 Hi and welcome to School of Hustle! I'm your host Sarah and this is a show where we chat with everyday entrepreneurs about everything that goes into starting a new venture. Today's guests will be helpful not only to those aspiring entrepreneurs but also to those interested in improving their lives. Bianca Jade is a wellness expert with half a million followers who forecasts and reports on emerging trends in the health world for national syndications such as the Today's Show, CBS Morning News, Dr. Oz, and regional affiliates across the country. And she's also the founder of Misfit, a site that shares wellness, health, and fitness advice. And her mission is to get people excited about exercise and wellness by revealing the fun and sexy side of the industry. It is wonderful to have you on the show. Thank you so much I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to have you here. I checked out your site and I've watched a lot of your stuff and learned a lot to be honest with you. You have so much information about health, wellness, fitness, beauty. I mean you cover it all but your focus is really on health and wellness and I'd love to hear your backstory on why you decided to start in that industry. So going way back I think you know I was around 14 or 15 years old and I just really loved fitness. I remember you know getting rollerblades as a gift one year and then I remember like at 15 my parents told me I could have a trainer and every weekend I would work out yeah I would work out me and a girlfriend would work out with a trainer and she really inspired me to you know stay fit through college and play sports and that kind of thing but you know fitness was just like a really important you know thread woven into my life so when um after you know several careers um I really had the opportunity to kind of decide what am I going to do as like my passion job because I feel like we have the jobs that we sort of you know like the jobs that pay the bills and then the job you really want to do. Right where's the jobs that like you think you have to do coming out of school and then you get this opportunity and it comes to everyone at different points in their life to like to really go for it right and uh and I thought you know it'd be really cool to do fitness um and I think you know I was lucky in that when I had this opportunity to really go after a dream and and essentially like for what had been for me a hobby you were very new in the industry I believe you started your blog in 2009 yeah I was actually working on it 2008 but officially like I had a launch party so why did you decide to do blogging I mean back back in that time it wasn't as easy as it is today where you can easily get website templates and things like that oh no I I really I made my whole website like I did the back end work and everything and I really can't believe I did that back then I'm so impressed because that is so challenging I'm impressed with myself because I wouldn't do it today and there's so many apps and everything that make people's lives easier and you didn't have any of that so you had to do everything manually in the beginning I did I did and I think you know that's part of um that's like really helped me to become a problem solver and I'm never really scared to like get my hands dirty but the reason I wanted to blog was because my headhunter I had a career in advertising and you were creative director was I was between jobs and my headhunter was like you know Bianca to set yourself apart and to really get you know the job that you want at the salary that you want you're going to have to show that you've been working on something and I was like well what the hell have I been working on I've been working on getting a job so my headhunter was like well could you blog about something and I was like okay and I you know I I realized I had to do this special project right so I started a blog about fitness fashion and trends in fitness that would help women like myself who are very you know fashionista and like you know I'm just gonna say it I'm a little uppity I like nice clothes and nice things I mean your outfit's fabulous the first thing I said when I saw you today is I love your outfit the off the shoulder look it's fantastic thank you well a lot of times you know girls who are really into like fashion and beauty and hair um they don't want to work out you know because it involves getting sweaty sweaty and gross and gross I wanted to create a destination you know for all women but specifically these type of women that were hesitating um on living you know a healthy lifestyle through fitness activity so that was like the beginning that was the notion and um and with this you know theme I was planning on getting the job and advertising of my dreams uh but really what it led me to was a whole new career in launching my own business so when when did that shift and you realize wait a minute I can actually make this into a real business well okay I mean I I didn't give the job of my dreams in advertising but now you have the job right so it all worked out but I remember thinking like oh I started this blog and I'm still not getting you know job offers um and then I was like you know this isn't just a project anymore this is something that I would like to build into a full scale brand so I took it from you know this blogging project into creating a 360 degree company and that's actually like you know what I was trained to do for my career in advertising so you talked about you know you started to have uh some ways you monetized it what was the first way you decided you found to monetize the blog well so I started with the ads and the ads were making pennies yeah and then I started reading um and following uh different bloggers who were you know giving advice on monetization and I learned