Good Afternoon! I hope this post is finding all readers safe and healthy amid these chaotic times! A few weeks ago, I received an inbox from a reader recommending I’d speak with Courtney Terry, whom today's post is featuring. I was so excited because this was the sole purpose of starting this blog; uplifting, supporting, and connecting women within the community. Before I begin, I want to encourage readers to feel welcome to let me know who they would like featured and I will be sure to meet your wishes.
About a week ago I had the pleasure of meeting Courtney Terry (virtually) and I am so grateful to be able to share her story with you all.
Courtney Terry was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey. She attended Rutgers University, where she ironically works now. She previously worked for UMDNJ, a medical and dentistry university, however, they were merged with Rutgers which is how she now works for her alma mater. She also is very involved within the community; she has a Facebook fitness group and she is active in helping out young girls all over the world.
But if we travel back to right after college Courtney did not have a job lined up but she did have an opportunity to travel on the road as a backup singer. All though, as most of us have heard; that type of career is rough. Eventually, she pulled away from that career and fell back on her public health degree to land her a job. From there she made her way up in the workforce from a business analyst to a manager of the IT department, which is what she does now. She was proud of herself for being able to make that transition from being apart of the stage life to having a “real” job. She told me she had to reinvent herself, which as you can imagine was not easy. When I asked her about her great accomplishments, she listed this task of reinventing herself as one of them, who wouldn’t. I would think it takes great courage to change who you once knew yourself to be to make a living for yourself.
Along with being able to rewire herself to be apart of the work world, she listed many other thrilling things as her greatest achievements such as sky diving, running a full marathon and losing 50 lbs. I found Courtney to be very inspiring, she has accomplished so much that only some of us could only dream of doing. Let Courtney be an inspiration to everyone reading this never back down. If you want to lose some weight, get to a gym, if you want to start a business, start saving up. Courtney Terry is a great example of going after what you want in my opinion. No matter how crazy or how small, the idea might be she went after what she set her mind to.
As for Courtney’s community work her focus is on growing her (already pretty popular) business, Sista Girls Fit. She has a private Facebook group of over 300 women, where they do fitness events such as walking in the park, hiking and participate in races. Along with the events she also has monthly challenges and activities to keep things fun. The fitness group began when Courtney notices so many people saying they wanted to lose weight but weren’t doing anything, so she gathered all those women together, said let meet up at the park and they did. She said that day there were probably about 50 women and they walked for a few miles, but they all had a great time. In the end, everyone wanted to know when they would do it again, and that’s how it all began.
I think it is some amazing one little work out could lead to eventually helping so many more women begin on their fitness journey. I think this is just another example of the values I want this blog to promote, such as helping and uplifting women. This is a group that is meant to encourage and inspire the people participating, what more could a community ask for?
I'm so grateful to have met Courtney last week. She is a beautiful, inspiring, and an enthusiastic women. Thank you for reading, I hope everyone has a great rest of the day.
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