This week we spoke with Sally Winchell, founder of Nutra Freak. She is a nutritional enthusiast, dancer, and personal trainer. She talks with us about how she has transitioned into assisting others in changing their lifestyle through nutrition and exercise. Sally shares with us how she built her dance studio and then her nutritional personal training business.
Transcription:
Kris Parsons00:02
Welcome to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do it too! Join us with your lively host, Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.
Ray Loewe00:14
Good morning everybody, and welcome, again to Changing the Rules. I know I always say this, but I'm told that repetition is a good thing. Changing the rules is all about the luckiest people in the world. The luckiest people in the world are, by our definition, those people who have looked at their lives and redesigned them to meet their own personal specs. And then they step in, and they live them under their own terms. Now when you do that, generally you have to be a pretty happy person because you're living on your own terms; you're living your life the way you want to live it. But one of the things we're going to find is that there are roadblocks that occur there. The luckiest people in the world have ways of getting around them. And they just have a way of staying lucky. One of the things that they're really pretty good at is the name of our program is changing the rules. I think it was Steve Jobs, the Apple guy, founder of Apple, who said that, 'When you're living somebody else's life, under their rules, you're living somebody else's life. So you got to change the rules and make your rules. And when you do that, you can escape and be you. So today I have a co-host. Our co-host here is a young man by the name of Dick Coyne. I ran into Dick Coyne where I lived, he's become a friend. I think he's a man about town, although he's gonna debate that a little bit. But he seems to know just about everyone that I would want to meet. He's been an invaluable help in putting together important connections for me. You're going to learn more about him hopefully in future weeks because we're going to try and con him in coming back and co-hosting more of these podcasts. He's going to introduce our guest today, Sally Winchell, who's a young lady that he introduced me to. You're going to find that Sally is definitely one of the luckiest people in the world. So Dick, say hi to everybody.
Dick Coyne02:28
Well, hi, everybody, this is Dick Coyne. And Ray, thank you so much for this opportunity. It's very exciting not just to be here to hear about Sally's story, but to be able to get in with you and learn via podcasting about so many people who are living life under their own terms. Like you say, Sally and I first met when we were doing volunteer work for Lancaster General Hospital with a mutual friend actually. And since that wonderful opportunity, she and I have become good friends. I'm so pleased about that. She is the Energizer Bunny at anything she does. She is a woman of great passion, great focus. And without hearing anything more about me, what I'd like to do is take a moment and kind of set a framework for our discussion today. Because Sally has a lot to tell us. First, Sally, I think what I'd like to do is have you tell us about your early life as an adult because it seemed to me that you had a textbook example; you an education, a successful professional woman, a wife, a mom, and then you got to the fork in the road, the epiphany. And then we're going to talk about since that point, where you are now about telling us a little bit about that early phase, please.
Sally Winchell03:59
I certainly will. But I want to thank you Dick and Ray for inviting me This is quite an honor. I'm humbled by anybody who thinks that my story is anything special. I just live my life and do my thing and have fun doing it.
Dick Coyne04:13
There you have it. Keep going.
Sally Winchell04:16
Oh, my early kind of years, born and raised in Lancaster County. And so I grew up here and pretty much normal upbringing. I'd say the Beaver Cleaver growing up. And I think the biggest influencer in my life as a young person was my father. He was a man who taught me kindness, service, energy, passion, and he wanted me to I think, and get out of Lancaster County. So he kind of set the tone for my education. He told me what I was going to do, where I was going to go to school. When I was in seventh grade, there were no options. The option was two things: join the Navy and be a Navy nurse, or you can go to McCann School of Business and become a secretary; because you can always get a job as a secretary. So I wanted to be a music teacher, I wanted to go to music school, but my dad said, there's no debt, I can afford this, and this is what you're going to do. So I chose the medical secretarial route, which is kind of fun, because it did actually serve me well. Then the other thing my dad said was, I want you to meet a Navy man and get out of Lancaster County. Basically, you know, to see the world, there's more to life than what you see here. So that's what I did. I mean, literally, my next-door neighbor went to the Naval Academy, he brought all the guys home. And they needed girlfriends, they needed people to party with. My neighbor gentleman said, Sally, come down to this party, blah, blah, blah, long story short, I married a naval officer, he went to the Naval Academy. We married in '78 and started traveling immediately. We moved to Guam for three years, and I was loving it, it finally got me out of Amish country. Nothing against that, but really, I'm the kind of person that always is looking for exciting opportunity. Not a risk-taker. I'm not like where I'm not going to do bungee jumping and crazy stuff. But I wanted to travel, I wanted to see the world. I followed in what my father really wanted me to do. And it was great. I loved it. So we spent 11 years in the Navy.
