When we embark on “the plan” we’ve created for our lives, it can seem difficult and impossible to think of letting it all go to take another path. But, when it’s the path of your dream that’s been calling to you, choosing the difficult thing can actually lead you to all that you truly desire - and more.

In the third interview of my Courageous Conversations series, I’m talking with someone who truly embodies courage and bravery: my best friend Chrissy King. Chrissy fully embodies what it means to stop shrinking yourself and start taking up space. At the age of 22, Chrissy was pretty much “set for life.” After experiencing economic instability throughout childhood, she vowed to never not have money ever again and set out to design a life based on safety. She received a full-time job offer 2 weeks before graduating college and she married her partner she’d met at 19, ticking off those things on her list. But, she soon realized she was miserable and something else was calling her.

I first heard of Chrissy on Instagram. I began following her when she was doing a lot of fitness posts. One day, Chrissy wrote this amazing caption discussing whiteness in the fitness industry. Needless to say, it went viral. What she spoke about really resonated with and so I DMed her. We chatted and after a short conversation, Chrissy said she was coming to New York and asked if I’d like to meet her. Now, listen - I was just some rando on the internet! But, I’m so glad this happened because I got to meet the woman that would soon become my best friend. I can’t wait for you to hear her story.

A quick bio about Chrissy King

Chrissy King is a writer, speaker, strength coach, educator, and creator of The Body Liberation Project™ with a passion for creating a diverse and inclusive wellness industry.  She empowers individuals to stop shrinking, start taking up space, and use their energy to create their specific magic in the world.

She has been featured in SELF, SHAPE, Health, Cosmopolitan, BuzzFeed, Muscle and Fitness, Livestrong, and The Today Show, among others. With degrees in Social Justice and Sociology from Marquette University, Chrissy merges her passion for Social Justice and her passion for fitness to empower individuals within the fitness and wellness industry to create spaces that allow individuals from all backgrounds to feel seen, welcome, respected, and celebrated. 

She empowers individuals to stop shrinking, start taking up space, and use their energy to create their specific magic in the world. When she’s not serving her clients by empowering them to create stress-free and sustainable lifestyles and feel confident and empowered in their skin, she spends her time lifting all the weights, reading, traveling, and hanging with friends and family.

Related: If you love this interview with Chrissy King, you’ll love this episode from Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast, 110 | Big Dreams vs Practical Plans

I believe a lot of what we think is possible for us is rooted in where we grew up, what we experienced, the things we saw. So, tell us about little Chrissy and what experiences shaped her beliefs.

Chrissy King:

Little Chrissy grew up in Wisconsin, Milwaukee specifically. For anybody who knows about the area, it’s not the most diverse of places. I was homeschooled until I was in a third grade when my mom and dad sent me to this private, very Christian school and it was just me, my brother, and sister and everyone else was white.

That was a weird introduction into going to school with other people and it was really formative for me. I definitely felt like I was in a space where all of my peers didn't have any other Black friends. I was their representation of Blackness in the world and I felt like I had to always over-perform or be a perfectionist, be the best at everything because even as kids, there's these subtle messages about race that come up.

So I developed this “I'm going to be an exceptional black person” mentality and that really followed me through most of my life. I can definitely see how that has been a very formative part of who I am now and things and habits I've had to unlearn. Also growing up in my family, there was a lot of trauma when I look back now that was occurring. Even now, I'm just starting to call it trauma because it wasn't the worst thing that could have happened, but I'm recognizing that there was a lot of trauma happening that made me a fiercely independent person.

I developed the mentality that “I can take care of everything by myself. I'm going to be successful. I'm going to do this, that, and the other,” and it has served me in a lot of ways. It’s also things that I need to let go of.

I remember when I was growing up, there was at certain times a lot of economic instability in my household. So I remember saying when I was like 13 or 14 years old, “I am going to always have money and it's never going to be a problem. I'm never going to have to depend on anyone else to provide for me.”

A lot of that was because I saw my mom married to my dad. She didn't work. My dad was the breadwinner. When my dad was unstable, we didn't have enough things and that was always a driving motivation for me. When I was going to college for what I was planning on doing career-wise, I was always motivated by the sense of, “I want to always have this feeling of stability and security.”

One of the things we do, especially in our late teens and early twenties, is we create “The Plan.” Like, this is what my future is going to be.

Did you have a plan and what was that plan?

Chrissy King:

Absolutely, I had a plan. My plan was always based on stability. I was gonna go to college, I was going to become a lawyer so that I can make sure that I have a lot of money, I'm going to get married, and I'm gonna buy a very nice house somewhere.

And I'm going to follow this plan. This is the American dream, so to speak. And in a lot of ways, I did follow that plan. I didn't go to law school, which in hindsight, I'm so happy I didn't, but I did get married really young and I was married for 11 years. I did not have children and, in hindsight, that was the best decision for me.

What really guided a lot of my decisions — even my decision to get married, the person I chose to get married to — was this idea of “What is going to be the most safe decisions for myself?”

So, I graduated from college and had one job interview 2 weeks before graduating. One week after graduating, I started that job. I got married a few months later.

