your own time as well.”

Monetizing something as speculative as the potential to find a partner might’ve been trickier if Chao hadn’t come from the world of Wall Street—a profession full of men who wouldn’t think twice about what to charge for their time and expertise.

“I structured the packages, and it helped me learn to raise my rates. It’s a business. So my rule of thumb was, every three clients, it was time for me to raise my raes,” Chao said. “I also align my packages with the interests of the clients; I have a relationship bonus, or engagement bonus, so the clients feel comfortable that I’m aligned with them. I want their success.”

She’s found success through the help of a rigorous screening process, noting that the first person a client matches with is, in fact, their matchmaker.

“I think every matchmaker is different. For me, the process I do is very, very deliberate and very focused on the client… I have a very extensive intake,” Chao said. “I have to understand them, and they also have to trust me.”

That intake includes taking inventory of a person’s inner circle, and being a buffer for the sometimes very blunt feedback a friend may not feel comfortable saying to a person’s face.

“The smartest people have blind spots. So who are the people that love you? Maybe your family, your friends, and I’ll ask 3 to 5 of their trusted friends and family to kind of hear about what their blind spots are,” Chao said. “Who would you think is a really good match for them, or is there something that you're kind of afraid to tell your friend as to why they're still single?”

Though she wasn’t into the sciences when it came to studying, she certainly has a knack for spotting chemistry. After the intake and screening process, Chao’s clients get real-life, low pressure practice with some mock dates, which really just screams reality show waiting to happen.

“It’s a very safe practice date to see how this person is presenting,” Chao said. “Then I put together a program, and a dating plan, and sometimes it could be a dating buffet to try different people, to meet different people outside, and then do feedback. THEN I start doing the matches.”

Chao’s business, Ancient Wisdom/Modern Love (which is also the title of her book- available here) has three levels of service: Relationship Networking, in which anyone can join the ‘pool’ of singles looking for a match (for free), Relationship Coaching, which goes a little deeper and includes an hourly rate with a 10-hour minimum for more success in dating, and Matchmaking. Chao says not every prospective client gets to that third level.

“There are some clients who, even though they could pay, they're just they're just not suitable for matchmaking,” Chao said. “They’re very rigid, they have a checklist or sometimes they want a clone of somebody that they broke up with or who broke up with them… it’s a replica, and we can’t replicate that. We’re matchmakers, we’re not magicians.”

Preconceived notions- or expectations- not matching with reality.

“I get really involved, I’ll think about my clients all the time, so if they’re not kind of open minded, it’s really hard for me to work with them, and it will really bring me down if they’re angry or sometimes not emotionally available,” Chao said, clearly an empath. “That can happen when they might be healing from a divorce or a bad prior relationship, so they’ll be suspicious of everybody coming over the transom.”

Chao’s process is prestigious and private, and though she pulls from that Ancient Wisdom of her ancestors, her matchmaking looks much different than what you might see on the literal streets of China, where the tradition has become a source of controversy. Modern-day Chinese matchmaking involves a sorting of social status and hierarchy, with the ‘hukou’ system identifying a citizen’s permanent residence and, therefore, all but guaranteeing that the affluent stay surrounded by others of their same upbringing. For better or worse, being a native resident of Beijing or Shanghai comes with certain privileges.

Lucky for Chao and her clients, those factors are not an issue. In fact, her focus is the

opposite.

“A good matchmaker, we really delight in that unexpected match,” Chao said. “When you can kind of tickle their fancy with somebody they normally wouldn't have met, and then they really hit it off, that's where the magic happens.”

Chao credits the magic she’s able to create to the training she received from a fellow Wellesley graduate, who she reached out to during a slump at her finance gig.

“It was serendipitous. I was really bored at my job, and frustrated, and I saw this article in a magazine about a wonderful matchmaker… She had said, that you train for the best. So I contacted her and I found out who she trained with,” Chao said. “It's one thing to want to do it, but it's another thing to be really good at it and to make it into a business. That's not easy. It took a lot of tweaking to find where my strengths were and to know my own niche.”

Chao’s website describes her business as the Premier Asian Matchmaker and Dating Concierge- but it’s not exclusive to Asian Americans.

“Half of my clients are actually non-Asian,” Chao said. “It’s really empowering for professional women, for smart people, for people who are free spirits.”

But even free spirits want a quick fix. Chao is careful not to overpromise a match, and warns her clients that this is a process.

“They often think I just serve up the people, they go on three dates, and they choose. I think that’s what everyone wants,” Chao said. “So what I tell them, is this is an important decision. The cost of mistakes is very, very high, that you do want to spend a little time here.”

Even in a paid service, people often think they know best. Chao says, in those cases, it’s better to show, not tell.

“People will be people. Sometimes, what I’ll do, is set them up on matches that might be what they THINK they really want, but in our heart, we know it’s problematic,” Chao said. “We let them come to that conclusion, too.”

It’s a little bit of reverse psychology, and though she’s not a licensed mental health therapist, Chao says the coaching she provides is often a gateway for her clients to unlock certain mental blocks; something she has a bit of experience in, too, after changing career paths.

“It’s very hard, navigating a new career path,” Chao said. “There’s a lot of self doubt to walk away from a career that pays quite well, even though it makes one unhappy, was very difficult. I think it’s important to have a deliberate plan in place as to how long you’re going to be doing this for, and to make sure that you make money on it.”

You might be surprised to hear that this matchmaker says the process to launch her business of connecting new couples, was quite lonely. She found community in the Matchmakers Alliance, a group of around 80 matchmakers that shares advice… and shares clientele for potential matches.

“We have to collaborate in matchmaking, because nobody has the world’s biggest database, right?” Chao said. “Sometimes people have certain requirements. For example, a client who is seeking only a Christian gentleman… I only have a certain percentage of my database, so it’s important because we want the best for our clients and we want to give them the broadest scope of people they can meet.”

That community over competition mindset is something I’ve witnessed Chao practice and not just preach. Even though we only just met for this interview, she immediately made me feel like I had a friend and confidante for life, offering to help network me for emceeing opportunities as if we go back for decades. One of her first questions to me was how SHE could help ME, which is indicative of the type of dating coach and matchmaker she is for her clients.

That’s what she hopes will continue to set her apart from the sea of apps and AI systems that promise to find you a match online with just a few swipes.

