Caroline (00:01.113)
Today I have my girl Brittany Brennan with me. Welcome Brittany.
Brittany Burnham (00:04.954)
Hi Caroline, thanks for having me, I appreciate you.
Caroline (00:08.601)
So just a little backstory for those of you listening out there, Brittany and I are in the podcast Mastermind Together hosted by Kasia Gittmeri. And we met for the first time in Denver at our live retreat.
Brittany Burnham (00:22.17)
Mm, it was an instant love. Love at first sight right when you text me.
Caroline (00:28.697)
fellow generators right there.
Brittany Burnham (00:30.426)
Yes. And generator and Enneagrams, three and eight, they just know each other on an achievement level, right? It's the do level. Yes.
Caroline (00:42.905)
Yeah, we get we get each other. We don't have to. There's like an unspoken rule.
So tell me about where you are right now and how did you get there?
Brittany Burnham (00:53.378)
Alex Street, thank you for helping us share our story, right? Just a little shout out to him. He's one of our experts that came to Denver. So, wow. It was 10 years ago, I started my entrepreneurship journey. I was a single parent. I was living with my mom. I was in a very abusive relationship. So I had a stronger, much deeper purpose with my baby, moved with my mom, lived on food stamps.
very humbling because I was an educator. I was running an all girls high school as an athletic director. So, I say that humbling experience, I left and thought I would want to transition. And I'm all about trying new things, experimenting, trial and error. And I went back to college after grad school and everything else, because I was going for sports administration. And then,
I went back to school, to college when I was with my mom, had a newborn and I was going for ultrasound because I thought it was so cool. I had a baby in my stomach and let's just try it, right? So it wasn't for me. Started working out and working on my health and that was the catalyst to my growth when I knew I had to work from the inside out, my mindset, just everything from my mind, body and soul.
And the transformation happened pretty quickly where from there I started a fitness empire in my mom's backyard with eight women, which led to my business, Hit It With Brit. And I grew that very quickly in a couple of months to a hundred members, got a location. And then I rebranded just a couple of years ago to Power Performance Wellness Recovery.
built out my dream facility. And from single mom, I became a bonus mom. This is very packed. This is a very packed story. And this is why Alex said, you need a lot of books, not just chapters. And so became a bonus mom, let's see, in 2019. Had another baby, so I have four children.
Brittany Burnham (03:19.354)
and I am now, I have pivoted in the past year to a business and mindset coach and podcaster and host of events. So it has been a lot of shifts, a lot of obstacles that I've turned into opportunity. Yeah.
Caroline (03:40.249)
I love that. Thank you for sharing. And I did not know that you were the athletic director of a girls school before that. So, wow, that is a huge change.
Brittany Burnham (03:49.274)
Yes, I loved it. And I was so I was living in Philly when I was in grad school and a recruiter. And that's when she approached, she contacted me and said, I want you to open this school. It wasn't even it wasn't even built yet. Like it was so I was to be I was one of the founding founding members. And I got it was kind of like running a business. I got to do whatever I wanted as the athletic director. It was so cool. So everything I learned was
transitional, all the skills from that time when I was, I was 26, 27 and felt like I was an entrepreneur at that time. Yeah.
Caroline (04:30.809)
So I want to get into the nitty gritty of that a little bit. So you started here with Britt and your mom's backyard and you grew it to over 100 members very quickly and then had to get an actual facility. So did you have an app? Did you have a Facebook group? I mean, how do you even start something like that?
Brittany Burnham (04:48.218)
Yeah, and this was 2015. Social media, it was there, but it wasn't what it was like now. I was just Googling and researching. I didn't have any mentors. I didn't have the funds to invest in any coaches. So I did read something to find cheer facilities to rent out.
So I reached out to a local cheer facility. I rented out for whopping beautiful $400 a month and they don't have classes until the evening. So I got to use at 5 a at 6 a at 9 .30 and those were my times. I would coach maybe six classes a week to start it off and I was also bartending and waitressing. So, and then I was also at that time too, I was also working in the hospital because...
I wasn't sure if I was going to be an ultrasound tech. So I didn't know what to do. I did find Mindbody. The Mindbody is an app, it's a CRM for health and fitness facilities. And I did, I think I had to pay maybe back then it was like 10 or $20 a month. And I had just 10 members, then 20 members. And I just kept.
really trying to be inspired by other communities and other gyms and just trying to give and take, but make everything my own. And I knew nothing about branding, but I began to love branding because of how hit it with Brit, just the catchy slogans and how I created my logo. So I was getting really fired up by branding and messaging and then creating community. I've always been.