Wait, stop — 22 and set for life?! You’ve literally only had one job and straight out of school!

Chrissy King:

Right. I worked at that job for almost 11 years and when I finally did leave that job, I was set in a management role at a very stable government job making 6 figures. I didn’t need to go anywhere else. I was making good money, I had regular hours, I had lots of vacation and benefits. It was torture, but aside from that, it was good.

Related: If you love this interview with Chrissy King, you’ll love this episode from Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast, 110 | Big Dreams vs Practical Plans

So, here you are in this very stable, perhaps a little vanilla, life. It feels very safe and good, which is exactly what you wanted.

What started to shift that you started to question things or think that you wanted different or more?

Chrissy King:

For one — on the career side of things — I was looking at a lot of people who had been at my job for a very long time. I had peers and coworkers who'd been there for 25, 30 years and one thing that we all had in common was we were all pretty miserable. And I was like, wow… I've been here for a long time. I'm already in a management role. I don't know if I can do this for the rest of my life. Go to the same building, do the same thing every single day… So, that was one part of it.

Then in my personal life, I had a really great partner and I have nothing bad to say about him, but by this point, I had changed so much. We started dating when I was 19. So, from the time I was 19 to the time I was 30, I’d changed a lot. My thoughts had changed and I realized that I just kind of grew up a bit. We once talked about having 4 kids and I actually was no longer sure if I wanted to have any kids. That was really important to my partner.

I realized I’d never taken the time to figure out what I really wanted for my life. I just designed this life based on safety.

And then I woke up one day like, “I don't even know if this is what I want for myself.”

How scary was that?

Chrissy King:

It was so scary and that's why I stayed and it took me a really long time to start making any decisions: to leave my job, to start doing something different.

From the outside, people were like, “Wow, this is great! You have a great partner, you have a great job, everything is good! You should be really happy in this life,” but I wasn't feeling happy in this life. There was a lot of guilt there because so many people would be so thrilled to be in my position. It was super scary.

When I met Chrissy 5 or 6 years ago, you would’ve thought she was solely doing her fitness business. But, you were working both jobs at the time. Tell us about that journey to making this your side hustle.

Chrissy King:

I had been into fitness as an enthusiast for a long time. I ended up at this gym with a trainer and he said, “You're so good at this. You should be a trainer and a coach.” So, yeah. Maybe I'll do that.

I started training and coaching on the side, nights and weekends. I actually give so much credit to him because he didn't even charge me to train out of his gym. He was just like, have at it, learn what you need learn. He taught me a lot. It was really amazing.

It was really cool and it gave me a different outlet than my professional job, but I was also like, “How am I ever going to make enough money to replace my job?”

So, one day I was like cruising Instagram and saw this woman who had a coaching program for people who wanted to develop an online fitness business. It would take me so long to make decisions, but literally two days later, I gave her $6,000 like, yes, show me how to build an online business. That decision just felt right. I was so hungry to do something and I had no idea how to go about building an online business. She was also very good at marketing and what she does. So, I gave her my money and it turned out great!

I worked with this coach for 2 or 3 years and credit so much of where I am now to the fundamental things she taught me. When I started working with her, I was still working my full time job. So, for 3 years, I would get up in the morning at 4:15am, get to the gym to work out from 5am to 6:30am, shower, and go to my full-time job. Then, I would come back home and either train a few clients or work on my business until like 1am or 2am. I was sleeping probably four hours a night and I do not recommend it to anyone.

Related: If you love this interview with Chrissy King, you’ll love this episode from Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast, 110 | Big Dreams vs Practical Plans

So now, your fitness business is doing pretty good, you have this full-time job, and this partnership that’s going really well. What happened?

Chrissy King:

When I started working with this coach, I really started to see how I could make this a viable business. But again, I love my safety and my security, and honestly, I'm glad I did the things I did because sometimes we jump out too soon or quit our thing and then it puts so much pressure on you to make as much money in your business to survive. I didn't want that kind of pressure.

So, two years were hard and challenging and I wasn't sleeping that much. I was sacrificing a lot. I wasn't going out a lot. I wasn't doing a lot of things, but I had a goal in mind. I knew I was going to get to where I wanted to be. So, I was willing to take that hard two years and eventually, two things happened.

Number one, things got so stressful at my job, I was like breaking out in hives at work. I had a situation with someone I supervised that got really unsafe and my business coach was like, “What are you doing? You need to leave your job. It’s time. Trust me, I've seen a lot of people do this. I've worked with hundreds, probably thousands of people at this point, you are ready to make the leap,” and I still wasn't doing it.

I think the job coalescing into this really awful situation pushed me over the ledge. And I finally quit. Even when I quit, it was super scary. Some of my coworkers were starting to know some of the things I did, but they weren't really sure. And my boss was like, “Are you sure you want to leave this job? I want you to think about it for a week and then you can write me an email if you really mean it.”

When I finally quit, he was like, “If you want to come back and change your mind next week, if you want to come back, you call me at any time.”

So, I quit and it was scary and unnerving and also I was like, “Oh, thank God. I don’t have to go to that place anymore.”

Then, my partner and I traveled for a while and I had so much time to recoup from having not slept for two years and also continue working on my business. It was really great.