“Online dating has its place. There's nothing wrong with online dating. The good news of online dating is that there are so many people on it,” Chao said. “What's difficult with online dating, though, is that I highly doubt anybody will say it's a very positive experience. It's difficult. There's a lot of strangers out there. There's a lot of safety issues, a low level of confidentiality. And for some of my clients, they're very private. They can't afford to have their names out there, or their pictures out there.”

I think of all the friends I’ve had in newsrooms over the years, risking it all on Tinder only to be immediately recognized for their on-air work… not what people in my industry tend to lead with when they’re looking for a date, leading to potential safety or stalker issues. Chao says her goal is to prevent those problems and to protect her client’s hearts, too.

“If you’re online dating and somebody gaslights you or says something rude or just swipes, it’s very hurtful,” Chao said. “I want my clients to be as happy and positive as possible. So if they’re doing online dating and they’ve just been treated poorly, they’re not really presenting their best and it takes a lot longer.”

Her hope is to eliminate that back and forth, reduce the time it takes to find a match, and to create a positive outlook during the process.

“My goal is much more focused, and much more about preserving the client’s happiness, so that way they can navigate this relatively smoothly and with as little negativity as possible,” Chao said. “It’s not perfect, but that’s what we try to do.”

So how does she weed through a database of strangers to find a perfect match? Aside from cross-referencing with other matchmakers, Chao does email campaigns, LinkedIn campaigns, and uses specific requirements to narrow down a potential partner, all keeping confidentiality of clients in mind.

“I try to meet all the matches in person, because a good matchmaker is protective of their clients,” Chao said.

Successful matches and a strong client base are signs of success, but with those ever-present societal expectations and value placed on ‘traditional’ careers, Chao admits she’s still working to feel comfortable and proud of explaining her profession to others.

“I think it’s part of my upbringing,” Chao said. “I would say maybe two years ago I started feeling better about it, and I think it’s part of coinciding with my own age and midlife crisis or whatever it is, but also just being authentic and owning it.”

There is magic that happens when you own your authenticity. The happiest people I know are unapologetic about who they are.

It wasn’t an overnight process for Chao.

“I would say about two years ago, I started feeling like I could be much more open about what I do,” Chao said. “I changed my LinkedIn profile to allow for that, because I was kind of hiding behind a finance consultant role. I finally realized that it’s so much more comfortable and resonates so much better to be authentic. Instead of pretending to be a finance executive, when the reality is, I’m a great matchmaker and I love what I do. How fortunate is that?”

The LinkedIn update was met with mixed reviews; though most people Chao was already close to were very positive about the change, more formal finance folks went silent.

“I get it,” Chao said. “It’s sensitive now. Maybe they feel a little uncomfortable, and maybe they feel like they need to assure me they’re very happy with their marriages, and that’s fine… I love it, because people who are married make the best introductions for us because they get what’s wonderful about marriage.”

The shift toward living her most authentic life means Chao isn’t as focused on other people’s opinions.

“It’s a learning process. I think it’s hard for a professional woman, because there’s a lot of value put upon youth and friendliness, but sometimes you might not feel that friendly,” Chao said. “We just want to be ourselves.”

“I think the authenticity and vulnerability is a very interesting concept, because it also means that we’re accepting ourselves, and we’re viewing ourselves as a source of strength versus weakness. It’s very stressful to hold up a façade.”

For example- if clients aren’t truthful about their age or upbringing, those lies will start to expose themselves because you can’t lie about the music you grew up listening to or the traditions you held for the holidays.

“In Chinese, we have a phrase which means you’re pretending to be a horse, but the donkey’s foot comes out,” Chao laughed. “It’s really hard. It’s important to be authentic. It’s strengthening and empowering, and I think it just makes us happier. When we’re happier, we date better, we present better… we’re much more interesting, we’re not as rigid.”

Because she gets so invested in each of her clients, Chao chooses only to work with a dozen or fewer at a time… and because she gets so invested in each of her clients, she ends up fronting a lot of emotional weight on their behalf.

“It really is hard being a matchmaker, because you do take every client very seriously,” Chao said. “I’m in this position, I’m in this career, because I want to be helpful and effective, and it's very disappointing sometimes when that's not happening.”

She also has come to terms with the fact that this process won’t be streamlined, or even successful, for everybody. Sometimes people won’t be ready, or they may have blocked their own blessings by having certain expectations they’re unwilling to negotiate on.

“I could only marry a man who’s 5’11 or taller,” Chao said as an example. “When we start kind of letting go of that, that's when the magic happens. And sometimes you end up with exactly what we wanted to. But that's a process, right? And it doesn't come easily, because people have had that with them for years. I have I tell myself that it just takes time, and I work with them to kind of unlock it to where they can be much more open minded.”

When that works, Chao finds her calm; but when it doesn’t, she feels stressed and sad. Did I mention she’s an empath?

Aside from her own emotions, Chao fields plenty of unwelcome emotions from clients, too.

“It’s par for the course for being a matchmaker to get a lot of anger tossed at you, too,” Chao said. “Sometimes it's rightly so, but most times not. And I think that it's always important to remember that when you're single, sometimes you can be a little bit more emotionally fragile just because, you know, you may not have the emotional support that you are seeking.”

In any job, there’s a need for boundaries; but being so close to her clients, it’s easy for those lines to get blurred. How does one leave the office when your business is in your brain? Is Cassindy trying to match up every stranger she sees in public, every new acquaintance or friend?

“It’s always front of mind,” Chao said. “You’re always thinking, that person could be a good match. Do they have any nice friends? Every time I meet somebody, I’m always thinking about that. It’s because it’s something that is so important to me that I love doing, it permeates everything.”

Her love for helping others find love has paid off in dozens of relationships and engagements, including a recent success story of a client who was over the age she typically serves; At 80 years old, the man’s son hired Chao to help him find love after loss.

“I thought to myself, can I do this? And I did. The father trusted me. He was focused. We went from interviews and dates to him finding the ring in months,” Chao said. “I’ve never had somebody go that quickly.”

The urgency at 80 is truly a lesson for all of us not to wait to go after anything we want in life.

“He was like, look, I don’t have time to waste. An the woman he found was actually a few months older than him,” Chao said. “I love that they both found love late in life and they’re like high school sweethearts right now. They’re so cute together. I’m really happy about this one.”

Just like you probably wouldn’t take parenting tips from a person without kids, it makes sense that Cassindy’s most successful match to date is the one she has with her husband, Fred. Like many of her clients, she says he’s not the person she expected to marry.

