Asa part of our series about women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brynn Scarborough.
As president and CEO of JK Products and Services, Brynn Scarborough oversees leading brands in the wellness industry, including Ergoline, WellSystem Wave, Revive and Sol Energy. With a decade of in-house experience coupled with determination and empathy, Brynn drives the 100-year-old company to continue being an industry pioneer — always innovating top-trend technologies and product lines while growing the nationwide footprint of JK sales, services, and operations. Brynn has been instrumental in removing barriers in the customer journey of JK and works to intentionally support business owners and operators to evolve.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
Ihave a bit of a bit of an interesting back story, in the sense that I grew up in rural Arkansas and was also homeschooled. I got a GED when I was 16 and worked full time so that I could save to go to college. Ended up getting a full tuition scholarship to go to university which was a real-life changing experience for me. I was the first female in my family to be independent or to go to college at that time. That situation really taught me a lot about being independent, learning and how to learn, and just being able to solve very adult problems from a very young age, some of those problems still continue to live with me today.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
I think one of the more interesting stories and one of the more difficult ones is leading during covid and being in a leadership position during covid. It took us back to the barebones of what was most important to us and caused us to reprioritize incredibly quickly. Instead of making decisions between profit margins and opportunities, we were making decisions about protecting our customers and employees. Really being able to come together and get back to root cause priorities and motivators for why we do, what we do. At the end of the day, I think what we learned as a leadership team and what I learned as a leader is that when the going gets tough, it is about protecting the people that run the business and protecting the customers that invest in the business. We really worked hard to make that happen. I am incredibly proud of how the leadership team, and I were able to navigate that situation. While it was hard fought, it left us with a lifetime of experience coming out of just a few years’ time but leaves us with a great deal of wisdom moving forward.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When it comes to learning from mistakes, if I can even summarize mistakes that I have made and continue to make. We really try not to vilify our failures and I really try not to use failure as the “f” word in our organization and with myself, personally. If you are not willing to fail over and over and over again then you really have a difficult time succeeding. That’s a lesson I’ve had to learn over time. As a young leader, more than a decade ago, I was also an insecure leader, and so I avoided having difficult conversations, I was less direct and probably less encouraging than I could have been with some of my direct reports during that time. Also did not realize I was not in competition with anyone but myself. It was about showing up every day as the best version of myself and not about competing with anyone else. I could have done that better earlier in my career. I also could have benefited from coaching, and so I really try to make sure that even though I didn’t have coaches early on, I try to make sure that is available for the next generation and for our employees as well.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
The work we are doing at Wellness JK is making a bigger impact in the world by making wellness and wellbeing more accessible. Instead of having to schedule an appointment two months out to see massage therapist or get a facial or just take that one hour of time that we tend to view as an such a luxury and such an expense, the equipment that Wellness JK is bringing to the market really brings those experiences into an accessible and repeatable format. Which means that if you have 15–20 minutes in your day, then we can give you an experience that will enhance your wellbeing and improve your mindset. It’s like taking a micro break or taking a micro relaxation during the middle of a stressful day, it gives you the opportunity to put your phone down, which we all need throughout the day. We are really bringing technology platforms forward that allow us to do that with equipment that doesn’t bring greater complexity to business owners that are already trying to solve operational and personnel challenges. We do this by using technology to provide a service that is really a value add to the business.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
- Hydration- It’s true that a lot of problems can be solved with hydration, whether it’s headaches, allergies, or generally feeling better or improving moodiness. For me, I travel a lot and I find staying hydrated while flying or on the road is difficult, but I feel better overall when I do.
- Adding movement to my day- not just around scheduled workouts or around calls but adding movement to activities that would be rather sedentary. Humans were not made to sit all day long, and that’s what we do now. They say, “sitting is the new smoking”. Maybe working hard to climb the stairs an extra time or two, walking around the office between calls, or get a standing desk are great ways to add movement into your day and can be stacked with other habits.
- Gratefulness- beginning and ending the day with gratefulness. Instead of waking up and thinking first thing about everything you’ve got to do today or what you are worried about, I like to begin each day about thinking out loud about a few things I am grateful for and when I go to sleep at night I like to think on the same note. This ensures my mind is set appropriately, not only for good sleep but it is mindset and framing that I would like to have around my day.