I've always been able to create community. That comes, it's one of my strengths. It was very natural to me. So I did create a private Facebook group. I'm started there.
Caroline (06:50.361)
brilliant. I mean, that's insane that you went from working three to four jobs to now building up this massive fitness empire and now the huge organization and leader that you are now. So if someone is listening to this podcast, I'm wondering where to start. You talk a lot about mindset and you've had to have a lot of mindset shifts, I'm sure throughout your journey. What is the first step to take?
Brittany Burnham (07:15.194)
Hmm.
I truly believe it's all about who, who you're putting yourselves, like who you're surrounded by. And in the fitness community, it is all mindset. Everything that I was doing, like when I was coaching on the floor, it isn't just about the physical transformation. It is first all about that emotional and mental component. And I am, I'm always the hype girl.
I was a three sport athlete, you know, so like it just came natural to me to have this positive mindset and to be able to adapt and to shift. And I truly think that entrepreneurship is the hardest journey and the number one, one of the number one skills I would say, if anyone asked me the top skills for entrepreneurs, I would say flexibility and adaptability because that's, you have to have the mindset to be able like, okay.
This is just a little, this is not, I always say this is not a stop sign. This is just a speed bump and slow down. So I would definitely encourage the, to be able to find the people who are gonna be those encouragers, those ones that are gonna bring that type of energy to you because there's a lot of ones that wanna bring you down too, yeah.
Caroline (08:41.881)
that stop sign speed bump analogy. So why is it important? I mean, a lot of times if you're building something, if you're creating something, it starts slow in the beginning and then you have to continue working at it before you can scale it or really grow it. What do you do if you are frustrated or you don't know what to do next? I mean, you mentioned more surrounding yourself with other people like you, but how do you keep, how do you have the strength to keep going?
Brittany Burnham (09:10.778)
Hmm. For my family, I mean, I know that I want to create a legacy for them. I have to be the best role model for them. They and I want to be just very honest because life only gets harder. I always say to them like life gets harder and I need to have you build resilience. And that is the other that's the other quality that I would say. I always say resilience and adaptability. And that's.
just from my experience of a lot of the pain I've experienced from, you know, just being in an abusive relationship to now to even like surviving the pandemic with gyms, like my gym was closed for six months. So I just had to we had to pivot, we had to adapt and I had to build that resiliency. So that is just another
how can you do that? And it's just by experience. And that's where I've taken a lot of my pain and turned it into my purpose and using my message or my mess to be my message. And I'm saying like all these like funny terms, but like that's the mindset that I've always, I have to keep saying it to myself. Like I, one of my, I felt, I feel like a quote girl right now. When, even before all this, when I was in the, when I was in the really,
the relationship with my daughter's father. Before that, I experienced a huge traumatic event with my family. My father was living a double life, and that right there was the first experience where I didn't know, like, should I stay in grad school? Should I come home and help my family? So those are the moments that I have to look back and be like, okay, if you're handed it, you can handle it.
God is, God gives me this for a reason and I am, I need to be that role model. I always go back to just, I need to be that positive role model for my family.
Caroline (11:17.561)
That is so good because I feel like so many times people just let their excuses or their victim mentality define them and it holds people back so much.
Brittany Burnham (11:27.034)
Hmm. It really does. And it's hard because I give a lot of tough love, but I'm also very clear on that. And I'll say to my daughter who's 10, just like, you know why I'm saying this to you, you know why I'm hard on you. Like I think just the other day I'm like, do I give you like, you know, do I balance and blend an equal amount of tough love and like that other type of really like lovey love and you know, like I just want to make sure that.
Sometimes I'm not too hard, but I also have that soft side or that vulnerable side where you and I have talked about that as an Enneagram three, everything is achievement, achievement and success and being tough and wearing a mask and not being transparent. And I've had to learn a lot and I've had to uncover a lot through Enneagram, through human design on awareness and identity so I can be a better parent, be a better wife, be best for myself first.
And then because there's a lot of people relying on me. A lot.
Caroline (12:29.209)
So as a CEO and leader of the Mombas, Maximizer community and podcast host, I mean, how do you discern where to be transparent and who to be transparent with?
Brittany Burnham (12:41.882)
Yeah, that's such a great question because what's happened in the past 18 months for me, I've had to be very transparent in this transition, in this identity shift because it's still a struggle for me. It's very challenging and it's uncomfortable and it's challenging because I'm known in my local community as hit it with Britsdale. My business became my identity.