“I met him at a birthday party of a mutual friend,” Chao said. “He was in sandals, in a T-shirt and shorts. I went to go flirt with this Australian-Chinese gentleman with a great accent. But meanwhile, Fred was always kind of back in mind as being just a very nice person. I was thinking, this will just be a fling. You know, not my type. But we just fell in love. He makes me a better person.”

Those darn expectations vs. realities, again.

“He’s the right person for me. The person that I need. I joke that I could walk around with a paper bag over my face and he would still think I was the hottest thing since sliced bread,” Chao laughed. “He’s a Midwesterner, and I remember thinking that since I was in finance that I had to marry some person who is sophisticated and went to an Ivy League school, all this kind of stuff… no no no. We would hate each other.”

Fred and Cassindy matched before she became a matchmaker, and like she had to break the news of a big career change to her parents, she had to break it to her hubby, too. How would your partner feel if you wanted to devote your time to pairing up suitable singles?

“He was totally supportive,” Chao said. “Fred is supportive, he’s smart, he’s funny, he’s just a great guy. He’s a great father and an amazing husband.”

The connection Cassindy has with her match is the type she tells her clients is only possible when they first love and fully accept themselves.

“I think quite often when people are seeking partners, they’re looking to complete themselves, and that’s a very dangerous way to approach relationships,” Chao said. “It’s really important to love oneself, to accept oneself, because otherwise you’re always looking for somebody else to complete you or to make up for certain shortcomings that you think are so critical.”

When was the last time you spoke love into yourself? Truly? When was the last time your inner dialogue was a positive one, and not beating yourself up over what you would’ve/could’ve/should’ve done? (S/O to my girl, Taylor for that line!).

“Just kind of revel in your own secret superpowers, what makes you, you,” Chao said. “One thing I ask clients to do is to write down five things that are really wonderful about themselves, what your friends or I would say. Why do your friends like to hang out with you? When you write those down and you visualize it, and think about it and internalize and own it, it will make you a better dater.”

This is the part of our interview where Cassindy told me about a Chinese phrase that means something along the lines of ‘taking gold pieces all over your face.’

Stay with me.

“What it really means is you’re letting your inner shine out,” Chao said. “You really should be able to shine, and be radiant because think about how much more attractive that is to anybody, whether it’s for romance or for friendship. You just have to be radiant. It’s ok to put the gold pieces on your face.”

Of course, we’re not all going to feel shiny all the time. Chao, like every other person I’ve interviewed for this blog thus far, has experienced the dullness of imposter syndrome throughout her life.

“It’s so insidious, because it takes great, strong women, and makes them feel helpless and incapacitated,” Chao said. “I have had imposter syndrome throughout my finance career. Even though I was promoted from analyst, associate and then executive director in Hong Kong, it plagued me. We are our own worst jailors.”

Even now, after many successful matches, it still creeps in from time to time.

“There are some very successful matchmakers, and they’re like the Queen Bees. They’re powerful, they’re amazing, they’re sharp. I just feel like, how could I even call myself a matchmaker next to them? I still have that sometimes… You just have to have that faith that if we work at it, things will move forward.”

And in those times you don’t feel you can move forward alone, think back to the survey Cassindy does of her prospective clients’ family and friends- what would they say about you? How do they see you?

“What I have found really helpful is the power of your friend network; a board sounds silly, but it is helpful to have a board of trusted friends. Three to five people you can share your goals with, and you help each other and support each other, and it’s a safe place. With imposter syndrome and all these things, we need a little bit of positive reinforcement,” Chao said. “And look at the trade off, right? Because being unhappy… that has a cost. So often we think, we can’t [make a change] because of the cost, but we don’t realize that the cost of being unhappy is also quite expensive.”

Seeing your life as a corporation, and your friends as a group of investors there to guide you. It’s genius, and no surprise, coming from a finance guru. Truly, it’s why so many people are seeking a match… to weather those tough decisions and lonely times of life.

In life or in love, you have to do the inner work first to see the outer world change.

“You have to be intentional… whether it's for love, or for a job, or for friendship; if you let your goals be known, it's really important. I think it's a step out of one's comfort zone,” Chao said. “A lot of times they don't like asking for help. We don't like letting people know our vulnerabilities. But I think it is important because we're human beings. We're not that different. We all want to be helpful to each other.”

It’s a strange paradox that giving to others makes us feel more full; still, Chao can tell when someone isn’t truly ready to match their actions to their words.

“I have had some clients that the timing is just off. I feel bad because I do want everybody to find their love, but sometimes they're just not ready for it,” Chao said. “I had a wonderful, wonderful woman who's so talented, so smart, but she was just stuck. She was stuck on somebody who really resembled a person that she had been with before, and this person was not good for her, because it made her very unhappy. We tried so many ways to get her to see… and I'm not a therapist. The client has to want to make a proactive change, and if they can’t do it, I also have to let go.”

Sometimes, just the practice of putting yourself out there is enough of a starting point. There’s a Chinese phrase for that, too… something along the lines of riding the mule to catch the horse.

“Go out dating, because if you're not dating, you're certainly not going to be in the running to go find your partner, the horse,” Chao laughed. “If you're not out there sending your resume out or reaching out to people, then you're certainly not going to get that great job. Ride the mule to catch the horse.”

She pulls out these phrases for her clients when she wants to soften the blow of certain feedback but still get her point across.

“How would it sound if I said to you, you overshared, you went overboard with your date? It’s much better to say something like, you don’t want to play the flute for the cow,” Chao said. “Giving feedback to matchmaking clients is very, very sensitive, and it has to be handled very delicately, because we want their emotional equanimity to be strong so that they date better.”

And it may shock you to learn that a woman who has dedicated this second act of her life to finding others their match, doesn’t believe in ‘the one’ in its truest meaning.

“I don’t necessarily think that there’s only one in the whole world,” Chao said. “I think that there are many ones for people. A lot of it's about how receptive they are at the time… I don't think there's only one the one.”

“I think that when people are attracted to each other, there’s two factors; chemistry and respect. So if you can hit that, that’s really important, there’s going to be a relationship there,” Chao said. “I think it's a very large world.”

Cassindy points out that oftentimes, we are the ones who narrow down our own playing fields. We are the ones setting boundaries on ourselves- using others’ expectations to carve out our realities.

“If we’re a little more open-minded about what factors really matter, quite often, we have love that’s not that far from us.”

SoulCycle Pseudo-Star Takes On Thindustry With Normal Nutrition Coaching on TikTok

This was a tough entry to write.

Every day of my life, at least once a day, I’ve thought about being smaller.

