Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessi Kneeland.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I was a personal trainer in NYC for the better part of a decade, where I started an online fitness business, focused on helping women empower themselves through strength. At a certain point, I realized that the women who were coming to me for training all had body image issues that they were hoping to “fix” by changing the way they looked, and while lifting weights can absolutely be an amazingly empowering practice, I didn’t feel good about supporting the message that confidence is a result of changing your body– especially because I saw firsthand how the same body image issues plagued my clients who were famous models and actresses as did everyone else. Clearly, looking a certain way wasn’t the path to freedom from body anxiety and negativity. Otherwise, the women who literally set the standard for beauty ideals in our culture would walk around feeling perfect all the time! I went through a yearlong life coaching certification program at iPEC, hoping to be able to have better conversations with my clients and help them address the underlying issues that led to a lack of confidence. Eventually, I left NYC to become a full-time nomad and changed my online business to follow the direction of the work I felt most passionate about: freedom from body image issues by creating an authentic sense of self-worth. For years I lived in places like Thailand, Costa Rica, and Portugal for a few months at a time, and bounced around the US giving workshops and checking out different cities, all while taking my clients over skype or phone, creating online group programs, and building up my coaching business online. As much as the travel life is wonderful, I missed having a community and a place that felt like home, but I didn’t know where to land. I had been on a road trip around the US for six months when I drove into LA and even before I got there, I had this flash of insight that I wasn’t going to leave. The plan had been to keep going north and visit from friends in Salt Lake, Seattle, and Alaska, but instead, I decided to just stay. This is a good place for me to build the community I crave, and to do more in-person work with clients and workshops, so I can get away from staring at my computer screen all day. It’s warm and beautiful and vibrant, and the people here need my work and message (that how you look should be the least interesting thing about you) probably more than anywhere else on earth. So, I stayed. 🙂
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
So many struggles! Starting a business is hard work, and to be honest, at first, it feels like everyone knows the secret except you. But I swear, nobody knows what they’re doing. It’s ALL just trial and error, even the people who SWEAR they have a “formula.” They’re just trying and erring like the rest of us! So, my best advice is to approach everything like trial and error, rather than trying to “do it right.” Also, embrace failure! In fact to change your entire mindset from avoiding failure or considering failure a sign that you’re not good enough, to STRIVING for failure, and considering failure a sign that you’re brave. You can’t build a sustainable business without emotional resiliency, and an ability to experience setbacks and failures with curiosity and pride, instead of shame and judgment. I run a mentorship group now, and our motto is to “fail faster.” Your first product or program will probably fail, so why spend so much time trying to get it perfect before launching it? Just launch it, and let it fail, and get the feedback from people who took it or tried it about what could be better and what they really wanted. Then, go back to the drawing board and make something better. This is how we grow and expand– we take big brave risks, we get curious about how people respond to them, and we make shit better. Stop turning to other people for the “right” solutions and formulas, and just get started. The sooner you’re willing to fail, the sooner you’re likely to succeed.
Please tell us more about your work, what do you specialize in and most proud of.
I’m a body image coach, I specialize in helping women who are obsessed with or stressed out by food, fat, weight, and their appearance overcomes those issues and feel the confidence and calm they were hoping to capture by “finally looking good enough.” My message is different than a lot of other body confidence messages out there, first and foremost because I am anti-diet culture, and completely opposed to the suggestion that we will feel better about ourselves when we “look better.” What does look better even mean? It just means looking closer to cultural beauty ideals, and I don’t believe changing ourselves to look closer to some arbitrary beauty standard will EVER make us feel good enough. So instead, I help my clients step away from (and even fight back against) the entire concept that cultural beauty norms matter, and that being closer to them is a good thing. There’s nothing objectively true about current beauty standards– being fat used to be considered more beautiful than being thin, but now the opposite is true! Different things are considered beautiful in different cultures. So, why are so many of us spending so much time trying to look a certain way? There are many reasons, but a lot of it comes down to craving (or wanting to maintain) social status, and wanting to get our emotional needs for acceptance, belonging, respect, safety, and purpose met. I help my clients identify what their body image issues are REALLY about, and then deal with those things directly. We don’t talk much about the body after we get into the real issues, because the body is just a body. The goal isn’t to be obsessed with how beautiful or sexy you are, the goal is a kind of neutrality around the body and appearance, where a person feels so confident and worthy in who they are that how they look is truly the least interesting thing about them. I’m so proud to be a revolutionary against the systems of oppression that keep people feeling like if they just try a little harder to “improve” themselves (a.k.a. get closer to the cultural “ideal) they’ll finally feel worthy. I help my clients let go of the need to be validated by others, and to start accepting and approving of themselves from the inside out. I’m very proud of some of the programs I’ve run, and I’m currently writing a book that encompasses my unique message about confidence, self-worth, and body image, which is easily the best thing I’ve ever created.
Often it feels as if the media, by and large, is only focused on the obstacles faced by women, but we feel it’s important to also look for the opportunities. In your view, are there opportunities that you see that women are particularly well-positioned for?
Hmm. I can’t think of anything right now, but I like the question! I think I might be too deeply steeped in feminist issues and literature. (Body image is a feminist issue, and it’s closely linked to sexuality, gender presentation, and trauma.)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jessikneeland.com
- Phone: 3153967960
- Email: jlk399@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessikneeland/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessikneeland/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/jessikneeland
Image Credit:
Jessi Kneeland
Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
