riverside_copy_of julie romero _ may 31, 2025 001_radical_massage the
3:36AM Jun 1, 2025
Speakers:
Krista Dicks
Keywords:
Mobile massage studio
radical freedom
massage therapy
creative outlet
gardening
business transformation
client flexibility
personal tragedy
teaching background
mobile business challenges
client reactions
marketing strategy
content creation
professional growth
entrepreneurial journey.
Wanted to let you know that this episode does mention suicide and losing a loved one to suicide. So if this episode is not for you, I completely understand and I hope that we will see you in the next episode. Today's guest is the incredible Julie Romero, a massage therapist based in Wilmington, North Carolina, who's redefining what it means to create a massage practice on your terms. After two successful careers, including 16 years as a public school teacher, Julie took a massive leap and followed her heart into massage therapy. But what really sets her apart is what came next. After years in brick and mortar clinics and rising rent prices, Julie had a bold idea Turn an old shuttle bus into a fully equipped Mobile Massage Studio, and that's exactly what she did. Her business. Hands in the sands is the perfect blend of creativity, resilience and radical thinking. This episode is about finding purpose after pain, building a dream from scratch and the radical freedom that comes from doing things just a little bit differently. I hope you enjoy this episode with Julie.
Well, Julie, it's so wonderful to meet you. Thank you for joining me on the podcast.
It's a pleasure to meet you, Krista, and I'm just so glad to be here. Thanks for the invitation. Yeah,
my pleasure. It was Jen Slade, who we recently had on the podcast, who shared Structural Integration with us and her passion. She was a lovely guest, and so she shared your name and said, I I needed to reach out to you. And how are you connected to Jen? First
of all, Jen is a goddess. She's such a remarkable human being. And I'm just so glad that our paths crossed. We were both, I think I had just gotten my license eight years ago, and she and I were both working in a local practice, and so we did lots of, you know, kind of coming up together as newbies and commiserating and bitching and moaning, pardon my language. And you know, she and I are very different in age and in our styles. So it was beautiful, because there was never any competitive nature to the relationship. I knew what her trajectory was, and I knew it was very different from mine. And so we were able to, you know, work together cooperatively and learn from each other, knowing that we weren't competing for the same client base. And she's just such a remarkable human being. She's an amazing practitioner as well. Yeah,
definitely seems that way. So that's amazing. Well, thank you for sharing. I like to touch on the aspect of the podcast is like the radical massage therapist, where, you know, we kind of want to share the benefits of our career, so I would just want to find out where you are at right now. Which one resonates with you more, if you like, the benefits of our career, as in freedom, flexibility, financial success or some fun. Which one resonates with you more right right now? In your career
right now, it's absolutely the flexibility, which, to me, is also freedom. So those two really are intertwined, not only of the career of massage therapy, but in the particular place that I am right now that was really my focus, and it's something that I'm grateful for every single day, that flexibility of my schedule.
Yeah, absolutely huge, huge perk. Wonderful. Your business is massage therapy, of course. So what does one that is a massage therapist with your background? What do you do to stay grounded and calm.
My calming grounding methods include things like gardening. I just love to have my fingers in dirt. My husband keeps on trying to buy me gloves to garden with. I'm like, Honey, you can keep buying them, but I'm not going to use them like part of it to me is the feel getting my hands on roots and digging in the dirt. So gardening has always been a passion of mine. I'm 57 years old, so I'm, you know, I'm not running marathons like you girls, but, you know, I make sure that I make it to the park and do three miles walking with my Labrador every day, and just being in nature, being in the park, smelling the pine trees down here in North Carolina, I find to be very grounding. Jigsaw puzzles or something I'm passionate about I just finished my very first time doing a 2000 piece puzzle all by myself, and darned if I got to the end and there's one piece missing, so I can say I've completed a 1999 piece puzzle. And watercolor painting is something I find very therapeutic, and quiets my mind, quiets my soul, and gives me that creative outlet that I that I find really relaxing. Yeah,
I love that. I think we all need a creative outlet. I love that you get your hands in the dirt, you know, really a testament to our career as well, how we just love to be hands on. But, I mean, I've heard so many wonderful benefits about gardening. I'm not a gardener myself yet, but I've just heard like it's just so therapeutic to get connected to, like the dirt and the earth. So that's really, really
and then even beyond that. And you know, nurturing the plants and watching them grow, and even deadheading is super therapeutic, getting rid of those old blooms that don't serve you anymore, metaphorically speaking and literally with the plants.