that like really the only way to make money was to partner with brands or uh or ad firms that were creating opportunities that were relevant to your content yeah so I started putting ads up that you know that matched a blog post that I was writing about so if I was you know writing about like let's say athletic or lululemon or something like that then I would integrate ads for those products that I was reviewing and get a commission on them still so you're using affiliate revenue affiliate revenue still very low in terms of you know bringing in any income um but it starts it's the starting seeds and then once you build them all up they all yeah and then once those brands started realizing that I was placing ads they were contacting me directly and they wanted to form partnerships so I didn't make money you know being completely candid here I didn't make money the first three years of running my business yeah it was really putting a lot of money into it taking the risk of you know thinking what could this turn into and where where could I be you know where where are the areas that I could be making money from so I'm really glad that you know that I had the money saved to be able to do that because in the end um wow that income came in very fast it's so much of this in the beginning is self-promoting yes because you're you're the one that's running the business you're your best supporter and so you have to create you have to like boost yourself you do and you have to create a team as well and you know my agent was part of the team yeah that I was creating as my support system um you know I had to hire attorneys you know I was trademarking um different uh slogans catchphrases and of course misfit yeah so tell me about misfit why why call it misfit it just was like an urban way of saying like you know the girl that works out like misfit like fitness yes misfit with two s's was already taken and it was owned by you got it a little more trendy with disease right and you know I'm sure you know the trademark game is it takes a while yeah and so when you are building your company and you're you figured out like what your name is and everything you got to really hustle to get that trademark in um and to make sure that you own all of your branding uh and I never thought that that would really you know um be an issue down the road I just thought okay everybody has to do this they say have to do it but actually someone tried to use misfit no way and doing all of that right at the get go starting my business saved my butt because they were planning on going on NBC using my my brand name and so I was able with my team to do a cease and desist and protect my company so these are kind of the things that like you really have to hustle to do at the very beginning and they're you know they're annoying things like they take a lot of time you have to wait there's a lot of paperwork and expense involved but that's part of building a business um you know there's a lot of fun in terms of risk taking and getting creative but there's also that side of like really you know learning to be um uh very organized and you know know how to protect yourself because you could build this empire and then one little thing could crumble it it's so true you mentioned you did some travel hosting I did I also do travel you were like the travel diva I love all your stuff oh please I'm talking to the fitness diva over here but I would love to hear about what you do for travel hosting so for travel um it all comes from really that that fitness foundation yeah going on trips that are active that involve a lot of adventure yeah and um things like swinging from ropes or I've climbed I went to Nevis which is an island right near St. Kitts a lot of people are familiar with St. Kitts that's this is in the West Indies but Nevis is a very very small island that a lot of people haven't been to yeah it's beautiful it's natural it's just it's like a jungle and there's not really much in terms of commercialism I worked with the board of tourism there and the first day that I arrived on the island very jet lag they were like you're climbing a mountain oh great and I was like okay this sounds really exciting and they're like no it's like our one really big mountain oh my god and it's called Nevis Peak and it's just vertical oh what yes so basically I had a guide and we were climbing it like you're climbing and you're climbing wall essentially I had no gloves but it was an adventure yeah it was like and I had you know all of my cameras and everything and it was just me and this tour guide and it was just like even though there was so much pain involved and I literally did not expect you know this level of difficulty right that's what it was all about but I was able to write a piece about this experience and tell people everything they'd need to do it right yeah and and that's really like what traveling is about you know kind of like making those mistakes so your audience doesn't have to like that is so true I'm constantly telling people like you know my life isn't glamorous it's like one like crazy you know scenario to the next and people usually don't believe me but I definitely have all these stories and and actually I appreciate it I like living my life sort of in the unknown yeah that's probably why I'm an entrepreneur exactly yeah you know we're we're comfortable with risk and you say your life is not glamorous uh but it does seem glamorous and oh girl you know your life isn't glamorous either that's why I wanted to talk about it because people have this perception uh which kind of we created because we post the best parts of our lives right and that's what you do and so they don't see how much work it actually takes I kind of refer to it as the iceberg so you see just the tip of the iceberg but all of this underneath