I truly cannot remember a time- throughout my childhood to now age 36- where this wasn’t part of my subconscious.

I remember the teacher who called me ‘big boned’ in 2nd grade.

I remember when boys in my class would sing ‘I Can See Clearly Now’ with the words changed from rain to my name, a jab indicating that when I was in the room they couldn’t see around my mass.

I remember my older, much cooler relatives teasing me for getting seconds at a family gathering.

I remember being offered Slim Fast and protein shakes as a middle schooler as an after-school snack, Tae-Bo tapes in my room, and 100 calorie pack Oreos.

In high school and college, my weight would fluctuate as an indicator of my mental health, relationship status, and finances.

I’ve kept some of the emails I’ve received as a broadcast journalist, including the viewer who said I should be taken off the air until I lost 75 pounds. That one came from a female nurse, at a time where I weighed less than I do right now.

Most recently, when I was pregnant with my son, I was forced to take the test for gestational diabetes twice, even though I had no indicators other than my BMI that I would be at high-risk. Both tests came back within normal levels.

My BMI also meant increased scrutiny during pregnancy, with weekly non-stress-tests (which are an oxymoron by name, because they’re certainly stress-inducing) from week 30-on, each one passed with flying colors.

Even now, as I write this blog, I am thinking about the cupcakes I had this weekend for my son’s second birthday, and how to get ‘back on track’ this week.

The mental weight of being overweight is heavy, no pun intended.

It’s something even algorithms can sniff out, which means my TikTok FYP is often filled with the latest trends to lose weight; 12/3/30, 30/30/30, high protein, low carb, etc. etc. So it was refreshing when I saw a familiar face a few months ago while scrolling, sharing research about the true impact of weight on health and the weight discrimination so many people face in their daily lives.

I’ve known Joey Coppedge for nearly a decade, after meeting his husband 18 years ago (which is insane to write) during a summer spent working at American Eagle as I interned at a news station in Phoenix (this was back when internships didn’t pay). When we first met, Joey was a staple in the New York City fitness scene, as one of the most-sought coaches at SoulCycle during its peak of popularity.

Before Peloton created fitness celebrities that would become household names, certain SoulCycle coaches were the closest to it; and if I didn’t know him to be one of the kindest, warmest people, I would for sure have been intimidated by him.

He started his journey into the thindustry as a consumer, and quickly worked his way to the front of the class.

“I took a SoulCycle class with a friend and, you know, it's an endorphin high. It's easy to get addicted to,” Coppedge said. “It was only a few classes in where I noticed a weight change, which was easier than I'd ever had experienced in my life. So that, on top of the endorphins, was the reward I needed to continue feeding this addiction, so did it a lot. I don't even know how I afforded it at that time.”

To combat the cost and to monetize his newfound habit, Coppedge became a coach, training with master instructors and taking dozens of classes.

“In that, I sort of constantly maintained this thinner body, and I really liked that,” Coppedge said. “I really also didn’t understand at the time that this was the thing making me thinner, and even though I did not recognize it at the time, I was the thinnest I ever was. I realize now that I was doing it in the least healthy way possible.”

Overworked, overstressed, and undernourished; it was a recipe for burnout, but not before being praised for his body in one of the most competitive industries and one of the most discerning cities in the world. Coppedge was even featured in Men’s Health during his engagement, with the concerning implication that people who aren't fitness instructors need to drop ten pounds before going down the aisle.

“Obviously, it wasn’t great for my health. I think it’s very easy for a lot of people to find themselves in that place, when they find what ‘works’ for them, and then just keep doing it until they’re told otherwise or until their body starts to tell them otherwise,” Coppedge said. “I wanted to get away from that, because I could tell after a few years that this was not a sustainable way to live, especially doing something as extreme as I was, teaching two or three or four classes a day and riding every single one is really hard on your body.”

You can’t outwork a bad diet, and you can’t workout on a bad one, either.

“That’s how I really became interested in figuring out this nutrition thing,” Coppedge said. “I needed to figure out how to nourish myself in a way that I felt good, and to fuel all these things I want to do.”

Most trainers or fitness instructors I know have some education in nutrition, as well, but for Joey, this was new territory. And unlike most trainers or fitness instructors I know, he’s chosen to use his platform for a conversation about body neutrality and busting myths about the impact weight has on your health.

“I started off really being interested in nutrition because I have always really struggled with food and body image and how they're connected, and disordered eating behaviors sort of defined how I approached food at all times,” Coppedge said, attributing the lifelong struggle to being a product of the 90s. “To constantly be on a diet, that kind of feels normal… So that's kind of why I got into nutrition and wanted to make it my sole thing.”

“I felt like the more I understood it, and the more I could control it, the more I felt in control of my own relationship with food, and the more empowered I felt over it, as opposed to feeling like it was control controlling me.”

Joey started studying while he was still training fitness clients; some of whom happened to be trying to get pregnant or doing IVF. He found that he didn’t have the ability to talk to them about the foods they should be eating or the language to describe the risks, if any existed, of certain diets.

“What was the difference in the foods they needed?” Coppedge said. “There’s no fertility nutrition degree or anything like that, so it was kind of a self-learning with a cell phone journey, and I just did it because I wanted to be more resourceful for my current clients.”

He also lost a good chunk of his client base through a coast-to-coast move, relocating with his husband to California where they intend to start a family of their own.

“I sort of lost the social media following I knew in New York… I had to start over a little bit,” Coppedge said. “I knew I needed to narrow down my niche to something specific and not just move to California and say, ‘Hi, I’m a nutritionist… everyone is.”

After years of thinking about food and exercise as an avenue to a certain body type, Coppedge started to think about nutrition as it relates to fertility; sperm quality, egg quality, and pregnancy. He rebranded to Fertility Nutrition Coach, and eventually, Normal Nutrition Coach.

“I sort of took the direction of aiming my marketing focus at fertility clinics with the assumption that, if they have fertility patients who are struggling to get pregnant and I can help them change their eating to improve their egg quality or sperm quality or the likelihood of success in their treatment, then I would be a good resource for the fertility clinic, and patients,” Coppedge said. “And what I learned through that experience is that, like a lot of health care, a fertility clinic is really well established and doesn't necessarily need the help of nutritionists to make their patients healthier.”

There’s also the inconvenient truth that the fertility business is, in fact, a business.