Yeah. That is so true. So how did your massage therapy journey begin?
How did it begin? I would say that my entire life, I've been that girl. I've just been a toucher. Some of my earliest, fondest memories of that human touch. I can close my eyes and transport myself there. I'm in a swimming pool, and my mother's got her feet underneath my armpits, and she's rocking me up in the water, and I would rub her feet. As I got older, you know, my brother would come home from football practice and have me walk on his back or rub his shoulders, and then I'd have a boyfriend, and I was always the one giving the massages, and I grew into the woman you know at the bar behind you, grabbing your shoulders and squeezing your trap. When I became a teacher, I was living in Maryland at the time, in Baltimore, and they don't pay super well in the state of Maryland, or they didn't 20 years ago. So I thought that I would supplement my income by going to massage therapy school. And then I moved to Pennsylvania, and in Pennsylvania, they pay very well in the education world. So I was like, now I don't need to do that. I don't need to supplement I can just enjoy my summers. And so it just went on the back burner. Fast forward 17 years into my teaching career. I have my undergrad in Spanish and my master's degree in teaching and curriculum. So fast forward 17 years into teaching. I'm in a wonderful relationship, and I came home one snowy night and I found my partner in the basement of our house. He had hanged himself. And so I think anybody listening can imagine what that does to one's world. Finished that school year. It was in January of 2014 finished that school year, and I taught a full another year, but I was still living in our house. I was raising the puppy that we had just gotten four months before he did this, and found that in York, Pennsylvania, not a big town, and he was also a teacher. We were both kind of rock stars. As far as teachers go, everybody knew what had happened and knew where I lived, and I found that people either looked at me with pity or they looked at me with some kind of suspicion, and frankly, a lot of people just stopped looking at me. And so it just felt impossible to reinvent myself there in that role, and I felt like the teaching had run its course. I loved it. I was good at it, but there was increasing fear about being in a classroom and all that entails these days. So I decided to do a 180 and I remembered from that back burner that I love to touch and a friend of mine lives down here in Wilmington, North Carolina. And so I thought, let me go down there and really switch it up. So and ran away to the beach and became a massage therapist. So with a master's degree. I was down here, back in the classroom. I was working a couple of part time jobs. One of them was at the pottery bar, and I was in the stock room, and part of my duties were to clean the bathroom at the end of the shift, and I remember lying on the floor in tears thinking, What have I done? Like I had a great career back in Pennsylvania. Now I'm scrubbing toilets, but I constantly reminded myself just to keep my eye on the prize, and so kept my head down, finished school, got my license, and then worked for probably close to nine months at a small practice here, while simultaneously running my own space. I guess that brings us up to how I got into massage therapy. The rest of it can be for another another topic. We can.
Yeah, we can keep going on that. Well, thank you for sharing such a very private event in your life, and obviously it was a pivotal moment for you to make that decision, to end the courage to move locations. I think that that would be difficult for anybody to to accept and then to reinvent yourself. As you said, it was just not a space. You wanted to move on. You wanted to, you know, be independent. But, you know, it really appreciate that you knew you had to change locations to do that. And so that was very courageous of you as well. So yeah, you became a massage therapist. I think, I think it's wonderful when we when we have those, when we're in massage school, it is no joke, as every massage therapist on here has said, it is, you know, a beast in itself. And then a lot of us did work part time while we were going through massage school. And then, on top of keeping up with relationships and family. It is a very challenging time, and I think it's very one, like, it's wonderful that you you were rubbing toilets, because I think we really wanted to get through it. We all just did what we needed to do to like you said, Keep your eye on the prize. There's a bigger, bigger picture. Just do this, get it, get it done. And then, you know, things are going to be better in that massage,
really getting out of our own way and putting our ego aside, because that was, you know, I was almost ashamed, like, what am I doing? And then again, refocusing and remembering that that's going to be such a tiny little blip on my trajectory here.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely wonderful. So tell me about the brick and mortar business. So you started off in massage. You were with a clinic, and then you were also owning your own practice. So the classic brick and mortar.
