Meet Leah Harper Marsh of Fit Girl Club

Today we’d like to introduce you to Leah Harper Marsh.

Leah, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I founded Fit Girl Club in 2015 as a way to find friends that liked to work out! I owned a Pilates studio in Long Beach and Fred Segal Yoga in Santa Monica; finding a friend in Manhattan Beach was my initial goal, but I didn’t feel comfortable posting for a workout buddy on my regular Facebook page, so I started a Facebook group. It has grown friends of friends ever since. It was first called Los Angeles Fit Club, but I received a cease and desist letter from LA Fitness, so Fit Girl Club popped into my mind and it just stuck. We have over 4K women living in Los Angeles in our community and we regularly host meetups at small businesses and studios to encourage trying something new while meeting new friends in the area.

Now we have girls leaving Los Angeles launching their own chapters in several cities across America (and Toronto), so it’s very exciting to see the impact it has had on experiences of moving to LA and not knowing anyone. I am most excited to see it grow as a way for women to become leaders in their communities as an ambassador for Fit Girl Club. In January, I launched Fit Girl Festival which is coming back to Malibu on October 6th for a one day retreat featuring all of our favorite LA fitness teachers and brands.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Entrepreneurship is never a smooth road! You must be crazy to want to risk so much, so often. After co-owning three fitness studios, I burned out by 30 and there were tough lessons to be learned from the losses – but also the successes I experienced. As hard as it was to walk away from my studios, I knew in my gut what I needed to do and if there’s one thing I trust wholeheartedly, it is my instinct to know when it’s time to grow or move on. Fit Girl Club started (and still is) as a labor of love hosting fitness events and connecting women that I knew would love each other.

The purpose is to encourage women to try new things, live consciously and connect with each other to learn from each other. Most importantly, I believe having a sense of community is absolutely vital to living a healthy life and after seeing how many great friendships have been made through FGC, it’s impossible to ignore how beneficial these types of meetups will be in big cities and I am flattered that women are now asking to lead their own communities on behalf of Fit Girl Club.

This year I am excited to say that I know I have the time, mindfulness and resources to make Fit Girl Club an even more helpful resource for women to connect through workouts while supporting studios and trying new classes and teachers. This year we are growing with a blog website which will include interviews, studio/class/product reviews and fitness videos from each city. The road is always brighter looking forward, so any challenge I’ve had will definitely prepare me for what’s to come – which, who knows, could be bigger than I ever imagined!

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Fit Girl Club – what should we know?
Fit Girl Club has been dubbed by several LA studio owners as the ‘nicest girls!!’ to host a fitness meet up – and I have to say – that I am SO PROUD of that. Since 2015, every woman I’ve met at an FGC meet up is intelligent, engaging and incredibly open-minded to connect with other girls that want to work out and have fun doing it. I love when our girls try something they wouldn’t normally do on their own.

Since most everyone is new to the workouts, it makes the workouts exciting and high energy. Not sure what sets us apart, other than this is the pure heart! All of our meetups/ workouts are complimentary and class is donated by the studios; though we are hosting more workouts that donate 100% to a local charity, such as The Laundry Truck LA.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Authenticity – 100%

Contact Info:

• Website: www.fitgirlclub.com 
• Email: [email protected]

Image Credit:
Chris Pan
Ehron Sidel

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