“Not to sound cynical, but in a way there's no incentive for a fertility clinic to want their patients to come less,” Coppedge said. “I don't believe that any doctor actually is thinking that consciously, but I do think that fertility clinics don't necessarily want to put any more funding into bringing a nutritionist on board, or potentially losing out on any money, or more specifically, hurting the numbers that they turn into the CDC that the general public can see as far as how successful that clinic looks.”

I probably don’t need to belabor the point (killing it with the puns today)- women often face weight discrimination around fertility and during pregnancy. I had so much anxiety during my pregnancy about gaining more than what the internet says you should, or any weight at all, and even though I was working out consistently before getting pregnant, some doctors even told me that it was a risk for me to continue (which goes against most advice and logic). In addition to the double glucose tests and weekly nonstress tests, I felt the scrutiny every time I stepped on the scale, and it led to a lot of additional stress and tears during an already stressful time.

“It’s paradoxical almost; a lot of patients are not told or guided toward how to nurture themselves in a way that creates a friendly environment for a single-celled organism to turn into a human,” Coppedge said. “On the contrary, people are just told to lose weight.”

Coppedge grew frustrated with what he calls a negligent care system that pushes weight loss without addressing all the factors that go into fertility.

“You’re conflating weight with the reason that they're potentially not getting pregnant, when in reality, there could be lots of other social and environmental factors, and nutritional factors, that we're just ignoring by telling someone to eat less,” Coppedge said. “It's also negligent from an ethical standard. You know, you're denying health care to someone based on their weight. You're blatantly discriminating against their weight.”

Many of the patients referred to Joey from fertility clinics were described by doctors as overweight or obese.

“I always made sure that the people I was working with knew that I’m not a nutritionist to help people become supermodels or bodybuilders. That’s not my point. Any nutritionist can do that, and most do. My point is to help people rebuild a relationship with food, and to feel empowered and in control of their bodies, period,” Coppedge said. “I’m not here to help people just lose weight for no reason, but almost everybody who is referred to me comes with a note that says ‘this person is obese or overweight,’ and that pisses me off because it’s not fair to that person, and it’s not what I’m here for.”

The disdain for weight discrimination spurred Joey to act, becoming a resource for those who otherwise had healthcare denied from them… and using his voice to speak on their behalf.

“This trend of people being referred to me just for being in a bigger body only, that’s what sort of got me to want to be a little bit more vocal about the truths behind weight and our health,” Coppedge said. “A lot of the things we are trying to prevent by losing weight, like heart disease and stroke and cardiovascular disease, all of these things that we think we’re trying to avoid by avoiding being fat or getting fat are actually made worse by this constant message to lose weight, lose weight, lose weight.”

“Everybody in America is already really good at eating less. We’re doing it all the time. The fact that obesity epidemic has still been on the rise, while at the same time the prevalence of being on a diet is also on the rise, kind of indicates that dieting isn’t really helping us with this so-called epidemic.”

Joey is sounding off—using the platform he earned through years of SoulCycle stardom to counter the industry that focuses so much on aesthetics- to disrupt the toxic diet culture so many of us have known our whole lives- and calling out many of the talking points used to discriminate against someone based on their weight, which he says, really have little to do with their overall health.

“There’s lots of research that will say people who are in bigger bodies have a higher risk of X, Y, Z, a higher risk of miscarriage, any sort of negative outcome. And that’s true, that the odds are slightly higher to have negative outcomes, but that doesn’t always mean weight loss is the answer,” Coppedge said. “It just means that people who started off in a smaller body usually have better outcomes.”

“The system is a little bit too fragmented and broken up for someone to necessarily care about the future and long-term health of a patient, as opposed to, how can you ‘look’ fixed right now?”

Joey has taken that message to the masses on TikTok, growing to nearly 16-thousand followers and nearly a half-million likes on his videos about intuitive eating and nutrition, but there are plenty of haters in the comments.

They seem to show up whenever a person in a bigger body is simply existing or being defended.

“They do. But fortunately, I think maybe this is just a product of the TikTok algorithm,” Coppedge said of the bad comments. “99% of the comments are people who are saying THANK YOU for saying this, I’ve been trying to say this my whole life, and no one listens.”

It wasn’t a straight line from fitness instructor to body positive influencer. Joey had to heal his own body image issues and a lifetime of food scrutiny.

“I didn't grow up like in a household where people were pointing a finger at me and calling me names, it wasn’t an explicitly shameful experience growing up,” Coppedge said. “However, I guess what I mean by being a product of the 90s, is that it was everywhere. It didn’t matter if it was in your household or not. Magazines and TV and there wasn’t even social media, but thank goodness there wasn’t… everything was out to tell you that this thin body is the body you should have.”

Joey, who grew up in North Carolina, felt even more pressure when he moved to the big city as a young man.

“I think growing up in the South is one thing, [different body types are] somewhat more accepted. But then as I grew older, and I moved to New York, as a gay man, that added a whole new layer of body shame and body image standards to live up to,” Coppedge said. “That’s when I really became much more obsessive; when I was younger, I was just full of shame. When I was in my early twenties, gay in New York, I was full of comparison. And, it became much more desperate, to have this certain look in order to just fit in and have an easier life.”

“Looking back on that now, I hate that it had to be that way for me, and I hate that it is that way for people still.”

That remorse comes from clarity after taking a step back, and a step away, from the fierce fitness industry, and a strong sense of self awareness. Even SoulCycle knew its stereotype of being a competitive, aspirational setting, poking fun at itself as part of Amy Schumer’s movie ‘I Feel Pretty’ in 2018; Mashable saying better than I could about the movie, “I Feel Pretty does an A+ job of positioning SoulCycle as the workout of choice for stone-cold hotties. Everyone seen in those classes looks effortlessly cool and stylish – these women don't sweat, they glow…”

I’ve never done a SoulCycle ride. I’m an avid OrangeTheory girl, and there’s nowhere to hide in those classes; but in other cycling classes, I’ve been the one in the back trying to avoid eye contact with the instructor and anyone else who might look my way.

I’m the client Joey would seek out personally during his time at the front of the ride.

“I think that's what makes me feel empowered, is that I can be a resource for those people, the third-row riders who are already scared of being there because they already know what people think,” Coppedge said. “The people who don't go and play in public parks because they know they're going to get the opposite of a cat call, right?”

“That’s why we're doing this in the first place. That's why we're focusing on our health. It's why we are going out of our way and paying money. It's because we want to feel empowered and healthy in our bodies, and we don't really need more obstacles in the way of that. And it makes it just makes me feel purposeful to be a resource for those people who might need that and aren't getting it from anywhere else.”