Dick Coyne06:51
So after that, when did he leave the Navy?
Sally Winchell06:53
He left the Navy, he decided to become a chiropractor.
Dick Coyne06:56
Yeah. Is that part of the story?
Sally Winchell06:58
Yes, it is. It is part of the story. So we ended up in St. Louis. My ex-husband, now ex-husband, went to chiropractic college in St. Louis. Eventually, we moved back to Pennsylvania, which was my hometown, because, you know, kids coming along. So I think that it was exciting for me because we started a practice from the ground up in 1987. It was in a medical office that was no longer a medical office, in Terry Hill, Pennsylvania. Along with my ex-husband at the time, I had two babies; basically, we started a practice and built that practice from zero patients to 100 patients a day. It was quite amazing, actually. We worked really hard to do that, paid off our house. We were so in debt, but in that short amount of time, we really accomplished a lot by building this chiropractic practice and raising two children. So I was working in the practice raising the kids. And then probably the tragic part of that existence at that time was our son, who we adopted from Guatemala at six months. It was the probably the most exciting time of my life, because we wanted to have children and for many, many years that didn't look like it was going to happen. So we went down the adoption route, which was amazing and wonderful adopted our little son, Travis from Guatemala. And so, two weeks later, you hear this all the time, I became pregnant with my daughter, Kelly. So we had two babies. At that point I'm like, what am I going to do with two kids that are babies? I don't know how to handle this.
Ray Loewe08:50
We have an interesting thread of things going on here. What I'm reading from you is you escaped from Lancaster. Okay, good, bad or indifferent. I noticed you're back in Lancaster now. But that's okay. You escaped. You ran off with a Navy man, you discovered the world. You are living a life that glamour and a life that kind of kept you excited. Then all of a sudden you're back in St. Louis, you're the wife of a chiropractor. All of a sudden, you're building a business and you have the excitement of building a business. And then you have a couple of kids and now you're a mom on top of that. But at some point in time, what I'm detecting here is that you're you're not as fulfilled as you would like to be. And so why don't you talk a little bit about the dance studio that you started, and why you started it, and where that went. And then we'll get into the real exciting part of your life.
Sally Winchell09:50
That's great. Yes, so an opportunity came up for me to purchase a dance studio. I was teaching a dance class and a couple others studios, and again knowing my personality, it's like, that sounds amazing. There's an opportunity for me to have something that I could have and call my own. And that was very exciting.
Dick Coyne10:13
You know, Ray, one thing we haven't touched on, Sally, I think you've been a fitness and a dance enthusiast for much of your life. And so you didn't just decide, hey, I can teach dance in the studio. You had all the street cred to do that. Right?
Sally Winchell10:28
I did. I actually started taking classes in Guam. That's where I started. And it was with me the whole time.
Ray Loewe10:35
One of the things that comes out of the luckiest people in the world all the time is the fact that there are two things: there's your skill levels of things and then there's your passion. When the skill levels align with a passion, amazing things happen. And that's, I think, coming of where you are with the dance studio, right?
Sally Winchell10:55
Yeah, exactly. You're exactly right. It was an opportunity for me to call something my own and build it from the ground up. And that just is exactly what I wanted to do is have something that I could be successful at.
Ray Loewe11:10
And you were successful at it because you actually grew this thing, and were making some money at it, and doing well with it. But then on an event occurred, since time flies when you're having fun, I want to get to this event really quickly, and it's age 48.
Sally Winchell11:31
That is correct. Yep.
Ray Loewe11:33
So what happened at this magic age, that kind of topsy turvied everything?
Sally Winchell11:40
Well, it was January, right after Christmas, and you sometimes self-assess yourself. Since I'm a kind of a fitness buff, and a little bit of a freak about how I look, I looked in the mirror at 48, I remember it very well. And I didn't like what I saw. Looking back at me, I saw saggy skin, I saw kind of the aging process happen with my physique. And that just didn't sit well at all. It was very depressing. My husband at that time was in his office, and I went down and I said, this is not acceptable. I don't want to watch my body age like that and that whole 'dancer's body myth' is a myth. You can dance like crazy and never keep, that physique. I'm making this sound like I'm really worried about how I look. It's not, but for me, that was important. That was very important. So I hired a personal trainer, the very next day, and a nutritionist because I was not going to just watch this whole thing diminished before my very eyes.