So, you took the leap and came out on the other side. I feel one courageous decision like that allows you to realize, “Ok, I didn’t die,” and if you just take the leap, you can figure it out.

What happens then that you move to New York and do a complete 180 in just 2 years?

Chrissy King:

I quit my job and what you said is exactly it: I made that hard decision, I got through it, and I realized that I’m okay and everything’s fine. That gave me the courage to believe that if I did this hard thing, maybe I could do the other hard thing.

So, I started having conversations with my partner about things we’d pushed to the side for a really long time. It was easy to do that because I had a great partner, we got along really well, we did fun things together, we traveled together. It was always fine. But, we started having some really difficult conversations and one of them was around children.

When we got together at 19, we both wanted to have 4 kids. At this point in my life, that no longer sounded ideal. So, we’re getting older, we still haven’t had kids, and neither of us had pushed the issue. But, he still wanted to have 4 kids and I could tell he was really disappointed that I didn’t anymore. And I remember bargaining like “What if I just had one?” I didn’t really want to, but I would for him.

He didn’t want me to push out a child if I didn’t want to and that was fair. So, we decided to separate ultimately because of children. There were other issues that we never really got to, but the main thing was children. In January 2019, we separated and 2 weeks later, my dad unexpectedly tragically passed away and that put me in a daze. We weren’t together, but we were still in the same house. In July 2019, I had to move out. 2 months later, I was living in New York.

I had been thinking about the idea for a long time, but it just didn’t seem feasible. But I got this opportunity to live with this person, try New York out, and it ended up being a disaster. It was the worst 5-day roommate situation ever! But, I found another roommate and I’ve been here ever since.

So, now you’re not a fitness person anymore, you’re an author. I feel you’re always pivoting in a really unapologetic way and you really trust your instinct. How did you make that shift?

Chrissy King:

Two things: number 1, when I was younger, I always liked reading books and writing stories. I believed I was going to be a writer someday. Then, practical, safe Chrissy was like, “Girl, forget that. You're going to go do something you can make good money on.”

When I started working with that coach, fitness was the thing, but she always encouraged us to have a blog of regular writing so I was always writing blogs. In that blog, I wrote about the lack of diversity in fitness, which wasn't a popular thing to talk about back then, and I really started leaning in more and writing about the things that I thought were really important to me like intersections of things.

Since no one was really talking about these things yet, some magazine publications started reaching out and asking me to write for them. I really loved the writing. I loved sharing my words with people and I intentionally started leaning into that a little bit more.

To your point, I think always following what felt right. I started doing workshops around DEI and fitness spaces, diversity. inclusion, and fitness. Then 2020 happened and that just really exploded the work that I had already been doing leading to a lot more opportunities. At the time, I had a few clients and I passed all my clients on to other trainers.

I think I've just kind of allowed things to flow naturally and it's kind of just led me to where I am now and I have learned over time to trust myself. It’s led to this really beautiful thing.

Also, I have to tell this story though. One of the first times after we met, Shirin posted a one-day event for women of color and I came back to New York for that. Shirin let me stay with her and I feel that really sealed the deal in our friendship.

So, Shirin took us through this beautiful guided Future You meditation. At the time, I was still working in my job. I'm still with my partner. And I have this 20 minute visualization. I have this really vivid visualization that I was living in New York, I was like a full-time writer, and I was single.

I remember waking up from that visualization. It was so vivid and so real, but also it seemed so foreign. Why would I ever be doing those things? And so now, four years later, that's literally what I'm doing and it feels so full circle.

I felt like the Universe has opened up the right opportunities and I just followed the right doors. It took me right to that visualization that I had.

*Tune into episode 118 | Shifting from “The Plan” to “The Dream” with Chrissy King wherever you love listening to podcasts (or click here) to hear the full interview and don’t forget to connect with Chrissy King at any of her amazing resources below.

Connect with Chrissy King:

Learn more about Chrissy King

Follow Chrissy on Instagram

Follow Chrissy on Twitter

After listening, you’re going to love these episodes!

110 | Big Dreams vs Practical Plans

So often we mistake planning for dreaming. And when we do so, we create practical dreams instead of the dreams we truly desire. Clickthrough to learn how to not just create the life you can achieve, but the life of your wildest dreams.

38 | Letting Go vs Giving Up

Sometimes we have to let go of things that we worked hard to achieve. But it can be incredibly hard to do so when it just feels like you're giving up. Listen to this episode to gain a new perspective on letting go and moving forward.

98 | The power of Stopping, Pausing and Pivoting

You don’t have to finish what you start, love. So many of us are holding on to goals that deep down we no longer want because we’ve bought into the narrative that we need to finish whatever we embark on. But the truth is, you can stop, pivot, and change course whenever you want to. Listen to this episode to learn about the power of stopping and starting again.

A quote to take with you:

“Courage and bravery are things that are cultivated. They’re not things that we’re naturally born with.”

Did you know that each episode comes with free guided journal prompts?

If you want to be in the know and get each Mindset Monday straight to your inbox complete with journal prompts to take you even further, get on my email list.

About your host, Shirin Eskandani