is really what's going on behind the scenes and so people will get this really cohesive well put together blog post but what they didn't see is your blood sweat and tears of you climbing this mountain after being jet lagged on a flight and you still have to try to make it look nice and glamorous in some way and get all the shots it's very it's very exhausting and I actually do um usually on instagram stories or IGTV I will post you know the kind of like behind the scenes and sort of like the outtakes of of my adventures because I find that people sort of like that stuff better you know it's more relatable yeah it is relatable um so um I don't always love those things because obviously like you know you don't have makeup on your hair looks all crazy when you're climbing a mountain yeah but it's relatable and um speaking of things that are relatable one of the things that you've shared that's really inspired me is your story of freezing your eggs yes can you tell us a little bit about that because I think it's so brave of you to share that story it's something that so many women have considered and and you actually did it so tell us tell us about that like why did you sideshare that with the world so um I love telling people that I was one of the first because now everybody does it and it doesn't seem that special um but it's still pretty special it was yeah it was it was special for me and you know um I'm I'm a very complicated person as I think anybody who decides to take on a career you know in front of the camera or you know whether it's YouTube or TV or you know shares their life publicly through uh you know through the internet we're complicated people and you see a side of us but there are all these other sides that you don't often get to see and this was me um becoming you know an onion and really peeling back the layers of you know what I wanted out of my life beyond this career that I had created so I've always wanted to be a mother and um and what I realized through the process of freezing my eggs was that I wanted to do it no matter what whether I had a partner you know as in a husband or boyfriend um or not and that is something that totally goes against how I was raised how I grew up um and what my family really you know ultimately wants for me so it was it was a it was a difficult piece but it was something that like you know I felt like we were talking about how you create we create value for for our viewers right and I knew that I didn't want to wake up one day whether it was in my late 30s or mid 40s whatever regretting that I never uh froze my eggs in that you know didn't at least you know have the insurance of possibly being able to have my own child and I'm so glad I did it because it's the one video that I get messages about you know on a weekly basis women that are much like me that are single you know not married in their late 30s early 40s that are thinking can I do this right you know and so it tells them that they can't but it also is a realistic video saying hey this doesn't work for everybody yeah you don't just blog you also are a show host uh on camera host girl I'm like we are so similar yeah we are I'm just trying to beat you through this through this like glass thing tell me about how did you get into that so um when I when I first started blogging I think I told you that like at the beginning it was like really slow going yeah making a lot of money then all of a sudden it was like I got all this attention right um Nike discovered me oh that's huge congrats he put me on a panel with uh Eva Chen and a few of these other like well-known bloggers a lot of them were like kid bloggers which was like a thing in fashion and uh and from there it was like I was getting all these pressing queries like can you come on our show and do a fitness fashion show um because fitness fashion was like a new concept totally and Lou Lemon was like just doing so well and people wanted like fitness fashion shows with Lou Lemon clothes and just all this like active wear and like there was this new term of athleisure floating around so I got to ride that wave and what I found was I really loved being on camera and I love talking to people about products so I started booking a lot of work our morning shows and all these health shows where I would talk about you know pain points that people were having and solutions that could be solved through products and of course those brands that sell the products love that I was doing that and you know many situations I was able to get paid by those brand brands to present those products oh that's fantastic I didn't even know that was an option but it makes sense that is an option and you can do that with anything I think as long as it's coming from an authentic perspective and you're not just like doing it because the brand is paying you to do it it all it's all sort of benefits everybody yeah so in addition to being a social media influencer a show host you also are a supporter for female empowerment and social issues and you even raised $50,000 towards the Special Olympics and other social programs like cancer research so thank you for doing that why did you decide to do that besides the obvious reasons of course well everyone wants to give back and we're so busy running our businesses that we have don't have a lot of time to do it so whenever people approach me and that like opportunity to fundraise like really synced up with you know my mission the mission of Misfit which is to help people move and thrive and and all of that I was like yeah I can do this it's easy to integrate into what I'm doing and you know there were they had to be things that really like spoke to my heart like the Special Olympics like hey these are athletes right these are like the bravest athletes yeah and so yeah I I did this whole thing