Dick Coyne12:52
Was your husband behind you on that?
Sally Winchell12:54
Absolutely. He absolutely was, in fact, he was training with this person. He said, "Why don't you call to set up some appointments?" And I did it. So he was always very encouraging and supportive and encouraged me in my endeavors. And that's what I did.
Ray Loewe13:13
Again, there's a trend here. I want to take a minute and point this out because people tend to go along in life and their lives are pretty good. I think yours was a pretty good life, right? But all of a sudden, this event occurs. And it's, in some cases, it's tragedy. In this case, it's a very positive kind of a thing. All of a sudden, you made a change. And when you made that change, life got exciting. So tell us a little bit about what happened after you started getting into the fitness and started getting into some of the other things.
Sally Winchell13:51
Well, what was interesting was the dancing tied into the fitness because I was preparing for a ballroom dance competition eight months later, and I wanted to look killer in my Latin dress. I mean, I wanted to look amazing. And that was one of my motivations is to transform for that event. I started lifting heavy weights, eating well, changing my body, health-wise, as well as physique. I was blown away by the results. I'm like, this stuff works. I said to my trainer, "How long do I actually have to do this?" He goes, "How long do you want to be healthy?" And I said, "Oh, well, that would mean forever. Right?" So long story short, he knew that I was really excited about it. He asked if I wanted to become a trainer and work for him. So I had two things going on, training and a dance studio. Energizer Bunny for about two years, and I started to compete in women's bodybuilding at the same time. So ballroom dancing, bodybuilding, owning a studio, and being a personal trainer as well. So at some point, it was like, this is a lot to juggle. So I sold my dance studio in 2008, which was very sad to me because I loved it. And it was something, again, that I was very successful at. I was drawn to the fitness piece because I felt like I really wanted to help, especially older women, because I was one. Just be energized, and improve their health, and make changes in their health, and fitness picture. I just want to bring everybody with me.
Dick Coyne15:40
Well, you're doing that. Sally, it's clear to me that you're on that road. Where do you want to go? We kind of know where you are today. At a wonderful, diverse set of interests and activities. But what are you doing with it to get your message out? I know what works for you. But how about sharing your passion with other people? How's that going for you?
Sally Winchell16:05
Well, I can tell you, I like when you talk about the luckiest people in the world. That's how I feel. However the cards fell for me, it put me in a place to just be able to do exactly what I wanted to do for other people. So I was an independent personal trainer. I was realizing that clients do not get results in the gym, just by working out. They're like, well, where's those abs, I'm doing all this ab work, I'm pulling on cables, I'm running on the treadmill, but I'm not seeing the results of my labor. They're not getting the whole picture. Nutrition is 80% of our physical success. Going back to some of the things we talked about earlier, I wanted to be credible. As a trainer, you are allowed to give basic nutrition advice to your clients. But for me, I wanted to give them a lot more. And I wanted to be credible. So I got a certification in fitness nutrition so that I could be credible and give advice. And I started a company called Nutra Freak in 2010. In conjunction with training, now I had my nutrition side of the house going so I could really do more for people. My now husband was very instrumental in helping me develop Nutra Freak. As far as the brand, the logo, the marketing, the websites, the photography; he just was my co-founder we'll say in Nutra Freak.
Dick Coyne17:44
Well, I think partner sounds good.
Ray Loewe17:49
This is Ray, here again, I have to interrupt... Nutra Freak?
Sally Winchell17:52
Nutra Freak.
Ray Loewe17:53
Where does that come from?
Sally Winchell17:55
That's George's brainchild. He goes, "You love nutrition, and you're a freak about everything." We're sitting at Panera Bread on Fruitville Pike developing this business. He looks at me says "Nutra Freak". And I'm like, perfect.
Dick Coyne18:13
What is Nutra Freak?
Sally Winchell18:15
Nutra Freak is me. Nutra Freak is education. I don't sell stuff. I don't sell supplements and shakes and all that stuff. I teach people how to create a lifestyle of eating clean food, so they can improve their health and fitness. That's it. That's it in a nutshell.
Dick Coyne18:38
How do we find out about it?