Holding space for those who don’t feel at home in the gym or welcome with a nutritionist isn’t just noble, but a niche Joey wishes more in his profession would seek.

“It didn't make sense for people to have to abuse and malnourish themselves on purpose to be accepted and live a life that they are in control of and feel empowered in… I thought that was just messed up, not only for me, but all these people who are coming in and paying $35 to ride a bike to nowhere,” Coppedge said. “I feel like that kind of gave me a voice, that rebellious part of me was like… this is not a sustainable thing.”

Not sustainable, but always in my subconscious. Though I was leading the interview, I felt like Joey was talking directly to me when he had a chance to reflect on a question that he often poses to his clients; Would weighing less truly make you happy?

“It is true that you would be accepted a little bit more in society, but do you think that it would make you happy to have to change your body in order to fit in?” Coppedge asked rhetorically. “The answer is usually no.”

His process with clients is as much about working through their psyche as their physique, focusing on fixing their relationship with food and removing themselves from a cycle of losing and regaining the same ten pounds; weight cycling that comes from chronic dieting that can cause even more long-term problems and inflammation.

“It’s always in those conversations where people realize, oh, I didn't even realize that I was demonizing this food. I just thought it was demonized. It's been demonized my whole life by everybody else, and I just know to be ashamed of it,” Coppedge said. “The breakthrough moment for those people is just hearing that you don't actually need to forbid those foods, and the fact that you are forbidding them is making you want them more… we don't need to live a life of shame because the more we feel ashamed of those food choices, the more we will forbid those things and perpetuate that cycle.”

| Enter the three donuts I ate over the course of the day yesterday during my son’s birthday celebration… and the shame I continue to feel as I look at the box sitting on the counter, waiting to be tossed…|

Intuitive eating goes against all intuition when you’ve been conditioned to think certain foods are bad.

“It’s not as easy as it sounds just to stop forbidding foods. It does take work,” Coppedge said. “I think that's where someone like myself, a nutritionist, can come in and help you sort of stay focused and do that in a way that makes you feel safe and not triggered by other food insecurities that you may have.”

It’s a work in progress, even for him. You can’t flip a switch from being part of the machine that keeps the multi-billion dollar thindustry running (or cycling, in this case) to rebelling against it without first fixing your own food issues.

“There's a level of vigilance that is still always required,” Coppedge said, offering an example; “I never allowed Oreos into our house, ever, because I always felt like I was out of control around foods like that… what’s changed for me is that those types of foods are allowed now, and in fact, on purpose, I keep those types of foods stocked so that I know in my own mind that this food is available, I'm allowed to have these things… I'm also allowed to enjoy them and allowed to eat as much of them as I as I want to.”

Although I’m quick to call him anti-diet, Joey considers himself a diet agnostic, noting that for people with certain disorders or diseases, certain diets may be medically necessary. But he is definitely anti-disordered eating, including all the ‘hacks’ we think are saving us calories that can end up sabotaging us in the end.

“I would say the dieting behavior that I hate to see the most is people trying to substitute so-called healthier foods for indulgences, especially when it’s not done well,” Coppedge said, pointing out the cottage-cheese-can-be-anything trend on social media. “It’s not going to scratch the same itch.”

I’ve mentioned the Four Agreements in my previous blogs, and they hold true in Joey’s case, too; Never Make Assumptions. Would you assume that a nutritionist is the one to order the healthiest meal on a night out, or taking a close look at your plate with judgment?

You’d assume wrong.

“You should just eat what you want, and you should truly feel empowered in eating it,” Coppedge said. “Most likely what’s on my plate is not what you would assume health professionals would have on their plate. I’m going to have dessert, I'm going to have an appetizer. I'm going to have some of the food on your plate, too. I'm going to eat the bread. I'm going to eat all these things, and I'm going to do it in a way that is conscious of how I'm going to feel after I leave this dinner as well.”

“That sort of attitude is what I'm trying to teach people, not necessarily what to feel ashamed or proud of on their plate.”

Whew. How many dinners have I ordered something I didn’t truly want, just because I was the biggest girl at the table? Do you know how transformative someone like Joey would have been in my life at a young age? How much time I’ve spent worried about how my worth is tied to my weight or what I’m eating?

Joey’s journey to food enlightenment came with some time off from the gym entirely, taking a year off after being fed up and frankly, not liking it (who can’t relate?).

“Like I said earlier, as a gay man living in New York in my twenties, my expectation was that I needed to be thin and muscular; it would just make my life easier,” Coppedge said. “And the common feeling that I had throughout the entire time was that I hated it. I hated going to the gym. I do not like going to the gym, it’s my personal opinion about the gym. I hate it.”

I can also attest, as a 30-something, getting the same results in the gym takes twice as much work as it used to… so instead of trying to achieve a certain body type, Joey is focusing on joyful workouts.

“I value movement. I value getting my heart rate up. I really enjoy going on hikes, or taking my dogs somewhere, or riding a bike, things like that,” Coppedge said. “I also have started going back to the gym now, but for much different motivations. I feel like having that time off allowed me to remove the one outcome that I believed was the only outcome, which was just to get a muscular body. I have replanted this other motivation, which is, I want to feel strong. I want to like roll over in my bed easily without hurting my back. You know what I mean?”

30s hit different, folks. And though it can come with a backache or two, it also comes with the freedom of letting go of others (or your own) expectations.

“I don't really think about aesthetics anymore,” Coppedge said. “I do sort of like look around to the 20-somethings and think, you’ll get there one day.”

Is Joey an anomaly? Or have we all just experienced weight-based issues through a lens that makes us question the intent of all trainers/nutritionists/health coaches?

It could be a little of both.

“Most nutritionists know these things. But at the same time, what makes money and what is the most exciting for people is weight loss, period,” Coppedge said. “I think it probably would make my life much easier if I just went on [social media] and told people how to lose weight, because most people, especially when we’re younger, we’re not speaking about our health; we're thinking about looks and being sexy.”

He's part of a shift that he’s witnessing firsthand; body positivity is becoming more accepted, and many people seeking his services simply want to feel happy, healthy, and in control. As he and Lucio prepare to become parents, he hopes to help garner in a new generation with a healthier relationship with food… something I am working to do for my son, as well.

“It will take work, but it will be worthy work to teach them how to have a relationship with food that just makes them feel good, and doesn’t make them feel like they need to deprive themselves of things,” Coppedge said.

No Slim Fast shakes for after school snacks.

