Jazzercise & Finding Your Beat

“You should never edit one dream. Never edit. Just go for it!”

Judi Sheppard Missett

Judi Sheppard Missett, the founder of Jazzercise, spoke to the Women Presidents’ Organization on its last day. In fact, she was the last speaker of the entire conference and she brought the event to a fitting, high-note, close. Wearing an adorable silver skirty leggings outfit thing (the photo doesn’t do it justice), she dominated the stage, at times leading us in group exercise to bring points to life.

Her premise is that life and success is analogous to music. First, there is the building block of the bass line. For Judi, this is passion. She exhorts that you must have a passion for what you’re doing. You should get up every morning with that kind of fluttery exciting feeling that happens when you’re anticipating something great. She says that’s this is what passion does for you – it gives you that opportunity to feel the butterflies of excitement every day. I was lucky enough to take a Jazzercise class from her at the conference and can attest first hand that she loves what she does.

During her talk, she went on to explain that when you are passionate about what you are doing, you can dream great big fabulous dreams – and orchestrate them because passion helps you to work really hard and helps you crank up the proverbial volume. When you need to be able to put in an extraordinary effort, if you’re passionate about what you do, it doesn’t seem like work. Passion helps you listen to your gut, your voice of truth. Just like the base beat keeps the music on target and tuned in, that’s what passion does for you. It helps to keep you excited, motivated and on target.

The next building block in music is its cadence and tempo. Cadence gives you cues, messages, signs and signals. You need to be aware of life’s cues and opportunities and be aware for changing messaging and signals. When you get results that don’t match what you were expecting, the clues (the cadence) help you to modify. You have to do things differently if you want different results. You have to want to change.

Finally, the melody helps to bring everything along in a smooth and predictable pattern. You get the melody in your life by maintaining your mind-body-spirit connection.

According to Judy, the keys to maintaining this melody in your life are: surround yourself with people that lift you up. Kick out the negative and don’t allow anyone to bring you down. Create a family culture in your work so that you enjoy and care for those that work with and around you. Improve your mind by challenging yourself. And of course, the rockin’ healthy, 60ish year old grandmother strongly advocated fitness as part of a healthy life. She said, “Strengthen the body – practice well being through exercise and nutrition. Get enough sleep. Eat things in their natural state. ”

Finally, to keep your melody going, make room in your life for spontaneity. Leave room in your life for serendipitous happenings. (Random aside: I totally took her advice yesterday and spur of the moment, went to go see the Mt. Vernon Tulip Fields by bike. Expect pictures later this week) Don’t become so rigid that you have no fun doing what you do. You won’t even be aware when things pass you buy if you are too rigid. In addition, practice gratitude. Every day Judi makes a gratitude list from A to Z. This outpouring of gratitude makes Judi want to share and give back. She strongly believes in the power of ‘giving back’ and suggests that you try to make a difference in someone’s life every single day. Proving that she walks the walk, she has raised $26million for charity (WOW!)

She closed with the exhortation: “Be brilliant and absolutely humble.”

Success is a combination of three things:

Idealism
Realism
Plain old hard work

Learn more about Jazzercise at their site here or read more about the background of Jazzercise and Judi’s rise in building a $93million/year business here.