Passion Fit - Corporate Wellness Speaking Engagement Intro

Alright everybody, we're going to start. And those in the back, if you guys are grabbing food, just, you know, quickly grab food and take a seat where you can. That would be great. So wow, this is a great turnout. I'm not sure if you guys know this, but this month is Global Health and Fitness Month, so I'm glad you guys are all taking the time to think about your health. I'm really excited to introduce you our speaker. She is the CEO of PassionFit. She not only has worked down the street at Google for many years, but she has consulted with hundreds of corporate clients around the Bay Area. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce to you Reena Vokoun.

Thank you very much, Grace. And thank you to all of you. I guess I'll be up here for like a half a second so those in the back can see me. Then I'm probably going to walk around. I feel a little boring to be up on a stage for too long. But as Grace said, my name is Reena Vokoun. And I am the founder of PassionFit, which is health, wellness, and fitness lifestyle company. I want to thank you guys for your time and for being here today. As Grace mentioned, I think it's great that everyone is taking a step back to focus on their health and well-being because that's so important. So what I'm going to do to start, you guys all look so comfortable sitting there eating your snacks, but in the spirit of health and well-being and the fact that I also teach fitness classes, we're going to just stand up for a second. I'm not going to make you jump or move, but we're going to do a little stretch and breathe just to get our blood flowing, just to kind of get you in the mindset of health and well-being. So if everyone could stand up. I know some of you were in the food line, so don't worry, I won't hold it against you if you're not stretching with me. But I want you to have your feet about shoulder-width apart, and we're just going to do a big inhale up, inhaling through your nose, and then exhaling down and blowing it out through your mouth. Try that again. Give me a big inhale up and exhale down. And give me one more, your biggest one. Big inhale up. And exhale down. And then we're going to do a couple of shoulder rolls. So roll the shoulders back. I think we can all attest to being at a computer all day, a little hunched over. So start to roll the shoulders back, get the blood flowing in the upper body. And give me one more. And then you're just going to rotate your left arm back, opening up your chest, rotating your shoulder. And then do the same thing with your right arm. Go all the way around. Good. Give me 2 more. 1 on the left, all the way back. And 1— oops, something just fell down. I don't know if that was my microphone, but it seems to be working. Good job. And then let's just do a little neck stretch. So pull your head to the left. Good. Feel a nice stretch on the right side. Hold it here. And then let's take it over to the other side. Pull that head down. Good job.

Hold it.

And then we may often get carpal tunnel syndrome, so let's stretch out the forearms a little bit, pull those fingertips down. Good, stretching those out. And then let's switch to the left hand. And then we're just going to pull the fingertips up towards the ceiling. Excellent. And one more here. And just shake it out. All right. Thank you for being good sports and doing a little stretch. I appreciate that. And really, I don't know if this is something important, but I will hand it to you. It fell. Might have been from my headset. All right. Okay, so you can go back to enjoying your food now. So before we get started, I wanted to tell you a little bit about my background and, you know, what I've done in the Silicon Valley area, because I've definitely been in your shoes working for a large tech company, and kind of my story and what led me to start PassionFit. So I've spent 18 years working in Silicon Valley and other companies across the US. In sales, marketing, and business development roles. I was with Google, Yahoo, back when Yahoo actually was doing well, CNET back in the day. I've worked for Reebok, GE, and most recently I was at a startup called Grokkr right here in Silicon Valley. So I firsthand understand the challenges that you all face of trying to be a top performer at work, meet the needs of your team and your bosses, but also be able to provide for your families at home if you have families or spouses, and make time for yourselves. It's definitely not an easy thing, so I get it. So after spending many years working in Silicon Valley, my educational background is marketing as well as advertising and communications. I have a master's degree and an undergrad degree in those areas. I've been working for Google for about 6 and a half years. And my husband also works in Silicon Valley. He's still at Google right now. He came about 2 years after I did. But we had 2 kids, you know, I have a 9-year-old and 6-year-old boys. And before we knew it, life was getting pretty crazy. And I definitely experienced burnout myself. My husband experienced it. Trying to work and manage 2 careers with 2 young kids, especially when my boys were babies. He'd be traveling, I'd be traveling. We'd have to figure out, okay, whose meeting is more important? Mine is revenue generating. I need to go on my trip. And it got to be a lot. And my husband actually ended up having some health issues as a result of work. Stress and took a few medical leaves. And so I kind of saw firsthand how much work stress can impact you. At the same time, since I was a young kid, I've always had an interest in health and wellness. When I was really little, I was a chubby little kid, and I quickly realized that I wanted to be healthy. I was always very passionate about self-development and how can you perform at your best. I'm first-generation born Indian American. My parents came from India, and so I felt this pressure to, you know, achieve and do well. And I learned quickly that the only way to do that is to take care of your health first. So back in the day, I would, you know, record ESPN workout shows when I was in grade school. I started joining— I joined a gym when I was in high school. I was on the dance team and cheerleading. Before I knew it, by the time I got to college, I was teaching fitness classes for the athletic department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on campus all 4 years. So I was teaching fitness classes 3 times a week. While I was pursuing a degree in marketing in the business school. And that stuck with me, it really did. And even though I then went on to work full-time in corporate America, I would always find ways to incorporate wellness into my life. I would continue to teach, I competed in fitness competitions on the side, I taught— I worked for Reebok out in Boston at one point in marketing, but I would teach at the Reebok Corporate Fitness Center. When I was at Google, I was a wellness champion and I would find ways to teach on campus at Google. And so finally I decided, you know, I really, I want to take a leap here and start my own company that's specifically focused around health and well-being. So I had the idea for PassionFit, I had the name and the domain secured in 2012, but it took me 2 years to get the guts to leave Google. You know, my parents, my friends would be like, well, why would you want to leave a company like that, you know, to go off on your own and take this big risk? And it was one of those things where I think my passion for it and And my desire to help others was just— the conviction was there that I thought, "If I don't do this now, I'll never know." So I did. So 2 years later after I had the desire and the idea to leave, I took a leap of faith. I left Google in June of 2014 and I started PassionFit. My mission with PassionFit is to help people flourish by— from the inside out by focusing on their health, wellness, and fitness. My vision is to create both an online community as well as a a local community where people can, you know, pursue their goals, they can have fun, they can find a supportive network, and they can really get educated and understand what it means to be healthy. And not just from exercise and working out, but what you're eating, thinking about your mindfulness, thinking about how you approach life, some, you know, philosophies and things like that. And here I am. So again, very excited to be here. What we're going to be talking about today is 7 ideas for better health despite your busy schedule, because I get everyone here is very, very busy. So I'm going to give you some practical tips and ideas. I'm going to share some data. I know there's a lot of engineers out here that want to see some data and some, you know, just information that's hopefully practical that you can take away with you. I want to leave some time at the end for questions as well, so feel free to ask questions. And then I'm always available. I have business cards and cards that are out, so feel free to reach out to me anytime.