Real, regular-size Oreos instead of the 100-calorie packs.

No at-home body shaming that’s worse than the rewritten songs at school.

Maybe we can all heal, together, through Joey’s example.

“I need people to know that you can desire health, you can desire to to be in control and feel empowered in your body with food, without the end result needing to be weight loss,” Coppedge said. “It is possible to be healthy, the healthiest you've ever been, without needing to starve yourself or deprive yourself of the thing that brings joy to everyone's life, which is food.”

Disney Diehard Turned Web Designer During Covid

The pandemic forced a lot of things.

Forced us six feet apart.

Forced companies to reevaluate what an office really means.

Forced families to face how fragile life can be.

And for many, it forced them out of their careers.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that nearly 50-million Americans reported being out of work due to COVID-related closures in May of 2020; a point in the pandemic when I think we were all optimistic that we would ‘flatten the curve’ by the end of summer and everything would go back to normal.

Few industries felt the impacts the way the tourism and hospitality sector did, which happens to be the largest employment base in Florida- and particularly where I live, in Orlando.

During the early weeks and months of the pandemic, we ran countless stories on the number of people filing unemployment claims and waiting months for answers from the Department of Economic Opportunity, all while sidelined by closures at Disney, Universal and Seaworld… and the trickle-down impact the closures had on our hotels, restaurants… just about every aspect of business.

This also forced another phenomenon- somewhat the basis of this blog- a burst in entrepreneurship as everyone scrambled to figure out how to pay their bills and not add housing behind a steady paycheck on the list of things the pandemic stole away.

Forced entrepreneurship.

Though she had started to dip her toe in the small business waters just before COVID would close down and eliminate her dream job at Disney, Kristin Wyza always wanted her mobile spray tanning side gig to stay just that- a side hustle.

“I fully expected to retire with the Disney company,” Wyza said of her job of more than 18 years. Working in Disney Vacation Club’s quality assurance allowed her to travel 10 to 12 times per year, and allowed her to see the world.

“I love traveling,” Wyza said. “I’ve been to over 30 countries at this point. It was a dream job, for sure. That’s where I was once the pandemic hit.”

When the first lockdown happened in March of 2020, her entire department was first furloughed. She used the time to launch a mobile tanning business; something she thought would be just for fun—something she could do on the side once the world reopened.

A week later, she got the call that her longtime, dream position, wasn’t coming back.

“I had anticipated that once the pandemic was over, initially thinking it was only going to be a couple of weeks, that I was just going to go back to the traveling, and go back to the office, and everything would go back to the status quo. And that surely wasn't how it happened,” Wyza said. “It really forced me to figure out how things were going to go after. Once I got that phone call, saying I’m no longer going to be with the company, I thought, I'm going to have to do this. You know, I just going to have to make it work.”

Most who work for the mouse will tell you it’s more than just a job. Wyza moved herself from Pennsylvania to Florida in January of 2002, with nothing lined up, and the sole goal of working at Disney. She had participated in Disney’s College Program between her sophomore and junior years and couldn’t let go of the magic, despite interviewing the summer before and not getting chosen for a position.

“I packed up everything I could fit in my car, my best friend came with me, and drove to Florida,” Wyza said. “I had no job, but I felt that if I lived there, Disney would hire me.”

Side note- what she had in her car, wasn’t much… an air mattress, two plastic patio chairs, and a television. The things we do in our twenties!

“I would never move 1500 miles away and not have a job lined up, but I was determined,” Wyza said. “I can’t explain it other than, you know, that gut feeling, following my heart, all the cliches and a bit of being naive because I was in my early twenties, I just knew it was something I wanted to do and I felt that I was a good fit for working at Disney.”

And so it would be for nearly two decades, working her way up and traveling the world on Disney’s dime.

“I didn't think that anything else would happen, in terms of in working for another company,” Wyza said. “I did always have in the back of my mind that I would love to have my own business, but the thoughts around that was it would be something on the side that would just sort of just happen in my spare time. Ironically, I had very little of that with all the traveling that I was doing.”

Of all the things the pandemic took from us, spare time is one it gave back. Wyza found she actually enjoyed the downtime and growing her spray tanning clientele, which included creating her own website to help promote the business.

“I love the beauty industry, spend plenty of money within it myself,” Wyza said. “Having so much time to myself, I decided to build my own website. I had never actually touched building a website, anything like that in my life, but felt that I could figure it out.”

“I really took my time with it, and that’s where the twist came for my story.”

Wyza was part of an online community, launched during COVID to connect former Disney cast members with new opportunities, called Ear For Each Other. It has grown to more than a quarter-million members since then, and is still active. When she made a post offering her services, her inquiries included more than just requests for a spray tan.

“My tanning business launched about three weeks later, I had somebody who knew me, who had started his own business, ask me to design his website,” Wyza said. “He had seen mine, and he thought, you know, could you do this for me?”

With plenty of free time, courtesy of that pesky pandemic, Wyza agreed. One website led to another, and before she knew it, the tanning business was once again a side hustle.

“It was very frustrating at times, because I had no tech department to go to, I had to figure it out myself,” Wyza said of web design. “At the same time, I was enjoying seeing it come to life, seeing it evolve from where it started, to what it would end up being. That's where I got the bug.”

Business was immediately steady, but soon it was almost too busy.

“I pretty much couldn’t keep up with the inquiries, that’s where things sort of broke loose,” Wyza said. “It then evolved into, toward the end, I started feeling like every time I had a spray tanning appointment, it stressed me out, because it would take out time of my day away from the website building.”

It’s a good problem to have, being so busy at something she had never done before. Eventually she knew, she would have to choose.

“I decided to close the spray tanning business and boy, that was not an easy decision because it was like, you know, my little business,” Wyza said. “But it really did lift a burden off my shoulders because it was taking time away from what I was like, really, really enjoying.”

Forced entrepreneurship doesn’t come with a guidebook, or even a pricing sheet. Wyza knew part of the reason she had so many inquiries is because, at first, she wasn’t charging enough; not only because she didn’t know what the going rate for web design was, but because she worried about charging more.

“I didn’t feel worthy of charging what normal web designers charge, because I had no schooling, I had no background in it,” Wyza said. “So I just offered my services, at a very, very reasonable rate at the beginning.”

Purely anecdotal here, but I find this concern about overpricing yourself to be unique to women entrepreneurs, and it almost always backfires in this way. Wouldn’t you rather have 10 clients willing to pay $5,000 compared to 50 clients willing to pay $1000?

