In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Kelly Morgan, a PhD‑holding health and fitness professional, motivation expert, and founder of Sirona. Kelly shares her personal journey of recovering from severe anorexia during high school and college, describing how that painful experience sparked her passion for health coaching and led to a career teaching at George Mason University. She emphasizes that there is no single "right" way to be healthy, rejecting industry‑promoted magic formulas and advocating for individualized approaches to nutrition, activity, and stress management. Kelly offers practical business advice, highlighting the power of simple organization tools—spreadsheets and Google Docs—to scale a one‑person operation into a larger enterprise. Her personal motto, "don't make it so hard," reflects her belief in simplifying both life and business. She discusses the key to happiness as rooted in a strong sense of self‑identity and confidence. Kelly recommends the book How to Talk Like TED, noting the insight that everyone has a story worth sharing, and shares her favorite quote, "Why not me?" as a mindset for seizing opportunities. The episode concludes with Kelly directing listeners to her website’s free‑resource page (www.tsirona.com/freestuff) for additional content.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with the support you need to finish your book. Best part is, after you finish your book, they take care of the entire publishing and marketing process 100% for you. So if you want to become a successful author, make sure to check out authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode.
All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Kelly Morgan with us. She's a PhD and a health and fitness professional and motivation expert and professor. She also owns Sirona, where she helps overachieving women gain control of their health and use it as a tool for living well. So welcome to the show, Kelly.
Thanks for having me.
Of course. Grateful to have you here. Really excited for this episode. So let's dive into the first one. The first one I have for you, Kelly, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Okay. So this is— it's going to sound real depressing, but I promise it has a happy ending. So I am— let's see, I guess it is 15 years now. Recovered from anorexia. And I spent, oh boy, half of high school and all of college dealing with that. It had gotten to the point where I got gracefully kicked off of my college cheerleading team and I was drinking Pedialyte just to have enough strength to walk to class each day. And from that point, my obsession with health and fitness got to be, I was able to turn it into something way more useful. So I realized that end of college when I was like, I can't live like this anymore. I realized I was making my life so hard and that health is not supposed to be like that. So years of working in the fitness industry as a personal trainer, a group fitness instructor, getting my PhD in health communication and working on messages and motivation, I started to come up with this idea of, oh my gosh, what if other people were making this so freaking hard like I did? And hopefully not to the, like, anorexia point, but I found that a lot of women just make their health difficult. Like, there's no magic formula. There's no, like, right way to be healthy. So I started helping people just kind of informally, and then opened my health coaching business where I was like, hey, you know, I can help people do this. And I ended up teaching at George Mason University, essentially doing the same thing but with students. So it kind of all came around to this point where I was just like, oh my gosh, I don't want anyone to make their lives so difficult like I did.
Got it. Well, I'm glad that you got through that. And thanks for sharing that with us. I love how like It seems to me a lot of coaches out there, like this is kind of a trend that'll happen, is like you figure something out for yourself, then you end up helping a bunch of other people and it's kind of for free at first and then that actually forms your entire business. So I think that's really, it's a cool story of how it did end up working out and now you're able to help others with everything. So the next one I have for you, Kelly, is what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
It's that there is no one single way to be healthy or to live well or any of that. I mean, the whole industry that I'm part of, you know, full disclosure, the whole industry I'm part of is built around these magic formulas of, oh, if you just cut all your carbs or if you do the keto diet or if you do yoga every day, you know, XYZ magic result's gonna happen. It truly is good news for everybody that there's no correct way and there's also really no wrong way to live your healthy life. You find what works for you with food, what works for you with activity and stress management and all that. And you know what? You're good.
And what is your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry specific.
Oh my gosh. Okay. I have survived as a one-woman business because I'm super organized. Any business, no matter what size, you need to be able to know exactly what's going on, where you're gonna be, and it makes you scalable from a one-woman business to, you know, a large-scale Fortune 500 business. If everybody is on the same page, if you have team members, if it's just you, you don't need anything fancy for this either. So I use just spreadsheets and Google Docs. And if you have a way of just making sure that you always know what you need to do, there's no mystery to it, your business can scale all the way up to like, you know, an Apple-level, take over the world business.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Oh my gosh. My company's motto, don't make it so hard. Like seriously, not all of life needs to be this hard. And that applies to everything I do because I used to make everything just like way too complicated.
Yes. I think that's actually a big thing in business. Like, like you were even talking about before, like organization. Like to me, business, not that it's easy, but I want to say that it's more simple than a lot of people make it out to be, right? Like one of the things I always tell people, like the best form of marketing is like overdelivering for your current clients and then word of mouth takes over. And then that is, you know, so simply put, you know, create a solid product or service and then overdeliver and help your clients and then everything else will take care of itself. Now you can do Facebook ads and all those other things and that will definitely grow your business. But just simple, simply like doing right by others and being organized can really get you far, far away. So—
Absolutely. I think that is sage advice. And from that, just get yourself in front of more people 'cause you already have your product set, your service set, you know you're great at what you do, you're organized. Now you just need to get in front of more people. And usually it's done by people saying, "Oh, hey, I know somebody who does that." That's how I've gotten my business.
[Speaker] Exactly, same here. So the next one is, it's definitely related, but it's a little bit down a different path is, In your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, all right. That's a big question. Let's see. I think, I think probably happiness comes from, at least for me, I found happiness by knowing who I am, you know, like understanding that maybe other people might not see the method to your madness, no matter what it is you're doing. But if you're fully confident in who you are, what you're doing, what you stand for, everything else around your life fits, which makes you happy. Like you have a strong sense of self. And sometimes that comes with age, you know, some, some people have to take a gap year and, you know, backpack around Europe for it. But we can all find a way to like really understand who we are at the core. And I don't think happiness can happen unless we understand ourselves and get a good sense of identity.
And then what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm a huge reader, so this is going to take me a second. Do you want nonfiction, fiction, or what?
It's up to you. Whatever one is the best in your mind.
Oh my gosh. I have so many favorite books. Let's see. Well, I'll just go with my most recent because I love so many books. I just read a book called How to Talk Like Ted, and Ted as in TED Talks. And what I thought was the most interesting and valuable part of that, that translates beyond just, you know, like doing a TED Talk or like public speaking, but, you know, can really like be good life advice, is everybody has a story to tell. And I thought that was especially cool I like to write. I like to do all sorts of things. And I found that, you know, whether it's writing or it's talking to people or it's connecting, that really is a core piece of advice. Everyone has a story to tell. So everybody's interesting. You're interesting. You know, there's— and we seem to find a lot of our real satisfaction in life by connecting with people and sharing and learning their story.
And then what is your favorite quote and why?
Okay, so this is, um, this has been attributed to a lot of people. Um, for me, I got it from an NBA player, but my favorite quote is, "Why not me?" And I like it because it's, it's kind of ballsy, you know, it makes me feel like, okay, so why not give something a try? Why not me? Why couldn't I be you know, the top coach or on the Today Show or a bestselling author, whatever it may be. There is really— you're the only one holding yourself back until you actually find legitimate real-life roadblocks for something. So I try to start from a place of why not me?
Absolutely. I love that. Well, listen, thank you so much for coming on. The last one I have for you before we let you go is where can our audience best find you online?
Okay, so I'm going to give you a place where you can get all of my free stuff because everyone loves free stuff. Yes. So you can go to my website, it's www.tsirona.com/freestuff. And I have a metric butt ton of free stuff for people.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for providing that to us. And we will definitely be talking to you again soon.
Great, thanks a lot, Tyler Wagner.
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