#WeGotGoals by aSweatLife

If you follow us on Instagram ( you really should follow us on Instagram ), we've been sharing the stories of ambassadors from all over as they set and achieve their goals. And as we close the ambassador application today (at the time of publication), we wanted to celebrate some of the stories of our ambassadors. The program focuses on goals because we believe that seeing other humans say the thin...

Think back to the most stressful time in your life. What were your coping strategies? What good habits were the first to go as you struggled to stay afloat? Did your evening reading take a backseat to Below Deck reruns, or maybe you shut yourself off from your friends instead of seeking their support? It all sounds familiar, right? (And maybe, just maybe, those examples are from my own personal li...

Content Warning: this post and the associated podcast audio mention the concept of sexual violence and human trafficking. You'll also hear themes of substance abuse in the episode. If you or anyone you know were impacted by any of these things, there are resources for you below, but we understand if you want to skip this episode.   If you were at #SweatworkingWeek with us in Chicago, Shandi Nichol...

As Stephen Lease, CEO/Co-Founder of goodr, notes, he's a high achiever at this point in his life—but by all accounts, it wasn't a linear journey. After surviving high school and founding five failed companies, he's now the merry leader of goodr , our favorite makers of affordable, functional, and fun sunglasses. His lightbulb moment came when he was going for a run and realized that all the sungla...

We've had our eyes on The Sill since someone on the team who's younger and cooler than I am described this Warby-Parker-for-plants to the team and insisted that it be listed on our gift guide. Eliza Blank, founder and CEO of The Sill, felt the call to make nature more accessible to everyone through beautiful potted plants - even someone who isn't horticulturally inclined in the slightest. And thro...

Courtney Phillips is the co-founder of Gumbo Media , a storytelling platform and content engine that expands the narrative of Black life. She's also the co-founder of Gumbo Fit , a unique community powered by Nike Running that thoughtfully bridges the worlds of underrepresented populations and the fitness mainstream through a diversity of programming and content curation, while prioritizing the co...

When I reached out to Lesley Eccels - co-founder of fantasy sports app FanDuel and founder of the relationship health app Relish - it was the height of sheltering at home. Because of that, events coalesced that made me absolutely want to talk to her. I'd found Relish as my husband and I were at each others' throats one day - it was probably about the dishes, if I'm being honest. And shortly after...

Here's a sobering statistic that keeps Ashley Connell up at night: 43% of women leave the workforce to have children, and if out for just 3 years, a woman loses 37% of compensation power ( Harvard Business Review ). But at the same time, research shows that having women in leadership roles benefits the company in major, measurable ways. For example, firms with female CEOs often perform better in t...

When we met Beau Schmitt, co-founder of Sunday Scaries , he exuded an overwhelming sense of chill. But like so many entrepreneurs in wellness, his story is one of finding his purpose through adversity. He and his co-founder Mike owned a bar with upwards of 50 employees - a time of 14-hour days and "putting out little tiny fires" all the time. Around 2015, they were looking for something to calm th...

Leaned up against his car, Brian Kent, waited outside of my home on a winter morning in Chicago with a proof of his book " Walked On " tucked under his arm. I've known Kent for a while - we trained together, we worked together, and I consider him a friend. On the pages of the book he hands me are the formative years of his life as an athlete spelled out in the details of opportunities and setbacks...

One of my favorite things in the world is to find and try new products trying to shake up the grocery store. Cruising through food-instagram, I stumbled upon Lovebird Foods , which felt like a growing better-for-you brand. After three clicks that led to a half hour down this company's organic, whole-food cereal rabbit hole. I bought a three-pack of this cereal that's made of good stuff like cassav...

Vizer , an app that allows you to track your steps and donate meals, is currently one of the most popular Health and Fitness apps in the app store . If my email inbox is any indication, there are approximately infinity new wellness apps created every day. Vizer is doing something right - its users have donated 1.32 million meals to date. This app's concept is incredibly simple as you'll hear Dylan...