“It’s not something that easily goes away,” Wyza said of imposter syndrome. “It has taken clients who have flat out said, for what you have done for me, you haven’t charged enough, which is kind of wild to hear.”

She cracked the code to use her imposter syndrome as fuel to be better, even without professional training.

“What I mean by that is, because I have that imposter syndrome, which is essentially an insecurity of not feeling like I should be where I am, it makes me want to prove myself.”

The Disney roots also meant that guest service satisfaction is extremely important to Wyza, and in addition to having an eye for web design, she’s figured out ways to navigate branding, too.

“You can’t read people’s minds. A lot of times, people know what they want in their mind, but they don’t know how to express what they want,” Wyza said. “I learned over time what questions to ask of the client to figure out what they wanted.”

Wyza’s success in forced entrepreneurship may seem like a Cinderella story written by Walt Disney himself, but after what she’s faced, a layoff is nothing.

When she was in her early years at Disney- her early years in life, really- she was diagnosed with colon cancer—a much more serious obstacle than a blip in her job history.

“I had just taken a promotion into what was my last role there at Disney. About two weeks after starting that role, I had gone to the doctor and found out that I had cancer,” Wyza said. “Not only the shock of having cancer, I was young, I had just started this new job, and I thought, oh my goodness, how am I going to go on? How am I going to handle this?”

She says within days of her diagnosis, she made up her mind that everything was going to be okay- that she was going to beat it.

It wasn’t easy. A grueling year of treatments- chemotherapy radiation, and surgery after surgery- and now she’s almost 12 years cancer-free.

“As much as that was really, really awful news, and a terrible thing to go through, it also was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Wyza said. “I would never wish it on someone else, ever, but it taught me how to appreciate life where you are, appreciate those around you.”

She applied those same lessons to her layoff.

“I just thought, I would figure it out,” Wyza said. “It was almost the same emotions came up… I was shocked, and surprised, and sad. I had this whole little rollercoaster of emotions. And within a couple of days, I thought, it's going to work out. I'm going to figure something out. And it's exactly what happened.”

She’s still figuring it out, day by day. Things became so overwhelming this past year, Wyza had to shut down her design pipeline and stop taking new projects, slowing down her own income in the process. It gave her time to go through her own rebrand, using the same process she does when designing for others. Her new site is about to re-launch, and she’s offering more services—and charging more, too.

“There’s still going to be an option for somebody that's on a very, very tight budget, because there are a lot of start ups that people are just trying to make ends meet and I'd still like to work with them or help them,” Wyza said.

Pricing remains one of the hardest areas for Wyza to navigate, along with being her own IT department. But the freedom and fulfilment of being her own boss, and helping others boss up, is priceless.

“It’s exciting,” Wyza said. “I want to see them succeed, even if there is nothing they need from me anymore. I cheer them on, and try to support them the best way that I can.”

Being constantly surrounded by others who are just trying to figure.things.out. has taught her lessons through osmosis, too.

“Hearing things that other business owners have dealt with or learned,” Wyza said. “This little domino effect, it’s huge.”

When you work on something as immersive as web design for a small business, you become part of that business’ framework; you’re a part of their success or failure. Wyza feels that responsibility deeply.

“I don't see it as, they come in, I do a website, and then they're gone. My hope is that we continue a partnership, and I get to sit right there on the sidelines and watch their business grow and work together on other things that help support their business, like social media, or newsletters, or blogs and things like that.”

That has organically expanded her support system, which she says is a vital part of her success.

“Surrounding myself with people who had more knowledge than me, who had experience starting their own business… and they're cheerleaders for me,” Wyza said. She found a mentor who designs the same types of sites she does; someone willing to help her instead of seeing her as competition.

“I think there is enough to go around… one person's network is different than my network of people,” Wyza said. “There are different artists, and they all have different styles. My websites probably look different than someone else's website, just by looking at it.”

That networking has helped her work improve, and it’s also helped her self-confidence.

“There are times where you feel like you’re alone, like you’re on this island by yourself,” Wyza said. “And when you listen to others that have very similar experiences, you realize you’re not alone.”

Her forced entrepreneurship came after a forced time without a paycheck, but slowing her own pay when things got too busy is something Wyza admits not everyone has the ability to do. She credits a severance from Disney and a lifetime of squirreling away money for her having the option and freedom to take a step back.

“It’s so easy from the outside, I know I’m guilty of this, seeing other entrepreneurs and thinking it just happens,” Wyza said. You know, you wake up one day, you decide you want to start your business, you put in a little elbow grease, and poof, you’re successful. And it actually doesn’t work that way.”

It’s something she has to remind herself in the realm of social media comparisons and that ever-present imposter syndrome she’s still working to overcome.

“The image in my mind is of an iceberg,” Wyza said. “People see what's above the water. They do not see that massive piece of ice under the water that consists of all the hard work, all the hours, all the sacrifices. It's just there's a lot that's behind the scenes or, you know, like not shown on social media that that really goes into it.”

And with something as personal and tailored as web design, it’s tough not to take feedback personally; but Wyza says that’s something she’s grateful for.

“I’d rather a client tell me straight up what is good or bad than to be sort of wishy washy about it, because I want them to be happy. I want referrals from them. It’s important that they are satisfied and happy,” Wyza said of clients who don’t like their initial sites. “It keeps you humble.”

I work in an industry that requires a very thick skin. People have opinions about just about everything when it comes to television news broadcasters; the way we look, the way we sound, the outfits we wear, the color of our hair… none of that bothers me. But the work, the journalism, that’s tough to take critiques on. So how does Wyza handle it?

“I probably do take it personally, if I am being very transparent,” Wyza said. “I’m proud of what I do. At the same time, it’s very quick, that my mind clicks and I realize this isn’t personal. This is about what they see, what they thought, and again, I’m not a mind reader.”

If you haven’t read The Four Agreements, I highly recommend it, but one of the four key principles to a happy life is not taking anything personally. It’s something I strive for in my own life, and it’s something Wyza has used to help her business.

She’s also relentlessly positive, despite all she’s been through; an attribute she credits to the cancer she beat nearly 12 years ago.

“Having appositive mindset is one of the most important things you can possibly do [during a battle with cancer], and we really could take that to other parts of our life, not just when someone’s sick,” Wyza said. “We have to also remember that there are times that we aren’t so positive and feeling so on top of the world, but you can’t get stuck in that downward spiral.”

“A positive outlook is huge. Just knowing it’s going to work out, and believing it. That’s the key.”