Ep. 152: Anne Mahlum, Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Solidcore
On this episode of Health Gig, we speak with Anne Mahlum, an entrepreneur and the founder of Solidcore fitness studios. We discuss her personal struggles with food and body image, how she overcame them, and what led her to founding Solidcore.
More on Anne Mahlum:
Instagram: @annemahlum
Solidcore Instagram: @solidcore
Solidcore Twitter: @solidcorestudio
Solidcore website: https://www.solidcore.co/
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Quotes:
“Usually what happens is you discover yourself when you're trying to make plans and pushing towards something and realize that's really not what I want at all.” Anne Mahlum
“We all get wrapped into identities with our relationships, with our jobs, with where we live, and our belief systems.” Anne Mahlum
“I have found that so many people are comfortable with women who are quiet, women who are modest, women who are independent, but not at a point where they threaten people's own security of themselves.” Anne Mahlum
Show Notes:
[01:50] I was such in a hurry to be a grown-up. I convinced myself that once I got to marriage, kids, white house, picket fence job, that like life began and I would be happy. So that's like what I was driving toward. And then usually what happens is you discover yourself when you're trying to make plans and pushing towards something and realize that's really not what I want at all.
[05:39] Most women I have met at some point in my life, can have either food issues or an unhealthy relationship with food and/or their body.
[08:47] We all get wrapped into identities with our relationships, with our jobs, with where we live, and our belief systems.
[09:12] I had to work really hard to strip down that identity and be like, "This identity actually isn't serving me anymore, and it's not who I want to be, and I don't have to be this person," but that takes real work. It's real hard, consistent daily work.
[11:36] I didn't know what I was going to do next. And the idea of that really scared me, and so I wasn't willing to make-believe that. What I translate that to is people who are in an unhealthy relationship but won't leave until they find the next relationship because they don't want to be alone.
[11:56] I'm sort of proud as we'll talk about solid core and my sort of stepping away from the CEO role without having a plan. That's where I was at that stage. I just wasn't really ready to not have this next thing.
[13:28] If I'm good at anything, it is building an experiential branded community that is what I know how to do. And I felt I'm going to do that in this space because other women don't know you can work out like this. And I almost felt it was my obligation to build something to help as many women feel as good about their bodies.
[16:14] I want to talk a little bit about that because last year was a very tough year, not just for the pandemic, for Solidcore. But there was this awful article that came out about me.
[17:20] This anonymous group calls for my resignation. And it was really challenging. So I was speaking to these women who it had happened to. Many women were going to step down, but I was not going to step down. That's not who I am.
[18:26] I also know myself well enough that if I had made a mistake and if I did something, which I have made plenty of mistakes, I own it and I will apologize. And being unapologetically yourself doesn't mean you don't apologize when you mess up. And this was not one of those moments. And so I stood up for myself.
[19:47] Women have got to continue to talk about this and stand up and have the conversation and be proud of their money and not make themselves smaller, not make themselves hide in the corner.
[20:22] I feel very emboldened to be empowering women, to be helping women, teaching them to stand up for themselves, celebrating them and continue to stand up for myself through my own platform.
[23:32] We are a fitness company. Our job is to help people create the strongest version of themselves, but we need to also drive a profit. If we don't, we don't exist.
[24:08] You are going to disagree with some of the decisions we make. We understand that there are six hundred and fifty people who work here. You are not all going to agree.
[24:35] It's really important to continue to have the conversations about your culture so that people don't get the wrong expectation of what that culture is supposed to feel like. And when it doesn't live up to that, they don't have these surprising emotions around their disappointed expectations and you or the company.
[28:06] You only get resilience one way and it's earned. And it's painful because you've got to go through it. You've got to go through those moments where those words do hurt and you've got to do a lot of soul-searching.
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