Rick Stollmeyer of Mindbody: Why We Have To Bring Beauty Back To The Concept of All Seven Dimensions of Wellness
Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Iam the youngest of five boys and was raised in a small business family. My father was a small retail business owner specializing in lighting fixtures. My grandfather, my father, a couple of my uncles and three of my four brothers were all involved. Growing up in an entrepreneurial family, you experience a lot of ups and downs depending on the sales of the business. It was down when I was in high school, which was part of what motivated me to go to the U.S. Naval Academy because college would be paid for.
Even at a very young age I was extremely purpose driven. I wanted to do something more — to be involved with something bigger than myself. Going to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland was a natural fit for me at the time.
Once I left the Navy, I held a series of different engineering management jobs — I was at four different jobs with three different companies in six years. No matter how many positions I held, I couldn’t find what I really loved. My last job prior to launching Mindbody was at Vandenberg Airforce Base on the central coast of California where I was an engineering contractor involved with the launching of satellites into low Earth orbit.
It was during that time that my old high school buddy, Blake Beltram, showed me the market opportunity of software for yoga and spin studios. It was then that the idea of Mindbody was born. Our initial discussions started around 1998, but we took the big leap in the fall of 2000 — I was 35 at the time.
Read More