Sally Winchell18:39
Well, back in the day, I had a website, I don't have that anymore. But I started doing corporate wellness. I started doing Lunch and Learns with big companies. Once you do one, your next one comes along. I do eight-week programs, grocery store tours, I worked at Yoder's grocery store. So I was developing Nutra Freak out into the world. And it became very successful.
Dick Coyne19:09
I hear a commercial side of that but I think that there's a community side to that as well. That you're sharing with not just on a commercial platform, but also sharing your passion in the community. Am I right on that?
Sally Winchell 19:25
You're absolutely right.
Dick Coyne19:26
Tell us about that a little bit, please.
Sally Winchell19:29
Well, I think when you talk about the community they're kind of your little followers. People who learn from from me, come to my class, has been to my Lunch and Learns talks, whatever. I call them my Nutra Freaks. Like honorary. They get a little certificate and then when I have another talk, I can say hey, Judy can you come and do a testimonial? Can you help?
Dick Coyne20:04
So you're getting disciples.
Sally Winchell20:12
Exactly.
Dick Coyne20:12
Yes. I think I even saw something in our local newspaper about Nutra Freak a couple of weeks ago. What's going on with that?
Sally Winchell20:20
Well, now here I am at Bright Side. People don't even know what that is. I am now the wellness director at Bright Side Opportunity Center, which is connected to a Bright Side Baptist Church. And the pastor at that time said, "Sally, we need you here." I want you to be the wellness director, we have a fitness center. And this is what our community needs is somebody like you to teach people how to be healthy. Anyway, accepted the position. And I've been here almost eight years. And so what was exciting for me is I can do Nutra Freak training; I can build this little community and the disciples in any way I want to, with a roof over my head, in one place. Not like as an independent contractor.
Dick Coyne20:30
So it almost sounds like you're kind of where you want to be.
Sally Winchell21:20
Oh, absolutely.
Dick Coyne21:21
According to your terms.
Sally Winchell21:26
Yes. What the most recent exciting thing that came down the road was Lancaster County Office of Aging came to me in October, looking for a nutrition program that they can offer to the entire community. They knew of me because I work with Senior Games, blah, blah, blah, I'm really active. And so they contracted with me for three years to teach the nutrition education programs for the county, which is amazing. So it's an eight-week program, happens to be at Bright Side. It's basically teaching people from week one through week eight, how to eat clean food, how to create that to be a lifestyle over time. Nobody is going to be a freak like me and change everything at once. Because that's what I do. You tell me asparagus and chicken, I'm going to do that.
Ray Loewe22:26
This is Ray Loewe butting in again. Unfortunately, we're nearing the end of our time framework. So let's sum up a couple of things here. Then we'll get closing comments from each of you. One of the things I like about talking with you here is that you're one of the luckiest people in the world in a little different way than a lot of other people are. There are a lot of people who quit their jobs and runoff and be entrepreneurs. And it's easier to control your life sometimes when you do that. But you were able to do this in a controlled fashion, you're in a community setting. You're doing good for the community. And yet you're living your life with passion with the skill levels that you've developed. I hope other people who are listening in, can listen to this and say I can do this. I don't have to run off and be on my own. I can find a way to do this. So with that, let me get Dick Coyne for a minute. We're about done. Do you have a closing comment that you want to make? And then we're gonna go to Sally.
Dick Coyne23:38
Well, thanks, Ray. I think this has just been a remarkable opportunity for me to learn. I've enjoyed it so much. And the reason I really wanted to do this is I am a big fan of Sally's story. I'm so glad that she has been able to share it with others in the future, and that this message will live. It's not a one-time thing. So people who are interested in Nutra Freak can come on to the luckiest site. They're going to hear Sally talk about what she loves to do and how to do it.
Ray Loewe24:13
Sally, any closing remarks you want to make here?
Sally Winchell24:16
Again, I just want to really thank you and Dick, for inviting me to do this. It's been exciting. Again, I'm humbled. I don't even get why it's exciting to anybody. Because it's what I do, you know, and I just tell people at the enterprise side, just show up. I got you, bring your water bottle, bring your sneakers, don't even worry. Just show up. And I'm going to take care of you.
Ray Loewe24:43
And with that, all I can say is wow. And thanks for being one of the luckiest people in the world. Thanks for sharing your story with us. Taylor, sign us off and we'll be back in another week with another podcast.
Kris Parsons25:00
Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do that too! Join us with your lively host, Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.