And there was tons of guilt that came with wanting to branch out and to be able to impact more and give more to women because so much happened in the past five years that I didn't want to just help transform women in their health and wellness journey. I was a single mom, I became a bonus mom. I then just, I am obsessed with growth and personal development and identity.
and mindset that I now wanted, like, I realized there's something unaligned here. There's something that, like, there's a void, and I'm not sure what this void is, but that guilt of transitioning of outside these walls here in this gym was very hard for me to build this new community. So when I started MomBoss Maximizer in September, I knew I just wanted to connect with,
more women because I needed it. I wanted to receive just as much as giving. And that was something that I was struggling with when I was constantly working in my business at the gym that I wasn't receiving as much. And then when I stopped coaching, I felt like I wasn't giving enough. I wasn't contributing. So starting this new community and building a new community is kind of like starting over. But I've seen so much value because
This is a really hard journey of entrepreneurship and motherhood and it's very aligned. Yeah.
Caroline (14:51.065)
Why is it important to prioritize health and wellness?
Brittany Burnham (14:57.466)
I truly, truly, and I'm talking from my own experience and my own opinion because of how I transformed, that's when you start to focus on your health, everything, mind, body, and soul, and those become aligned, then other things start to fall into place. It's like the pieces of the puzzle. So there's been a lot of trauma that I've dealt with, even just in the past year, from my Achilles.
and from being in a custody battle with my bonus children and I wasn't in a good space mentally, but I wasn't working on it as much as I should. So then it was affecting my business. It was affecting my business and my performance and my output in many other ways. So that's why I know that even just in this current season of taking a pause and focusing on doing less,
But giving more, I have to make sure I'm good first. And when I know that health is number one, like we have one body, we are the CEO of our life, of our brains, of our health, what we put in is what we're gonna put out. Clearly, that's it.
Caroline (16:21.049)
So what's lighting up you right now with some of the clients you're currently working with?
Brittany Burnham (16:26.522)
What's lighting up, you said?
Caroline (16:28.729)
With the clients that you're working with, what is lighting you up? Like helping them from mindset standpoint, or is it the gym? You've got so many different things going on. So what has been something that's really got you on fire right now?
Brittany Burnham (16:41.026)
The mom boss maximizer, 110%. I've stepped back, even though I'm in the gym, I am very fortunate that I have an incredible team who runs all the operations in and out. I really just come here to do the finances, the budgeting, and to work out. But what's lighting me up is working with moms, mothers, and entrepreneurs who are struggling with...
their direction, like navigating their business, whether it be starting, starting even just of like learning what their mission is and what their vision is, what their mission is and their core values and learning more about themselves. So what my framework is, is we first go into their identity and we use the Enneagram. I'm starting to incorporate some human design since now I am mind blown by human design. We use the Clifton Strength Finder and
Clifton Strength Finder is how I actually got the maximizer term because it's my number one strength, which means finding potential in other people and transforming other people, which my human design gift is transformation. So it's just so like what I get so obsessed and fired up that like, I know this deep down inside of me, how it's changed me and how I've been able to.
build a business without having an experience or help or support. I didn't take out any loans. I didn't have any coaches, but now it's so much fun to be able to now connect with coaches and gain that mentorship and to be able to just gain more insights on how to navigate, how to navigate this light because it is, it's a real coast of emotions. It's so emotional. I had one person say to me to stop.
It was years ago to stop running my business on emotions. And it was a man and that's okay. But it was one of those things like, it is emotional. It's our baby. Our businesses are, I feel like I have a fifth child because it is so important. We pour everything into it. So I know with women who are struggling as parents and time and their health, I can give to them what.
Brittany Burnham (18:59.546)
they what they need because I just want to meet them where they're at and it's different for every single every single woman.
Caroline (19:06.393)
I love that. So as we wrap up, how can our listeners find you?
Brittany Burnham (19:11.642)
They can find me on Instagram. I have a few handles, britney .burnham, my podcast, Mom Boss Maximizer Podcast, that's the handle, and we're on Spotify, iTunes, on YouTube. I put up my episodes on YouTube as well. And then I have an event every single year called Guts Girls Using Their Strengths, and it's all about empowerment and celebrating.
and it was incredible this past year. It was sold out. So we do it in March for Women's History Month and we brought women from more of like the East Coast. So I will be announcing that in the fall when the date comes out for March.
Caroline (19:54.169)
Thanks, Brittany.
Brittany Burnham (19:55.642)
Thank you so much, Caroline. Appreciate you.
