Stephanie Thomas is all heart

By bec16, February 21, 2015

 

 

Following your dreams can be daunting, putting your heart on your sleeve can be scary and stepping off a well travelled path of security and betting on yourself can be terrifying. It is much easier to wax lyrical about the rewards of taking a big leap once you have a foot firmly planted on the other side. The risk, the worry, the failures, the doubts and the plain old hard work are, in hindsight, insignificant specks that don’t make the cut when their momentous, life-change is reduced to a one line philosophy befitting a lifespirational meme.

This is why I was impressed that a good friend of mine, Stephanie Thomas, was kind and brave enough to chat with me about a new adventure she is embarking on. After establishing a promising career in accounting, Steph has left it behind and has spent the last couple of months painting walls and laying flooring to open her very own CrossFit affiliate on the Gold Coast, CrossFit Meraki.

I met Steph two years ago when she started training at CrossFit Broadbeach. For me, one of Steph’s many outstanding qualities is that she is highly driven and competitive but it is never at the expense of others. Steph is always pushing to improve or do her best for the team.

“I really like competing in teams. That’s when I’ve felt best competing – I feel part of something. I really enjoy that” Steph explains.

“Competitive. Yeah I am competitive. I have to be competitive. I just don’t think I’m a bad sport competitive. I’m not angry competitive,” Steph laughs and concedes that she does get angry at the bar sometimes. “But not at people or anything like that.”

I was lucky enough to witness Steph’s competitive ‘bar rage’ at a competition once. Our team of six had been split into guys and girls with only a couple of minutes for each member to work up to a one rep max snatch – two bars but only one set of plates. With less than a minute to go, the girls were stuck waiting on the 2.5kg plates  so that we could increment up and get everyone up to their one rep max.

“Just a sec, just a sec,” the boys reassured us as the seconds melted away while they failed lift after lift – it was clear that the girls half was not going to get the chance to lift what we were capable of.

“Fuck it,” said Steph as she grabbed the 5kg plates. With only seconds to spare and with a Hulk-level rage directed firmly at the bar, Steph hefted up a five kilo PB snatch on her first attempt. Sure, lots of people PB at competitions but for me this little experience with Steph was really character revealing. She didn’t waste a second getting stressed about things that were out of her control. She just saw away to attack the problem and she Got. It. Done.

It is Steph’s drive, balanced with a pragmatic approach to what really matters – turning up and doing your best – that makes Steph a top team mate, killer training partner, and a positive influence at the box.

As a child, Steph demonstrated a natural ability for all things sport with touch football, netball and little athletics all in the mix. By high school, Steph was regularly Sportswoman of the Year and had even been offered the opportunity to receive coaching to pursue athletics full time. After choosing her studies over her sport, Steph began studying interior design until her course was withdrawn and she was left weighing up her options again.

“I was a little bit lost there for awhile didn’t really know what I wanted to do.”

Oddly enough, inspiration came from an unexpected quarter when as she watched ‘Kochi’ on Sunrise one day.

“He did this little segment on the top 50 richest people on BRW’s rich list and he said ‘Fun little fact.. you know the majority of them were based, or had some knowledge of or their occupation was finance’.”

“And I was like, ‘That’s it, I’ve got to understand this!‘ and that was the tipping point and I decided to sign up for Bachelor of Commerce.”

Never one to shy away from the tough option, Steph completed her degree with a double major in accounting and finance. Upon completion, she was accepted into the graduate program with a top accounting firm in Brisbane where she worked while she completed her CA.

During this period, Steph’s sporting side had taken a back seat to study.

“You know what uni’s like… I worked full time, I studied full time. I didn’t focus on eating well or working out, I just kind of let it go since school.”

“After uni, I was like, ‘I’ve got to get this shit sorted, I’ve got to get back into it. I’ve got to get my butt back into gear!‘ So I started [getting] personal training and going to the gym and doing classes but that was just boring.”

“It did work – don’t get me wrong. For three months I ate really well, got back into shape and did the personal training and stuff like that but it only got me to a certain point and then I kind of lost interest and I’m like ‘I’ve got to look for something that’s going to keep me on track.'”

A friend of Steph’s put her onto his girlfriend’s new business (what would become CrossFit Babes Miami).

“I think I was her second client ever and that’s where my adventure with CrossFit began.”

