Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Moncayo.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I started my corporate career in telecommunications soon after graduating from college. I secured my first entry-level position as a bilingual customer service representative. I then navigated and escalated, taking on positions including Inside Sales, Management, Product Marketing, ultimately becoming a Product Manager. My corporate career allowed me to learn valuable skills, develop talents and experience corporate organizational structure and dynamic, realizing the framework it provided for thriving.
In time, I began to develop a desire for more autonomy… more command of when and how I did my work and more time to enjoy the money I was making. I was a stellar employee and loved my job but eventually began to experience angst as the structure did not allow me to exercise my full potential and the lack of balance did not allow me enough time to attend to personal issues pulling at me from home. Newer businesses are becoming more sensitive to this and addressing work/life balance more progressively and creatively these days, and that’s a great thing.
About ten years ago, when I began to experience some health issues that traditional medicine didn’t have answers to, I began to realize these as physical manifestation of my emotional state (stress), and questioned why, even though I passionately and consistently exercised and ate “well”, my “healthy lifestyle” endeavors weren’t delivering. I was motivated to dig deeper and consider the impact of our mental/emotional state on the body and became very serious about managing my emotions. I completed several programs and obtained certifications on Meditation and Mindfulness. I studied the effects of exercise and food on the body, acquired my Yoga RYT 200 hour certification, and immersed myself in developing strategies to help the body thrive and heal vs. deplete.
This journey culminated in the development of my wellness concept: Move-Nourish-Mind® . When I left corporate and courageously embraced entrepreneurship in 2012, “Move-Nourish-Mind” (MNM) became the founding premise of our fitness studio (Brookhaven Fitness). A radical and progressive concept for Atlanta, GA at the time, we taught everyone that your “fitness” should be addressed holistically and how you feel, impacts how you eat and how you move (exercise). Everyone understood exercise and Nutrition, to some degree, but the Mind part was new in Atlanta. I offered “Mind-Muscle Training” workshops to introduce people to the value of Mindfulness and its significant role in a wellness regimen. Soon, these workshops led to a growing base of private clients requesting customized MNM packages, and also corporate managers and directors attending our workshops asked that we bring these to their employees. Having had a corporate background, I understood firsthand the stressors of “cubicle life” and developed a program specifically for corporate groups. I started bringing these workshops to Cox, Relay Health/Mckesson, Halyard Health and others and they lead to the evolution of my business from brick and mortar presence to a mobile, remote and corporate worksite-based concept: Qonscious Fit.
Since 2016, I’ve been offering customized MNM programs to individual clients on a ‘one on one’ basis, and also work-site Mindfulness, Nutrition and Yoga workshops to corporations under my company name: Qonscious Fit. In 2017, I augmented my Corporate Mindfulness business by delivering my work in collaboration with Christopher Carey – author of Chasing Meditation – A Step by Step Guide to a Stress-Free Life through Meditation. Together, and under the company name: Chasing Mindfulness we also offer employee groups customized Mindfulness and Meditation programs to manage stress in the workplace, improve their health and performance at work. These programs are three to six months in length, focus on corporate goals and deliver bench-marking data and reporting to quantify results. I feel blessed to be a pioneer for Atlanta in this arena of corporate mindfulness, and am thrilled to see interest and traction with progressive-minded clients such as Bennett Intl and Humana investing in their employees’ emotional well-being; as well as being featured by Atlanta Business Chronicle in their July 13th issue Corporate Wellness Quarterly.
Great, 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?
It has been an amazing journey so far, and I wouldn’t trade for the world, but it has had its challenges, no doubt. I think that to be successful in your journey especially if what you want to do and share is progressive and trailblazing, you need to have a good dose of passion, knowledge, confidence, and patience. It takes time and creative effort to get people to understand and buy into new concepts, especially concepts that require practice and deliver paced, incremental results. For instance, I have had many individual MNM clients that didn’t buy into the holistic model at first… we’d work together on their terms until I could get them to try changing up something in their diet, or try doing mindfulness work for a week, so that then they’d have an “aha!” moment and come around.
Similarly, in the corporate arena, it has been challenging to get decision-makers to buy into Mindfulness as a tool for improving employee performance and driving business success. It’s a very abstract concept and although companies like Aetna, for instance, has actually quantified productivity gains and stress reduction in their workforce by implementing Mindfulness programs, it still can seem like a big leap for corporations… albeit having spent millions on more traditional/commonly accepted workforce productivity-enhancing programs with slim to non-results. As I forge ahead and engage with more progressive-minded businesses and individuals, I gain more validation and more energy to keep building. As long as you sincerely believe in yourself and the value of what you are doing, then you can muster up the fuel to keep going amidst challenges. In fact, the struggles make the successes feel that much bigger and sweeter.
what should we know about Chasing Mindfulness and also Qonscious Fit? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
My work is divided into two segments: On the one hand I work with individual clients privately and on the other hand, I work with corporate employee groups offering Mindfulness and Meditation workshops for stress management at work.
In the area of private engagements, I offer holistic exercise, nutrition and mindfulness solutions that are customized to client specific requirements and goals. I’m proud of having developed this holistic concept and trademarked it: Move-Nourish-Mind®. The program starts with assessments in all three areas. The results of these assessments unfold as customized programming for the individual client. I’m specifically very proud of the Mindfulness piece of this program: it is a 12 week engagement that includes eight guided meditation scripts that I have written and recorded with my own voice, weekly consultations and customized mindfulness techniques to get the client to learn meditation and leverage the power of mindfulness to achieve their goals and transform their lives for the better, I’m also very proud of my ability to help clients improve their health with yoga. I have a very non-dogmatic and engaging style that makes yoga less intimidating to beginners, and I’m a great educator so this helps clients become and stay motivated.
In the corporate arena, my group workshops offer practical and readily accessible techniques and deliver education on the science and proof behind the concepts driving these techniques. In this arena I’m proud of having developed on my own a complete 3-6 month program, tailored to corporate and in support of employee and corporate goals, It includes incremental learning and application of concepts to workplace situations, as well as benchmarking and reporting tools to monitor success. I think what differentiates my work is how I deliver the content…the ability to make abstract concepts like Mindfulness and Meditation accessible and relate-able to everyone.
Looking back on your childhood, what experiences do you feel played an important role in shaping the person you grew up to be?
I think that we each are a continuously evolving compendium of our experiences, and as we continue to experience and learn we continue to evolve and grow. Growing up, my parents were entrepreneurial through and through… they never worked within a corporate environment, They always had their own businesses. As a result, I grew up learning to maintain a sense of ownership and commitment in everything I do. During my years as a corporate employee, I treated everything I touched as if it was mine (my business) and I was fully invested, heart and soul, because that was the only way I knew. I quickly realized that what was my “modus operandi” was actually a differentiating factor that made me sought after and successful. So, this personality trait served me well during my corporate employment years, helped me make the transition to entrepreneurship and serves me to this day. It allows me to have my mind and my heart in everything I do and give my all to my customers.
Pricing:
- 12 week Individual Private Mindfulness & Meditation Training = $678
- Corporate Mindfulness Intro Workshop and Custom Programs = $3500 – $5500
Contact Info:
- Website: www.QonsciousFit.com and www.ChasingMindfulness.com
- Phone: 678-362-3109
- Email: Rachel@QonsciousFit.com
- Other: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-moncayo-26911015/
Image Credit:
all photos were taken by ourselves. Logos purchased from hired designer: Jackie Snyder
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
