In Her Words: Dawn Vaslow, Finding Her Strength and Hitting Her Stride
As a natural educator with a passion for fitness and a love for animals, Dawn continues to build her 4Fitness business and expands services to include pets.
When I went to school at Iowa State University, I thought I wanted to be an elementary school teacher so I majored in education. As I worked through my courses, I realized I loved teaching people how to do things, but I didn’t want to work with kids in a classroom. I decided I would go on to get a master's degree in educational technology so I could help teachers help kids.
When I graduated with my bachelor's degree in 1995, I was supposed to move in with my boyfriend and then he broke up with me. My roommates had already found a new roommate, which meant I had nowhere to live. My older sister saved the day by inviting me to spend the summer with her in Chicago. “Chicago is great,” she said. “Before you go back to Iowa and get your master's degree, you'll have a blast here. I bet I can even find you a summer job.” And that’s exactly what she did. My sister got me a job through a friend of hers who worked for Motorola. This was when Motorola was in its heyday. I worked in a technology group where I got tons of experience and in the process, I realized that I was more technical than I thought I was.
While I was there working the summer job, I saw a posting for an internship to create a self-directed learning lab in Motorola’s education department. I thought “Well, I've never done that before, but I've been doing all this stuff with computers, and I have my education background. Let me go talk to them.” The hiring manager said, “Well, it’s only an internship. I can’t promise you more than six months. I just need you to get this self-directed learning lab up and going.” It was a high paying job for a college student and it was aligned with my interests, so I decided to take the risk and I jumped in with two feet. That’s how I started working for Motorola doing exactly what I wanted to be doing and it turned out that I didn’t need a master’s degree after all. I loved the manager. She was just a couple years older than I was, and we had good chemistry. I worked for Motorola for 15 years, and over time my role progressed into different things. Towards the end, I was focusing more on process improvement.
When I got married in 2001, I was still working in education at Motorola, but it had taken a turn that I wasn’t really interested in following. After I had my kids, I went part time. The further I got away from full time, and the more I was working from home, the more I felt like I wanted to make a change but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do.
When I turned 40, I thought “You know what? I want to make the leap and start a new career. I was getting phased out of my job anyway. In fact, I was phasing myself out because I was the process improvement person. I started looking into different franchises. Chick-fil-A was one of the things that was on top of my husband’s list, but we couldn’t do that, because you have to be a Chick-fil-A manager first, among other things. That’s when I decided to go the fitness route. I started looking into Curves, which was a 24 hour fitness thing, but I realized that they work all the time, and you don’t get to work with customers because you’re too busy managing the business.
Back in 1996, not long after I had moved here, I joined the YMCA and I got to work with a personal trainer with my membership. The trainer who was working with me was 40 years old, and she had just started. At the time I was 24 and I was thinking “Wow. 40! That’s old. You’re starting a new career in personal training when you’re 40 years old?” I was really interested and impressed. That experience always stuck in my mind.
I decided that I wanted to become a personal trainer and run my own business. I didn’t have a business background, but I’d had enough corporate background to understand key things like budgeting and people management and I thought “How hard can it be?” While all this was happening, my husband asked for a divorce. We were married 14 years when it all fell apart. Our daughter Adi was 9 and our son Sam was 11.
I almost had a nervous breakdown during this time. I knew I needed to get my business up and running. People wanted to work out at 5am before they went to work so even though I felt almost destroyed, I’d have to drag myself out of bed and go train people who were all acquaintances and friends at this point. I remember after one small group session I almost passed out at someone’s house from sheer exhaustion and stress. I got dizzy and I had to sit down. I was seeing stars and I was lightheaded. These women asked me what was going on and it was almost a bonding experience. They helped me get my business off the ground through word of mouth. My community supported me, which was wonderful.
When I started my business, I saw that all my friends were doing cardio, but they weren't lifting weights. I knew how important it was to be lifting weights, but I realized that for women, going to a gym isn’t going to get them into strength training. It’s going to have to be a community. I formed small groups so we could work out and have fun at the same time. People would talk about whatever was on their minds and I’d show them and tell them what exercises to do. That’s how I was able to reach the most people. In addition to being enjoyable and social, there was also accountability from friends in the group, and it was a more affordable option.
Today I still have a few small groups, but they’re not the basis of my business anymore. My original clients who were in their 40s when we started, started to go back to work and wanted to do one on one training instead of small groups and then when Covid hit, I went totally virtual for a full year. That was my best business year. After Covid, people still wanted to be online. They liked not having to commute, it was a little bit less expensive, and they were able to have some greater flexibility with scheduling. So my business evolved to include small group, online, and online small group.