"When we saw the initial purchase orders come in, they were larger than the revenue from our previous year," Chomps CEO and co-founder Pete Maldonado said of getting the bootstrapped businesses' goods into Trader Joes. "We had to survive on the cash we had in the bank and we absolutely did not have the cash for this kind of production run." So, he and co-founder and COO Rashid Ali put in the work...

Content warning: this podcast episode and the post that accompany it briefly discuss eating disorders, recovery from eating disorders, and size discrimination within eating disorder recover. On May 20, we created a panel to close out our Take a Mental Health Day event called Loving Yourself Today. We think the conversation from that panel was so important that we want to make it available to you a...

Charlotte Oxnam has a presence. She showcased that during Chicago StartUp Week when she wowed the judges all the way to taking home the top prize in a sea of some incredible competition. I was lucky enough to judge that group of competitors and I haven't let Oxnam get rid of me since. She's the founder of a platform that's equal parts community and commerce and meant to serve the needs of plus siz...

You’re going to hear from Sarah Piggot on this week’s episode - she was our guest last week and she’s the host this week as we continue to highlight more voices doing big things in body positivity. Coach Kanoa Greene was at the top of Sarah's list of inspiring humans she wanted to interview for this series. And there's a good reason why: she's getting a lot of attention for modeling her belief in...

CW: Eating disorders are discussed in this episode. About a month ago, we got an email from an aSweatLife ambassador Sarah Piggot who wanted to talk about what it was like to be a part of the aSweatLife community as a plus-size person. And this topic - inclusion and equity for people of all sizes in the fitness community - has been bubbling up inside and outside of our community a lot. And so we w...

When Kristen Recommended The Power of Ritual by Casper ter Kuile , I grabbed onto the title. Ritual was exactly what I was missing in my pandemic life. Sure, I was doing a lot of the same things each day, but I wasn't doing them with the attention, intention and repetition that make a ritual. And Kristen has never pointed me towards a book that wasn't worth my time. What I didn't realize before I...

Bri Zborowski and Kaycee Jones knew that Apolla Performance's socks would have a major impact on the dance community, a world notorious for punishing training schedules and injuries that can start in youth dancers. And with their roots in dance, they felt comfortable launching their compression sock for the audience they knew so intimately. But at the same time, their aspirations go way beyond dan...

A little over a year ago, the rug was pulled out from under so many fitness instructors who had relied on the traditional gym or studio model. Depending on the state and its laws, many of those trainers and instructors were 1099 contractors and weren't eligible for unemployment. As studios closed and their customers tried to figure out which room was best to sweat in, many trainers were quickly th...

We've watched Bande grow from founder obsession to growing community living on a tech platform. And in creating a social network for boutique fitness, Rebecca Balyasny, CEO and Founder of Bande, has truly put herself into brand new territory. She's not new to setting goals and achieving, which you'll hear about on the podcast episode, but she IS new to starting her own business in the fitness spac...

In this podcast episode, you'll hear Liz Hernandez, Founder and Creator of WORDAFUL, facilitate a signature WORDAFUL workshop. Through WORDAFUL, Liz has created a new form of storytelling that she hopes will encourage and connect you to the power of words. She believes we can create new realities for ourselves by changing our internal and external dialogue, ones that support more meaningful relati...

When we met Nadya Okamoto for the first time, it was clear that she had a story to tell. Being able to share her story as an advocate gave her a thrill, but it also was trying for her mental health. She'll discuss the ways her natural inclination to organize communities for causes drove her to create. She'll also share the ways that building a movement all while running from trauma ultimately led...

This week's episode of #WeGotGoals features content from the #Sweatworking Summit - and honestly, it's been challenging to wait to post this until now. During Nicole Cardoza 's keynote, the crowd was moved and I was a human goosebump. Connecting with Cardoza and hearing her say, "yes" to speaking at the #Sweatworking Summit helped us to create something that we were truly proud of. Cardoza is the...

Peloton's Jess Sims comes on the podcast to share her journey from teaching in a classroom to teaching in a Peloton studio. You'll hear her share more about her transition from education to fitness, why she didn't audition for Peloton when she was first invited to, her current big goal of prioritizing herself, and how she's reconnecting with others during the pandemic. You'll also get to enjoy som...