with them where I repelled off a building oh my gosh what yeah I'm saying this is a lot of repelling and climbing there are lots your life is everything that horrifies me needles climbing jumping but you do it all you push past the fear I do and that was so worth it when I repelled down the building one of the Special Olympic athletes congratulated me and hugged me and it was so cool she was like I've done that five times but nice job and I was like oh my god oh my god yeah it was really funny and I actually ended up interviewing her about like all the repelling she's done so like these were just like cool fun things were fundraising was like it wasn't a job it just ended up being something that I found the time to do yeah the last charity that I did something for was the Honduran Children's Cancer Organization in in Honduras it was a hospital that I had volunteered at throughout my entire life when visiting Honduras and my aunt is actually the president of the of the foundation and so it's a very emotional place to visit because there are a lot of these kids that come from poor families that are there because they're in the terminal stages of their disease really in life and I was last there in June of last year and my my aunt took me to a palliative room where a little girl was probably gonna die you know a couple of hours and her father was cradling her and I remember thinking like what can I do like what can I do for these kids like even if it's just to make like those last few hours of life more comfortable so um so my aunt and I were like crying in the room and like you know I'm looking at this little girl's father and I'm like don't worry a minute and I will her name will not like be forgotten and I created a um a GoFundMe page uh basically honoring this little girl in her life um and we raised um pretty quickly five thousand dollars for the hospital so um you know it's it's kind of like in the same way that we have passion for our companies like I think you have to have passion for um for for these organizations that are just you know trying to help people that have no way to help themselves. I'm so happy that you're sharing that with people here and with your audience because if we can use our platform to do social good then it just helps everyone and it helps share your message and it relates back to who you are as a person. Well I think you know I mean we're both storytellers right and I think these stories are um so necessary um for you know people in our position to be sharing and constantly sharing no matter no matter what point we get to um in our in our careers and success as an influencer as a host as you know whatever whatever else I become throughout my career I will always you know tell these stories because I think this is how we learn about you know humanity this is how we learn about our neighbors um and this is how we also break down you know barriers and prejudice and you know racism anti-semitism all the stuff like has been you know resurging lately. Oh a hundred percent so you've done so many great things already uh what is next for mizfit? Okay so I haven't really like said this out loud but I've been looking at homes I'm thinking of leaving the city and uh setting myself up for writing a book because that's the only way it's ever going to happen. So you're thinking maybe of moving to the countryside and writing a book? Yes that's so artistic of you. I've been in the city for 16 years and I'm kind of ready to focus on bigger projects to take 500 concentration. Yeah well that will be one it's been so lovely having you on the show Bianca. It's been a blast. I have one final question for you. Okay do you have any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs like yourself? Yes um get comfortable with being uncomfortable is the first thing um because uh it just has to become like a state of being you know constant it's accurate yeah yeah um don't be too hard on yourself like you will be at the beginning yeah it's just part of it like and then you know we talked about like not taking anything personal so you can't you can't be hard on yourself you will mess up you will you know hate yourself for some of the things you've done you gotta let it go um my last one is get a dog and the reason I say this you need to get one then the reason I say this is because a dog brings perspective introspection and um helps you not be so sedentary as an entrepreneur because sometimes we become chained or glued to our desk or project and a dog means you have to and you have to walk your own dog that's part of it it means you you have to step away and breathe and take a break so after years of wanting a dog I finally got Frida Doggy that's actually her Instagram handle and she's a ten-year-old Chihuahua so we're both like aging gracefully together and she's incredible not only has she like increased my production and efficiency she's just helped me like really see the world in a more positive way and breathe because I have to go on like four four to five walks a day and it's so healthy that's so good to know because I really want a dog and um maybe I should get one it's time yeah it's one of my top tips for entrepreneurs yeah so it's been wonderful having you on the show Bianca thank you so much for joining us and thanks to everyone who tuned in today if you want to learn more about Bianca Jade visit Misfit.com and follow her on Instagram at Bianca Jade with her expert advice on wellness I can guarantee her tips will help you become your best self so that is all for this edition of School of Hustle keep up with all of our episodes on youtube apple podcast google podcast or wherever you stream and download podcasts and if you like what you heard please consider leaving a review share with your friends and subscribe to our show we'll see you next time bye