“I just love it. It’s always a challenge. You’re never ever the best at anything,” laughs Steph. “Which can kind of be a pain in the butt sometimes but it’s also the thing that keeps you coming back for more.”

“You’re always working towards getting better at something, or getting a new skill under your belt or lifting something heavier or being more efficient or faster… or fitter. It’s just that challenge that pulls you in there. Gets you hooked!”

Steph completed her CrossFit Level 1 Trainer course for her own personal development, so it wasn’t until CrossFit Babes asked her to coach one day per week that she considered that she might have something to offer.

“I just never thought I was that kind of person but when someone brings it to your attention and says ‘I think you’d be really good at this  it’s like ‘Oh would I? Maybe, ok.'”

Steph stresses that she was not unhappy working in accounting, coaching part-time and training for CrossFit but when she completed a personal training course in 2014, a seed was sown and she began to dream about something more.

“[At the course] everyone was so passionate about opening up their new businesses and doing things and  I got really excited for everyone. I was so pumped and I was like ‘This is really exciting.’ The idea started to grow that maybe I should do something or could do something.”

“I guess it sat in there for awhile and I started to talk to a few people and what their thoughts were and, once again, built my confidence from there.”

“It has been a gradual thing but maybe it has always been there in the back of my mind but just something that has just presented  itself slowly.  It has always been a passion and a hobby and something that I enjoy being a part of and I guess slowly over time it has grown into something that… ‘Yeah: I’m going to make this happen. It’s a thing!’”

Although it is a simple process to sum up, Steph is adamant that the experience has been far from simple or straightforward. I asked her what was scary about embarking on this new adventure.

“EVERYTHING! I am scared that there’s so many emotions. I am scared. I’m scared that people won’t like me but then people might love me,” she ponders. “I’m scared that it costs a lot of money – it’s a big investment.”

“I’m scared that I might not be making the right decision but then I read all these things about ‘follow your fear because that’s usually the place of the best reward.’ So, you know when I see things like that I know that the fear that I have is good fear. It’s that excited fear that ‘Oh my God, I’m doing this!’”

Once she had considered the mantra, follow your fear, Steph says the signs encouraging her in that direction were endless.

“Do you ever have that thing where when you’re thinking about something, or your dreaming about it or it’s on your mind and you come across it? Even if you’re scrolling through Facebook, or someone says it or it comes across your path  r it comes in an email or something pops up when you watch that video. It happens to me ALL the time. I think there were like three today – I’m like ‘Oh my God this is happening.'”

Steph shows me an inspirational meme from someone she follows on Instagram that says fear is a compass showing you where to go.

“This guy, normally he talks about love and all this sort of stuff but for some reason today it was that and I’m like why does this happen to me? Universe tell me – if I’m not getting it!”

This suggests to me that Steph is not more ‘blessed’ by  signs from the universe than others but more willing to see it with open eyes, and to view it as a place that has all the potential and support to nourish her dreams. And this is a wonderful thing.

“Even though I have all those other insecurities, that I think any other normal human being does have, I think that the positive side of it all is going to way outweigh all of that. I think the effect that this box could have is worth it. The effect that the Babes have had on the community down in the south Gold Coast… if we can continue something quite similar or continue on that sort of atmosphere for women in the northern end… it’s only going to be amazing!”

Steph envisages a place that is about love, support and empowerment. Meraki is a Greek word that captures the process of doing something with all of your soul, love and creativity. It is to put the essence of yourself into your work.

“When I was going through the marketing for CrossFit Meraki I was working with this awesome company, Oven Creative, and they [discussed] what I wanted CrossFit Meraki to be about, and how I see it and the words that resonate with me,” she explains. “They drafted  this catch phrase –the greatest results are achieved when you put your heart into it – and as soon as they sent me through the first draft I was like ‘Oh my God, you get me!'”

“From there I kept having these dreams about these singlets with this catchphrase ‘all heart’ and I emailed him and said I keep on seeing these singlets with ‘all heart’ on it tell me if it’s stupid or…[…] tell me if it’s good or not. I’m happy to put it in the can.”

As soon as she saw the designs with the all heart branding, Steph knew she had summed up the driving force behind CrossFit Meraki and captured the essence of what her business was going to be about.

“CrossFit Meraki is positive, really positive and a place of love and acceptance because I think that’s really hard to find these days. It is a place to support and empower each other – just to be real, to help each other and support each other in a safe place.”

Steph is a force. She is driven. And she is nothing if not all heart.