We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mary-Catherine LaBossiere a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Mary-Catherine, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I believe my resilience has developed overtime, starting in childhood when I started playing and competing in tennis. Tennis is as much, if not more, a mental sport than it is a physical sport. Of course, physical conditioning is how you will get to the top, but the strategy and composure the sport takes truly forces you to become more resilient to every mishap, every error, every amazing play by your opponent. As a singles player, all the responsibility falls on you to perform and to overcome the struggles you have throughout a match. Building on that, I tragically lost my mom in high school within 11 days of her cancer diagnosis. I had lived with just my mom – a single mother – and her death flipped my world upside down. I had to relearn the world as I knew it and continue trudging on. I knew my only chance of being a first generation college student was to rely on scholarships and loans, so I buried my head into the books in order to set myself up for an academic scholarship – for which I am beyond thankful that I received. Now, I am a military spouse, which has taken the definition of resiliency to a whole new level for me – constantly having to adapt to an ever changing environment, reestablish my business in new locations, and deal with the daily ebbs and flows of this life and its unpredictable nature.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a registered dietitian and the owner of Defy Nutrition. In this role, I work with clients one-on-one to help them elevate their health while eating like human beings through nutrition counseling and personalized meal plans. I also assist businesses and organizations in providing more value to their employees and clients through interactive nutrition workshops (both in-person and virtual!).
The most exciting part for me as a dietitian is seeing the transformation clients have. For example, many of my clients come to me undereating – thinking that a super strict caloric deficit will help them finally reach their weight goal. However, what they don’t realize until working with me is that they’re actually sabotaging their weight loss and hormonal balance, which is creating more issues. I love seeing the switch that goes off in my clients’ brains from, “Nothing is working, I just can’t do this” to, “Oh my gosh! I feel SO much better! I finally have energy, I’m not crashing in the afternoon, and my clothes are fitting better!”
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
When it comes to my entrepreneurial journey, I think the three factors that have helped and continue to help me the most are: Collaboration – Collaboration is key if you want to succeed in business. Coming from New England, I had competition ingrained in me ( my tennis background helps with that approach too!). However, when I turned to collaboration over competition, i had much more success – plus a community to support me!
Humility and willingness to learn – As an entrepreneur, you have to be willing to admit that you don’t know everything and are humbled each time you learn from a mistake. Use these lessons to build upon what you know and move forward.
Communication skills – Communication is core to my business. I have to be able to communicate with current and prospective clients as well as partners.
For someone who is early in their business, I would suggest diving into the networking space. This is a great place to work on communication skills, grow your connections, and learn from others (and pass your knowledge onto them as well!).
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I am always looking for others to collaborate with!
We might be good collaboration partners if you…
-Serve high performing clients who want to optimize their nutrition and learn more about biomarkers
-Own a health and wellness business that wants to bring nutrition to their clients
-Work or volunteer with an organization that wants to bring lunch and learns to their team
Get in touch with me: www.defy-nutrition.com/contact
Contact Info:
- Website: https://defy-nutrition.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/defy.nutrition/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DefyNutrition/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marycatherinelabossiere/
Image Credits
First photos: Mad Faith Photography Last photo (outside): Kira Whitney Photography
