Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health and wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Christa Orecchio, founder and CEO of The Whole Journey, located in Encinitas, CA, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
The Whole Journey, Inc (TWJ) stands at the precipice of changing the face of health care. TWJ is a digital health company that combines algorithmic-based assessments with science-backed food, lifestyle, and supplement protocols to address gut, immune, adrenal, thyroid, and hormonal health issues.
Our programs are tailored to the individual and address root cause health issues rather than individual symptoms. TWJ has ten consumer programs and a practitioner model with corresponding supplement packages. We represent a whole new way of doing health in the world. TWJ serves two discrete markets: consumers and healthcare practitioners.
Consumers are 82% women aged 30-64 and 18% men aged 35-64 with a full spectrum focus from health-aspirational to total health transformers. They vary from being health conscious and prevention-focused to wanting to reverse chronic, debilitating disease(s) or conditions that have plagued them for years, if not decades.
We vary from moms who want to empower their fertility or support their family's wellness to burnt-out professionals in digestive, adrenal, and thyroid distress, to Baby Boomers who are debilitated with symptoms and multiple conditions, and sadly to millennials who are getting health issues they otherwise would have gotten decades down the road. Our general population is fed up with mainstream medicine's band-aid approach with mounting prescriptions.
Our Practitioner Training Model is new as of 2021. We train medical and naturopathic doctors, nurses, nutritionists, and health coaches to become advanced gut and immune health experts.
Tell us about yourself
I'm a clinical and holistic nutritionist dedicated to helping individuals use food as medicine to heal from the root cause. After healing my own health challenges or raging candida, leaky gut, adrenal and thyroid issues and helping my mom put her Lupus in remission, I developed an insatiable passion for helping others ignite the natural healing process of your mind, body, and spirit so that they can feel whole again.
My passion is helping people live their best life, with a focus on the role nutrition plays in overall wellbeing. I'm the author of The Whole Journey Food as Medicine Cookbook & Healthy Life Handbook, co-author of The Anti-Inflammatory Diet with Cheryl Tiegs, and co-author of the best-seller How to Conceive Naturally and Have a Healthy Pregnancy After 30. I also host three health and wellness TV shows.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Leaving private practice to develop an online model that was as effective as working privately so that we could help many thousands of people at once go from suffering to thriving. I set out to create safe, effective, and affordable online programs utilizing the proven strategies I've developed over the last decade to help people truly get out of sickness and into thriving.
Our programs include the Nutritional Lifestyle Program, Kick Candida for Good, and Gut Thrive in 5, the highly-rated gut microbiome program that's helped thousands of men and women reset their digestive systems and end years – sometimes decades of suffering, and The Adrenal ReCode, a cutting-edge food-based program that restores the adrenals, rejuvenates the thyroid, nourishes the entire nervous system and balances hormones using food alone.
At first, I was resistant to taking my business online because I was so turned off by internet marketing and the constant selling that marketers seem to do. It just felt like inauthentic trickery to me. I quickly realized, though, that I could actually use the internet for good. Now, having helped over 25,000 individuals truly change and improve their lives with our paid programs and millions more with our free content, I realize I made the right choice. It would have taken me several lifetimes to help the same number of people working one-on-one.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Having to figure out all aspects of the business that you have no organic skillset in and then finding the right people to fill those roles.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Build your vision first.
- Have patience because success has to do with so much more than money. Think about how you want to feel and how to grow your business at a pace that allows for a fulfilling personal life.
- Hire quickly and fire quicker - use your intuition here. If someone is not a fit, do not bend yourself into a pretzel to make it work. It will adversely affect your whole team.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://thewholejourney.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholejourney
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewholejourney/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thewholejourney
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thewholejourney/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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