Lifestyle Medicine

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health and wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Heather Hammerstedt, CEO of Wholist, located in Boise, ID, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Wholist is breaking the mold of health care. We are a small company built on big dreams and a collection of varied top-notch health and wellness experiences and education. We believe in evidence, education, and empowerment for life-changing health transformation.

We believe in a team approach to collate expertise and advice to help you curate YOUR health future, in your life, with your needs in mind. We believe that the old model of health care should be thrown out…The one where you as the patient were left out of decision making and received recommendations with no tools for follow-through.

The one where your doctor and practitioners were working in silos behind the veil of bureaucracy. The one where you were on your own to find non-traditional services to add to your care with no understanding of real medical evidence, safety, or cost. We concentrate mostly on lifestyle coaching and mindset coaching for professional women who want to finally figure out what is holding them back from their body and movement goals. Our premier program is the Weight Wellness program, a 12-week foundational lifestyle coaching program with a transformative blueprint with NO COUNTING.

Tell us about yourself

I'm Heather Hammerstedt. I'm an emergency medicine physician, an integrative nutrition coach, a lifestyle medicine physician, a wife, a momma, and an outdoor lover. I fell in love with the idea of food as medicine before even starting medical school (just trust me, lol, it was a long time ago) and integrated health coaching and Ayurveda/ acupuncture into my training from the get-go. In 2019, I incorporated all of this into Wholist, a company that really strongly believes in finding mind and body health through education, empowerment, and evidence. Real science, but with a holistic supported coaching approach, helps our clients to really figure out how their bodies and brains work about food, sleep, movement, health behavior choices, mindfulness, and more. What am I motivated by every day?? Stories of our clients changing their lives, even when they thought they never could, and my amazing Wholist team of staff and coaches who are so dedicated to mind and body wellness (whatever that looks like for each client, for many, it is weight, for some, it is not).

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Building a seven-figure company while working nights in the emergency department during a global pandemic with two small kids in online school???? I think that probably sums it up. Joking (sort of) aside, my biggest accomplishment is every time our Client Success Director vox's me another (I CAN "T BELIEVE THIS IS ME!) stoke client! Makes it worth it.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Honestly, it's nonstop marketing and sales work. I wasn't trained in this in medical school or coaching programs, so I've had to work hard to learn through lots of additional training, which starts and stops with hiring out, and experimentation. It continues to this day. Physicians are used to knowing what the next step is and the one after that, and the one after that, so letting go of the certainty and still taking a step (any step?) is probably it.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

Think ahead and automate everything you do. Don't touch it twice.
Don't be afraid to build programs or services as you go. It doesn't have to be completely DONE to get going and make sales and serve people. In our first program I wrote, the educational pieces were two weeks ahead of the first clients (shhhhhh)

Entrepreneurship is a trip! Up, down and all over.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.wholisthealth.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/curateyourhealth

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/wholisthealth/
https://www.instagram.com/mommaemdoc/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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