Community Highlights: Meet Jennifer Masley of Jennifer Masley Coaching

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Masley

Hi Jennifer, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Hello! Thank you for this opportunity to share my story. Life has a way of showing us how resilient we are if we trust it and show up fully for the adventure. My life has felt very much like a test of this resilience and in turn I am grateful to be able to relate to (and have deep empathy for) many people as a result of the journey. From being born to teenage parents, leaving home at 14, finding my way to and through college. Married in my mid 20’s and two children by 30, life still having its way with me in between the joys and successes. I have always embodied gratitude, to get to fully live and experience all of what life wants to show me. To learn along the way, to stay in alignment with my truth – even when I struggled with what that truth was, never giving up on the seeking.
In 2009 my husband and I were caught in the throws of the financial crisis, losing 20mm overnight. The Big Short was my life. Cars, homes, bank accounts, credit cards, savings…gone. He was a developer, I was raising my babies and working as a health coach, personal trainer and racing triathlons. Within months of losing everything, my husband was diagnosed with leukemia. The kind that you read about where it comes on overnight and most often the person dies. He didn’t (thank GOD) but it was close. His doctors words when we called with the lab results “get him to the f*cking hospital now, if they don’t start chemo he will be dead by morning.” At the time we still had our one home and I was doing everything I could to stay afloat, he was depressed and apparently growing cancer with all of the cortisol. I started a restaurant out of my kitchen, peddling cleanses and energy bars and teaching cooking classes. I had over 300 people coming to see me and I was putting food on the table. My husband was in the hospital for nearly a year getting treatments and a stem cell transplant while I was managing the kids, bankers, lawyers, bills and his care. The local news started sharing stories about my business and I would gratefully go on for segments sharing health and wellbeing information, not mentioning anything about my personal life. Until one day a woman showed up at my door and said “i know what is happening in your life and I want to help” I am building a private gym and have space for a juice shop/cafe at the end. You help me design it and I’ll build it out. It’s yours for 600$ month. That turned into 7 restaurants in 6 years, a radio show, working with WVU helping to rebuild their medical school food complex, and transition their conventional farming onto the pristine organic land for best sustainability practices. Working with the government in Ghana to create a sustainable revenue cycle growing hemp. The restaurants were all organic, and in MI, AZ, TN and WV. I worked with local farmers in the regions to source the best possible produce and food sources along with helping farmers and restauranteurs create systems to better understand and work with one another. I was composting before most people knew what that was, never allowed plastics or styrofoam – if I wouldn’t eat it at home it wasn’t going to be something I sold. One of my restaurants had a garden and bee hives that we sourced from. It was a magical time. And by way of circumstances I had an investor who essentially went a bit rouge and I had to close one of my favorite projects. It caused me to take a deep pause and to really reflect on my life and the work I was doing. I went and lived on an island for a year, having sold several locations and closed 2 I had my original store left. I realized during my sabbatical that I had been running too fast too hard without the proper support and that I was completely burned out. My husband and i had divorced (very amicably and still dear friends today) in 2014. I was single and trying to grow a company and raise children. I came off the island and made a deal at the 11th hour of 2019 to sell my first and last standing store. I called a woman who had been interested in the past and we made a deal, no lawyers, firm and fair price, must close before christmas. We got it done in 2 weeks and closed on December 23rd. I traveled for a few months coming back to the US right as the world was shutting down. I had some company founders call me to help them with what they were facing, and coaching came back to me in a much different way than the health coaching i was doing a decade early. For the past 5 years I have been fortunate to have worked with amazing leaders, and founders on both their business and their personal lives. It’s always both. What’s happening in one is affecting the other. I have also had this growing group of women who I have had the honor of helping them lay out their dream business and walked them through the steps to start up and leave their jobs. It’s one of my favorite things to do honestly because I know the challenges and also the beauty. The rewards. I have made the mistakes and I work to mitigate theirs. I also host retreats, just returning from Mexico with a brilliant group who all had deeply transformational experiences. I have taken my passion for helping people help themselves to both the business arena and the transformational space. Consciousness, spirituality – know thyself. “Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.”― Marcus Aurelius
My work is a very holistic container, business, relationship to self and other, vitality. It is life asking us to live deeply and unapologetically authentic, that’s what lights me up.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Looking back the bumps all became larger when I didn’t trust my own knowing. I let others who I assumed knew best and my best interest to guide my path. I know use this in my coaching as my number one tenet. Teaching my clients to align their integrity and trust their intuition. It is our sacred gift from the divine universe.

As you know, we’re big fans of Jennifer Masley Coaching . For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
coaching

helping leaders, founders and creatives access their deep internal knowing and trusting it

working with org teams on generous listening and true impact driven business models

i have been through the gamut in my personal and professional life, i have the experience to back up my practice, and i continue to grow and challenge myself so that i can show up in my full capacity for my work and my clients

i have compartmentalized my work into coaching, cleansing and ceremony. coaching is my primary business, cleansing is a 3 day cleanse that have facilitated for 15 years and that started my work in the restaurant world, ceremony/retreat i love rituals and ceremony, retreats that allow us to get closer to our authentic self so we can take that version of us out into the world to be better and do better. my website is going through a construction and will be live by Feb 14th! excited about that!

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Being a coach, i always work with coaches to stay in alignment with myself, my goals. Networking is community and I feel this is one of the most important aspects of human health and success, having access to a network or community that fuels our best and most potent desires.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jennifermasley.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennifermasley/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifermasley/