We were lucky to catch up with Cheryl Patella recently and have shared our conversation below.
Cheryl, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
My purpose has been ongoing. It has always been to help others. My earliest professional years were as a Flight Attendant “helping others” and I derived a great satisfaction from that. As I grew up and learned to plant my feet more firmly on the ground so to speak, I found depths to my life that I never dreamed of.
There were experiences growing up that left me with a poor sense of identity, self-respect and self-esteem. As I sought to redeem those qualities in my life I worked towards expanding my education thinking I would become an administrator as I loved the sense of “creating things with my words”. I was always a visionary – seeing things that could happen by creatively making it happen.
During this period, I gained weight and was unhappy about that. I had always been athletic, and this additional 35 pounds conflicted with regaining my self-esteem. Since I was working towards improving my life I felt confident I could also tackle the weight gain. This whole process of growth and evolution from what I was to who I am today is dependent on my faith which changed my life by giving me the hope to become more than what I had been. Eventually I learned that my experiences did not define who I am. They shaped me either positively or negatively, but I learned I had been created to be so much more than that.
I designed my own diet and workout based on basic lifestyle principles and began losing the weight while attending college. I was working several jobs to support myself. One of those jobs was as a secretary in the administrative offices for a chain of health clubs. This was a time that certifications and the world of health and wellness as we know it today did not exist. At lunch I would use the gym and created a workout to music that I did every day. The weight was coming off and management noticed my progress as well as the class I had created for myself. They asked me to start teaching classes at their clubs. I was also teaching/counseling in my church helping other women to have the confidence to lose weight and become healthy gaining self-respect and faith in their abilities.
This evolved to changing my major in college to what was available then “Recreational Management”. I started teaching aerobics and made a career of it. A parallel to this was one of the health club members saw my impact on other young women and asked if I would speak to the inmates at the Women’s Detention Center in Dade County. This expanded to fitness classes that I firmly believed reduced the defensive barriers many put up allowing a better reception for counseling. Later I became the Chaplain of the Women’s Detention Center as a part of the Jail Ministry that was developing while managing my career as a freelance aerobics instructor.
Life continued and as that visionary aspect of my character developed so did I. My career and education expanded to a very successful personal training practice with a high-end clientele in South Florida. My career in the jail ministry grew to Administrator of a fast-growing organization throughout Dade County. My love for writing took on grant writing and it was successful. I helped to establish a women’s recovery center (Agape Women’s Network) where women could get the help they needed to start new lives for themselves and their children. My writing also took on the form of creating a fitness TV program in Miami and California. Eventually I had a column on fitness and wellness in an entertainment magazine.
Jumping ahead to more current times my fitness career expanded to the spa profession and I created a few remarkable programs in five-star spas that opened doors for many innovative programs that exist today. With that same parallel of profession I helped to establish a wellness program for residential rehabilitation facilities that also transformed lives and opened doors to incorporate the whole person as a part of rehabilitation.
What started out as a little girl exposed to things that almost destroyed her, that by adding the faith of a mustard seed, she was able to believe in her vision enough to create and support things that have made such a difference in others’ lives.
Today I have a new vision. I relocated from the city to the country. It’s time to start another chapter different from everything I have done before. My purpose remains the same – to help others. My wellness practice is entirely virtual. While helping others through my practice I also focus on supporting my family more. I have a farm and am engaging my vision to create something beautiful with the land. I still write and have published a book titled The 21st Century Woman in which I share my experiences. The book’s purpose is to provide encouragement for other women to believe in themselves, no matter their experiences, and to create a beautiful life with good health. My next book is in the works. It is on aging. Finding my purpose covers a career over 45 years and includes my own aging process. I want to help others to transition in that process with the best health possible.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Having garnered over 45 years of experience working with people, wellness experts and incredibly smart people across the globe I have developed a knowledge base that is incredibly advantageous in both my practice and my life.
Combined this has taught me to be humble, to realize I don’t know everything and to continue to grow until it’s time to leave this life.
Applying this knowledge in my practice allows me to see so many nuances in attitude, form, and execution of the movement that I am able to provide a higher level of help to my clients. Practically speaking one would think virtual training not as efficient as in person training, but I see everything. Every little detail – positioning, load -whether a person is putting more weight on one side over the other when we should evenly distribute our body weight. Even whether you are dominating the exercise with your dominant side. I hope this makes sense but if you keep using your dominant side it gets stronger often to the point of over usage while your weaker side never gets the opportunity to get as strong as your dominant side. Which would be the dominant side? If you are right-handed that would be it or vice versa.
Having the ability to see these smaller aspects allows me to train you better, keep you safe and build a stronger structure. Often there is nothing more exciting to me – to help someone make changes that make them better.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I have to say my faith is the most impactful experience in my life. Without it I could not have done any of the things I have accomplished. My faith provides the courage, hope and excitement to continue to move forward in life in spite of the setbacks, discouragement from others or even the mistakes I have made.
Another area was a philosophy a client once shared. Dr. Alex Angelides was an incredible person and worldwide renowned surgeon. His philosophy was to learn something new every day. No matter how big or small. I realized I needed to listen and learn from him. If we push ourselves to learn something new every day, no matter how busy our lives become, we will grow beyond who we are.
Another skill, and it truly is a skill, is to listen to your first instinct. Often other voices and self-doubt cause us to second guess ourselves. Many times that prevents us from taking steps to success or steps to prevent making serious mistakes.
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
All of your questions trigger a response and I am going to try to respond encompassing several areas because each are important but only a few are strong impacts in my life.
By now you realize how important my faith has been and is. I don’t pinpoint exactly what I believe even though that is important – very important – but I deliberately avoid it so someone won’t get caught in judgment and miss the message.
My faith has taught me to believe in the creation I am and to realize I have both good and bad qualities. If I only focus on the good qualities and don’t work on changing the bad ones then I am not strengthening my weakness. When you physically train and only focus on your strengths you don’t really get stronger because one day the weaker side will bring you down somehow. Learning acceptance of one’s self is another aspect of becoming who you are meant to be. If you can’t accept that you are 5 ft 3 and will never be 5 ft 9 you are fighting a losing battle. Right? So part of success is accepting who you are and working with that.
I often forget some of my life lessons and get caught up in the negative, either around me or in my head, then I am only generating negative things around me. I can’t see the light, the hope, the vision. Once I realize I am lost in unproductive thoughts and behavior I can correct it and move forward.
My faith has also helped me to develop the process of introspection. Looking inside to see how I reacted to something, what I should have done, what I really was seeing and something got in the way. Doing this provides me with a clarity of hindsight – it is always said hindsight is 20/20 vision but that is how we learn and grow and avoid making the same mistake over and over. Mistakes are normal but those who truly learn from mistakes become incredible people.
All of this is how we can manage our lives and change. No one can change another person – we truly are only responsible for making our lives the best we can.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cherylapatella.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cherylpatella
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TotalConditioningLLC
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/cheryl-patella
- Other: email: patella.cap@gmail.com
Image Credits
Book Front and Back-Al Diaz Miami Herald