Initially my small groups were boot camp style where we were doing burpees and squat thrusts as well as strength training. But then I started reading about perimenopause. I was feeling the effects it was having on me, and I knew most of my clientele were also women in perimenopause or beyond. The more I educated myself, the more I realized that we really needed to be doing more strength training and lifting heavy to build muscle and counteract our dropping hormones. We lose muscle so fast at this age. People need to understand how much they need to lift to keep that muscle, promote longevity, and still be able to do all the things they want to be able to do. That has become my new passion.
In addition to my small groups, I work one on one with several clients in their 50s, 60s and 70s. The older demographic, especially the women, have never been weightlifters. They never thought that’s what they needed, so they need education and support to make sure that they are lifting correctly.
Finally, in the last six years I’ve really been enjoying working with teenage female athletes. They kind of know what they're supposed to be doing, but if they go to the high school gym, they’re often being treated like males, and they’re not doing the right exercises that are going to help them. If they just throw you on a back squat, without going over the form that’s needed, you’re going to get injured. A lot of them come to me injured already because of the way that they’ve been playing. Nowadays, there’s a lot of over use because the same sport is being played all year.
I played basketball until the end of high school and then I coached my own kids. I love, love, love basketball, but I also played softball through high school and played volleyball for a couple years. Having that experience and having Adi and Sam helps me relate to my young athlete clients. I love them to death, and I understand what they’re doing. I'm there as kind of a cool aunt who’s going to teach them to work out. Just like my adult sessions are very chatty, so are my teen sessions. We talk about everything that’s going on in their lives as we’re working out in groups. I can kind of figure out whose personality meshes with whose so when I create small groups, I make sure I put those people together so nobody is intimidated. It’s amazing how they just start opening up to each other. By the time a six week session is done, they’re friends and that’s kind of fun.
Where do you see yourself going from here?
With my kids both away at college this year, I was feeling like I had too much time on my hands and I was getting a little lonely. I’m such a busy person, but the afternoons and weekends are quiet now. I started thinking it would be great to have a pet to keep me company, but I love to travel and pets can be expensive. Many of my friends and clients who have pets have talked about how hard it is to find a pet sitter they can trust. So, I thought “Hey, I could be a pet sitter!” That way I could have a pet when I wanted a pet.
My personal training business is called 4Fitness, so I decided to call this new business 4Fido Pet Services. I ran the idea past a group of friends, and they were super enthusiastic and supportive. It’s a service that is needed by so many people in my area, especially because during Covid, so many people adopted pets and now many of those people are having to go back into the office. Also, people I know with kids in college need somebody to watch their dog when they go visit their kids. I feel so passionate about it and so energized by it. It’s the same feeling that I had when I started 4Fitness.
If you could go back in time and give advice to your 25 year old self, what would you tell her?
I really liked my 25 year old self. She didn’t have any fear. No worries. She knew everything she needed to know at that point. At 25, I was so confident. I would like to be that person again. Over time, my self-confidence got chipped away through various jobs and people that I met and through personal experiences. I wish my 25 year old self could come and remind me of who I was when I was 25. She would say “You can do whatever you want. Remember who you were. You were willing to take risks and put yourself out there.” I feel like I'm taking steps to get back to that mindset now.
Belle Curve Stories is about women navigating life with grit, grace, and growth. What do those three words mean to you?
When you get to be about 50 or so, you stop caring so much about what other people think and about how other people view you. You start to do what you really want to do and not what other people think you should do. Part of me — just a small part — was thinking, “Ooh, if I tell people I’m a pet sitter, are they going to say “Can't you do anything else? Is that all you can do with your life?” But when I decided to do this, I had no fear about it. You get to that age where you want to be the best person that you can, and you decide that you’re going to do it the way that you want to do it. If other people don’t accept that, then you say, “Thanks. Goodbye!”
I think grit, grace, and growth all kind of flow together. You decide that you want to be the best version of yourself, and you’re going to do it gracefully. As you do that, you’re going to grow. You don’t want to be stuck, right? There has to be a point where you have that mindset and say “Okay, I’m just going to try it and see what happens.”
As told to and edited by Teresa Bellock and Sandra Ditore.
Dawn Vaslow, 51, entrepreneur, is the owner of 4Fitness and 4Fido Pet Services. A natural teacher, she is passionate about fitness, pets, and travel. Originally from Iowa, after graduating from Iowa State University, she relocated to the Chicago area where she now lives with her two college age children. You can follow Dawn on Instagram @dawn_vaslow and on Facebook at 4Fitness4You.
We had such a great time interviewing Dawn... she has great insights on fitness for women over 50. Lifting weights is a life saver
Today, while I was laying on my stomach, my 4 year old grand nephew sat on my back and wanted a horse back ride. I'm 66. I was able to use my core to assume the position and got on go my hands and knees and proceeded to take him for a ride. I did that because of Dawn. I started working out with her on Zoom during the pandemic, slowly collected what I needed to work oj from home and still do her Zoom classes. She challenges me and I'm getting stronger every day .