Entrepreneur Archive:
Optimal Lifestyles

Healthful Approaches Can Lead to Improved Results with "Optimal Lifestyles"

Optimal Lifestyles — St. Louis, MO
Assisted by:
Kevin Wilson, St. Louis SBDC

If life is like golf, then Barb Michael is six under par and a putter's length from the cup for birdie on the 18th hole!

Optimal Lifestyles, founded by Barb, is a health and fitness consulting company specializing in general fitness, golf fitness and yoga. The main mission of the company is to help others by providing health information that will improve the quality of their lives.

After founding a health and fitness consulting company, Barb Michael looked to the local SBDC to examine ways to increase sales. A fiscal checkup helped determine critical factors needed for profitability.

Five years ago Barb started her venture as a health and fitness consulting firm in St. Louis. She provided health and fitness coaching, fitness seminars, strength training and yoga classes at local venues.

Barb Michael (right) monitors performance improvements and encourages a client during a strength training session.

Though she was having some success with the company, she couldn't generate the sales volume to make Optimal Lifestyles worthwhile.

At that point she contacted the local Missouri Small Business Development Center and started working with Kevin Wilson, a counselor located in the regional St. Louis office. Barb and Kevin examined the business strategy necessary to make her company stronger and more profitable.

First they started with a fiscal checkup and determined how well the company was doing financially. After that they determined the critical factors that Barb needed for a successful business.

"After a year of counseling sessions Barb is now out of the rough and is playing fairway golf in her business," Wilson metaphorically muses. "In one short year Barb was able to double her sales and show a profit. She now has two employees and will be adding two additional employees by the end of the year."

Currently Barb is also the health and fitness education sponsor for the Gateway PGA. She provided on-site yoga instruction for the LPGA Tour players at the 2001 Michelob Light Classic in St. Louis and the 2001 State Farm Classic in Springfield, Ill.

A big part of Barb's business - Optimal Lifestyles - involves applying the principles of fitness and conditioning to reduce injuries for her golfing clients and help improve their results on the links.

"Through Optimal Lifestyles Barb coordinates seminars and consultations on fitness in many private country clubs in the St. Louis area and has some high-profile clients," Wilson says. "She has worked with individuals and with major local corporations providing information to help their employees make lifestyle decisions and to improve work performance."

As a health and fitness coach, Barb works with people on fitness and strength training. She helps individuals by assessing fitness levels, reviewing training goals, overcoming impediments to success and designing custom-training programs to meet each person's circumstances.

In addition, Barb presents unique golf-fitness clinics that feature a yoga component. This dynamic style of yoga gives her the opportunity to work with golf professionals who understand the importance of fitness and yoga for golfers in helping to reduce risk of injury, improve performance and increase enjoyment of the game. Barb has practiced yoga for 12 years and utilizes a combination of yoga and strength training in her own general fitness and golf game.

Prior to launching Optimal Lifestyles, Barb worked in the healthcare field for more than ten years. Her extensive experience has been focused in fitness, women's health, community health and marketing, Wilson reports.

Along with her graduate degree in health science from Washington University, Barb is certified as a health and fitness instructor with the American College of Sports Medicine and is certified in weight training by the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America. She also is certified in yoga through Integrative Yoga Therapy and is a registered yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance.

And if that weren't enough, Barb also is a member of the St. Louis American Heart Association Women's Heart Health Committee and she is on the Cardiovascular Board of the State of Missouri.

Optimal Lifestyles
136 West Glenwood Lane
St. Louis, Mo. 63122
Phone: 314-984-0592
E-mail: barb@optimallifesyles.com
www.optimallifestyles.com

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