- Sunlight- not necessarily sunbathing all the time but just being able to see sunlight early in the mornings and be able to walk outside or be near a window to get a little more sunlight in your life. Especially during the winter months when people might be suffering from less sunlight in their lives. I live in Florida, there’s a reason I do, I love the happy hormones that come from a lifestyle that has more sunlight and positivity in it. Just adding a little more sun even on a cloudy day, it could be helpful.
- The last one is a simple lifestyle tweak, but taking time for deep breaths and I don’t necessarily mean taking time for long sessions of meditation (that would be more like a habit and not a tweak). Taking a few minutes when you feel yourself getting stressed out or tense, whether it’s a suituation that you feel emotionally reactive to, or even if you are getting very tired sometimes, like I do in the afternoons. Taking time to do what is called a box breath. This is a breathing technique that means you inhale for 4 seconds, hold at top of inhale for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, and hold after exhale for 4 seconds. Repeating that for even a minute or two will help calm your nervous system from whatever has activated it. This can help with mental clarity and calmness moving into whatever task lies in front of you.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
When I think about a movement that would bring impact to the most amount of people, I think about changing mindsets around how we view wellness. You know for many of us who have been on a wellness or health and fitness journey for multiple decades, I know myself and others have struggled with the idea that it is either all in or all out. You are either going to be healthy or not, you are either going to be fit or not, it’s really kind of a yes or no conversation, a light switch on or off kind of situation. Whereas wellness and a healthy lifestyle is more about making healthy decisions, nudging yourself towards wellness continuously daily. It’s not shaming yourself for having dessert on the weekends or skipping a workout. It is about prioritizing your health and wellbeing over the long term to be able to improve longevity and quality of life. Not about fitting into a certain pants size or achieving an unrealistic aesthetic goal that we might see on the internet. If there is one thing that I could do in the fitness and wellness space, it would be to affect people’s mindset around what wellness is. That wellness is not fitness models on the internet but instead is making micro decisions that reinforce your quality of life from a self-value and self-worth perspective.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
I could make a long list of the these, would I have listened, that’s the question…
- Worry less, in general just spend less time worrying. I think a lot of us have learned over the last couple of years that we as leaders and high functioning individuals spend time worrying about the global pandemic and all the issues that come with it were not on the list of things that we had thought about worrying about up until that point. It really taught me an important lesson, that most of the things we worry about are just a waste of time. When we need to do all, we can be present in the moment. So, worry less in general.
- On that note, worry less about what other people think, and their opinions of others in general. There will always be opinions about you and about your work from other people. Those belong to the people that hold the opinion. They are none of your business and reflect the individual who holds those opinions. So, worry less about them and worry more about the opinion you hold of yourself.
- Start saving in my 20’s, don’t assume there is so much life to live and you don’t need to be putting money away. Start saving in your 20’s, it adds up quickly.
- Everyone feels like an imposter at times, do it anyway. No one has it all figured out.
- Trust yourself, stop second guessing and just go for it.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
For me mental health is one of the most important topics. Wellness and mental health really do intersect in a space that is both personal and professional to me, not only because the work we are doing with Wellness JK really brings relaxation and mental health topics to the forefront with the use of our equipment, but also because my personal life is really dedicated to a space of leadership development, mentorship, the accessibility of tools and resources for individuals to be able to move their leadership journey forward. With that, this is really a cause that is most dear to me, but really one that is pervasive in all areas of my life that I spend personal time exploring whether that’s through my doctorate program or even product development with Wellness JK.
What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?
There are a few ways: 1) follow me on linked in, 2) subscribe to my personal newsletter at alchemyleadershiplab.com, 3) follow the development of all of our products at wellness JK at https://jkproducts.us/wellnessjk/
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
About the Interviewer: Wanda Malhotra is a wellness entrepreneur, lifestyle journalist, and the CEO of Crunchy Mama Box, a mission-driven platform promoting conscious living. CMB empowers individuals with educational resources and vetted products to help them make informed choices. Passionate about social causes like environmental preservation and animal welfare, Wanda writes about clean beauty, wellness, nutrition, social impact and sustainability, simplifying wellness with curated resources. Join Wanda and the Crunchy Mama Box community in embracing a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle at CrunchyMamaBox.com.
