Today we’d like to introduce you to Tiffany Kelly.
Tiffany, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Brooklyn, New York and spent most of my childhood and early adult years living in a section of Brooklyn called Bedford-Stuyvesant. I’m the oldest of seven grandchildren (maternal). My mom said I was born a leader and she wasn’t surprised that the work that I would do would involve speaking because I’ve always loved to talk.
When I was about eight years old, my dad retired from the police department early and bought a six-family apartment building. This apartment building also included a dry cleaners. This dry cleaners was the start of my father’s next level in entrepreneurship, but it was also my introduction to being an entrepreneur. At age eight, my first job was making pants hangers as I watched Saturday cartoons on a small black and white television in my dad’s office. As I got older, I learned every inch of the business, soon I knew how to run everything from the front counter to spotting, pressing, and dry cleaning clothes. Later years my dad went on to acquire more property, open several other businesses and by age fifteen I ran all of his empires. I knew what entrepreneurship was like, I loved the idea of being able to create my own destiny and wealth. However, I didn’t know that all the great things that were happening from managing businesses to finishing college, to excelling in many areas of my life would also lead to health complications.
In the year 2000, I was still running businesses for dad and working my full-time job. But one day I wasn’t feeling well and decided to walk into an urgent care center to get myself checked. The doctor comes in to check my vitals and proceeds to check my pressure. Little did I know, I was on the verge of having a stroke. My pressure two hundred something over a hundred something! The doctor became frantic and began to explain how much danger I was in at that moment and immediately began to get me set up to receive medicine intravenously to bring down my pressure. The doctor told me I needed to change my eating habits, lose weight, stress less, and be more active. I left that day with my first hypertension medicine. I was only twenty-two years old. I filled the prescription but didn’t change much of my habits. At this time I weighed over two hundred forty pounds, didn’t exercise, lived an extremely high stressed life between trying to meet the demands of my dad’s businesses, still maintain my career, help family and friends, as well as have some sort of personal life.
So much didn’t change even after becoming very ill. I kept on going. But two months after my diagnosis, I became so stressed and overwhelmed that I was unable to work for four months. My health was at an all-time low. In late January of 2001, I was well enough to return to work and began my teaching career. Although, feeling better I still didn’t change much of my habits. At that time I felt the medicine was taking care of the pressure, so I was good. I would later learn that I was not.
In 2005, I moved to the metro Atlanta area and continued my teaching career while launching my first business which was tutoring. It wasn’t long before I had a full roster of students to serve after school. But once again I was faced with not feeling well and ended up in the urgent care with stroke level pressure levels again. That night I left with my second medicine to help prevent me from having a stroke and dying before age thirty. It took a while but I began to slowly make changes. I was scared, now I was two hundred sixty plus pounds and on two medications, it was time for me to truly make a shift.
In 2007, I joined a local gym. I made a decision that I didn’t want to die and I wanted to prove to myself and the doctors that I was going to get off the medication and debunk the theory that just because hypertension runs in my family that I was going to follow that path. So my journey began. I committed myself to three to four days per week and even got up some mornings at 5 am to workout before work. I started small by giving up fast food, then sodas, teas, and even my favorite ice cream! I was on a mission to save my life. On my own, I lost twenty pounds and was proud of myself. I felt better, I looked better and wanted to keep going but I knew I needed help.
In January of 2009, I hired a trainer who taught me how to take my nutrition to another level as well as my fitness. This was a hard journey, but I was determined to win! This journey to success was three years long. By 2012 I lost about 80 lbs and I looked great! But most importantly, in that year I was also taken off my last high blood pressure med!! This felt so good, I finally reached my goal. In addition, in that year I also began to help my trainer by assisting with her boot camp classes. I enjoyed sharing with the ladies my journey and providing inspiration, motivation, tips, strategies, tools, and whatever else I could share to help them achieve the same success I accomplished. I later went on to teach the Wednesday boot camp sessions for almost three years.
In 2014, I launched my company Loose the Power Within! Loose the Power Within! was designed to provide coaching and weight-loss support to women who wanted to begin their journey and live the life they always knew they could. I also provided meal prep workshops, fitness events, and designed custom meal plans. This business has afforded me the opportunities to facilitate workshops and fitness events for retreats, speak at conferences, churches, and corporate events. In addition, it birthed my vision to now provide health and wellness for educators through my FitTEACH program.
In 2017, after a former school district reorganized and left many teachers wondering about their jobs, I too experienced the stress of the district’s decision and found myself ill from the stress of the environment that we worked in on a daily basis. I served an Instructional Coach, whose role is to support teachers for instruction but I found myself almost in the role of a life coach taking on the worries of others as well as my own! It was a difficult year as I watched many teachers’ health decline and self-care became little to non-existent. In addition, a few years before, I lost my mentor, principal, friend, second mother, due to illness brought on by a lack of self-care. This became my “WHY” for wanting to create a program to help fellow educators. I want to help change how educators take care of their well-being. We need to stay well so that they can do all that they’ve been called to do.
