We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brittney Justice a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Brittney, 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 would say I get my resilience from growing up at a competition dance studio and doing that all of my childhood and into adulthood. Like any sport or any thing that requires athleticism dancing competitively isn’t something you can just wake up and decide to do. Especially if you want to be good at it and I am one who likes to be good at things. I grew up with coaches and teachers who didn’t let us be mediocre. If we failed at something they would tell us to do it again. Not in a rude way, but in a way that said “I know you can do this”. They showed me how to approach something, take it head on, and to go after it until I got it. So, that is how I take any goal, dream, or task I have in my life now. I credit a lot of my life successes to growing up at my dance studio and to the teachers that I had.
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?
Hi, my name is Brittney Justice, and I am the owner and licensed massage therapist for Move Easy Massage. How I got into becoming a small business owner and a licensed massage therapist isn’t a straight forward answer. As I said earlier I grew up dancing and doing competition dance. Doing something that requires you to know and understand your body made me fall in love with how the body moves and works. When graduating from high school the plan was to become a professional dancer so, I entered into college in the dance program. That journey did not last long and I quickly changed over to business. Business school was not the right path for me either and I then found myself in the college of health shortly after that. I ended up graduating from the University of Utah spring of 2020 with my Bachelors degree in Kinesiology. Knowing what I wanted to do with that degree was still a question. After a conversation with a friend and a little research I found myself wanting to become a licensed massage therapist. I attended Myotherapy Massage College fall of 2020, graduated and got my license March of 2021, and opened up Move Easy Massage June of 2021.
As I have mentioned I grew up dancing. So, being a massage therapist is not my only career. I have been a dance teacher at Shaw Dance Studio for 14 years. I started teaching when I was 16 years old and had only one little preschool tumbling class. Now, I am very involved at the studio. Teaching many different styles and competition teams. I absolutely love getting to share this other passion of mine with so many different dancers.
I am fortunate enough to be able to run my massage business out of the dance studio I work at. I find my massage profession helps me with my teaching and being able to help my dancers understand their bodies even better. I have had the privilege to work with some of dancers with massage and encourage both young and older athletes to get regular massages. I have found that massages have the reputation of being a luxury and something you do to treat yourself. Which, don’t get me wrong a relaxing massage can be extremely beneficial. I just hope people understand regular massages can do so much more for them.
I would say my work is definitely more on the therapeutic side. I have many clients who describe my work as it “hurts so good” and I love it! I love helping people feel their absolute best with whatever it is they’re doing. I like to focus on their problem areas so they leave feeling ten times better than they did when they came in.
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?
Three qualities that were most impactful for me in my journey would be a good work ethic, being optimistic, and a strong support system. I can honestly say I didn’t always have a good work ethic in everything but, I can say I have always had a strong work ethic with the things I cared most about and was passionate about. Now, I’m not saying that’s the best way to go about things but, I do think if you’re doing something that you truly care about work doesn’t feel like “work”. When it comes to being optimistc I’m not always the most optimistic person. However, when it comes to dreams and wanting to achieve certain things in your life I am whole heartedly optimistic. I feel if you can believe it you can do it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong in being optimistic that something great is going to happen if you work for it. I think I’m this way with achieving dreams because I have always had the best support system cheering me on. I grew up with parents who never doubted me and always told me I could do anything I wanted to and put my mind to. Whenever, I changed what I wanted to do with my career they were always there telling me I could. The owner/ my boss at Shaw Dance has always been in my corner. Constantly giving me advice on what I should do for my business (she herself has had 4 successful businesses). My siblings (older sister and younger brother) and my friends in all areas of my life have always given me support and have never doubted me. I think that’s the most important one. Having people in your corner who are always supporting you. If you don’t have a strong support system in place I highly suggest you get one.
How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?
A challenge I’m currently facing right now would be figuring out what to do next to grow my business. Whether it be teaching, apprenticeship, getting certified in other modalities, the sky is the limit and I really want to do it all.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @move_easy21
- Facebook: Move Easy Massage
Image Credits
Head shot: Joel Nava