So, this year, 2019 I am making a slight shift in my business by closing Loose the Power Within! and now for the first time, I’m introducing Tiffany D. Kelly Consulting. I want to establish my personal brand because there is so much more God wants me to do. My consulting business will now continue the work of Loose the Power Within! by providing health and wellness workshops, corporate wellness, events, and more. Tiffany D. Kelly Consulting will especially focus on the FitTEACH program and work closely with districts, schools, educators, and district personnel to bring change to how we prioritize self-care. I believe because of my own journey and my continued determination to stay well, I am a REAL-LIFE example. People can relate to me because I know what it is like to be overweight, sick, an emotional eater, having a diagnosis, and finding my way to triumph over it all. I still have challenges and I like to be transparent about those challenges so that people know that this journey is hard, especially after the weight has come off, but you have to keep going no matter what. I always say, “We all fall down. But it’s when you get back up, you WIN!! It’s time to WIN!”
I’m excited about where God is taking me this year and I look forward to helping educators improve their health so that they are mentally, physically, and spiritually well to do the work they’ve been called to do.
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 not been a smooth road. One of my biggest struggles has been believing in myself. Sometimes when you first start out, you question whether you are good enough or know enough. I work daily to starve self-doubt. Self-doubt will rob you of your dreams. I know now even more with the shift that I’m taking in my business that I have to continue to increase my prayer time, read more books that keep my mindset in the right place, listen to motivational talks, talk to people who feed me with motivation and encouragement and believe in me. I affirm myself everyday.
My next struggle I would say has been getting the right clients who value what I have to offer and are willing to pay for my service. Over time, I’ve learned how to find the right clients who are value what I have to offer.
Another challenge would be balancing, trying to stay healthy and still balance my day job because I am a parallel-preneur. This can be difficult at times, especially when your job is demanding. I’m learning more and more about the importance of truly making time for self-care, saying “No”, meditating, praying, and having a good laugh!
My last challenge would be trying to stay fit through having injuries and still being the example of living a fit life. This has been hard, but I still press on! I have the best doctors and they provide me with strategies and alternative remedies to handle the periodic pain that I feel at times. Recently, I set up a mini gym in my bedroom where I can do circuits that will help me tighten my muscles and rehab all at the same time. I’m determined I won’t be defeated!
Please tell us about Tiffany D. Kelly Consulting.
Tiffany D. Kelly Consulting provides workshops and specialized wellness programs, for corporations, school districts, organizations, small groups, and individuals who are seeking help with transforming their health and getting fit. With a focus on self-care, Tiffany D. Kelly Consulting is now especially looking to work with school districts to help improve teacher attrition rates by creating programs that help educators reduce stress, stay fit, eat healthy, and improve job performance.
I’m known for my own transformation and being able to motivate and inspire people to go home and take action NOW. In addition, I’m known for being able to help people use a simple approach to getting started and not just going from one day of bad habits to now the extreme dieter and gym rat! Lol. I teach people how to take this health and fitness journey in stages. Like I always say, “Small changes over time, lead to lasting success. Be patient with the process!” I’m also an author of the book, Lady of Power, so people call me “Lady of Power” because when I go places to speak, I speak on the power that’s within us and having that power gives us the ability to be all that we are meant to be. My book is designed to motivate and inspire women to dig deep within to stay true to your health and fitness journey and reach success.
What I am most proud of as a company is our ability to help people shift their mindset and believe that just like me, they too can successfully lose weight, get off of medications or reduce medications, and live their best life!
What sets me apart from others is that I have walked the journey of being overweight, living with high blood pressure, anxiety, emotional eating, and joint pain. Often times people who coach or train people on this journey can’t relate to the struggle…I can. In addition, with my educator program, I’m an eighteen year educator with almost ten in academic coaching, I understand what educators face on a daily basis. Having had my own struggles, I can relate to the challenges educators might face when it comes to dealing with job stress, lack of motivation to workout, making time to prep meals, and still having time for family. People want to know you understand and can help them overcome these obstacles and reach success.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Wow, I have so many! Lol. Ok, I would say my most favorite memory was the year we had this really bad snow storm in New York and my best friend, my brother, and I decided to use an old iron board to slide down the stairs in the snow. After we broke the iron board, my brother and I got our water raft (plastic donut tube) and used that to slide down the stairs. The objective was to see who could get the farthest out the gate. Well when my best friend, Michelle got in, she not only went clear through the gate, she went all the way to the street! It was hilarious! I never laughed so hard. That year there were two other houses next to us vacant, so we continued to enjoy our raft rides until our mom called us in. What fun we had!
Contact Info:
- Website: loosethepowerwithin.com
- Phone: 678-888-1792
- Email: Tiffany.Kellyconsults@gmail.
com - Instagram: @tiffanyd_kelly
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tiffanydkelly/
Image Credit:
Woody Martin, Photos by W (Main Photo), Jamaal “Jay” Daniel (Fitness Photo – After)
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