Yeah, classic brick and mortar. It was a small, kind of crappy space. I recall taking my husband in for the first time, and he was looking around. He's like, really? And I was like, Don't you see what I see? And he's like, nope, but I could see what I what I was going to be able to do with it. It was in the back of a residential home that had turned commercial, and so there were a couple of hairdressers in two of the front rooms, and I had a back room. I had an en suite bathroom. I had my own entrance, and the walls, one of the walls, was covered in these two enormous mirrors. There was a hairdresser there, but I was like, that's very mirrory massage therapy room. A friend of mine was at the same time opening up a coffee shop, and she had just had a delivery of some piece of equipment, and she had a palette. I was like, what are you gonna do with that palette? And she said, I'm going to throw it away. And I said, No, you're going to bring it to me. And so I took that palette and I scrubbed it, and I whitewash painted it, and I had a handy guy mount it over one of those huge mirrors, and I put blinky lights all over it. And that palette is still here with me today. And so I was there, and I was working at the other spot, and I think in my mind I had this number, like I had to, had to have a consistent whatever the number was. I think I wanted to be at 16 hours, hands on time a week before I was willing to step away from the studio where I worked and just be on my own. And I don't know what it was, but something inside me said, You know what? What are you waiting for? Like the universe, you need to create that vacuum so that the universe can fill it. And so I gave my notice, and I left. And within, not kidding, within four weeks, I was at 22 hours a week. I thought, what was I waiting for? And I just was waiting for, you know, that feeling, that voice inside, to say, you've got this and you can do it. So I made the jump. I was on my own in that little spot. And then I was sought out by practice of husband and wife. He was an MD, and she's a do, and they wanted to open concierge medical practice. They wanted to get out of the rat race of traditional medicine. And so they found me, and they found a acupuncturist. And so they were looking for people who had their own established clientele, who could come under their umbrella, not work for them, just work in the same space. So they had, like, a level of membership where they'd get a 60 minute massage with me at this rate for whatever. So that was great. Their business model was not as good as mine, and I did really well there, and they ultimately ended up selling the practice and moving on. So that was space number two. So this takes me into my third space, which I moved into in February of 2020, and then COVID, right? So I'm in this new space. I got a good sized suite with four rooms. I brought the acupuncturist that had been in the other practice with me. So he and I each had our own offices and our own treatment rooms, and we had a break room and a waiting room and a bathroom. And it was lovely. It was great. Then COVID hit, which was a disaster, as we all know, but I made it through that, and I was in that space until July of 23 and that was when I ended that brick and mortar relationship and moved into my bus. But the idea of the bus was months earlier. Obviously, it took a few months to get things off the ground. So, yeah, so I was in three different physical spaces, and tired of rent going up, tired of, you know, I had a couple of different tenants coming and going, and it just, it became something I didn't want. I didn't want to be managing tenants, and I didn't want, you know that those increasing rates every year. And so the idea was born.
Yes. Okay, so let's talk about the bus. Let's talk about the bus. Yeah. So this is really, I love this idea. It is super unique. You're in it right now. You showed me, like the palette that you had on the first your first practice there. And so how did this come about? You said it was an idea even before you had to, you know, let go of the brick and mortar.
So one of my clients, her daughter, was considering becoming a massage therapist. So she asked, Could she follow you? Pick your brain? Can you share some resources with her? And so I did all of the above, and then didn't hear from her for a month or so. And then I got a call. Maybe it was a few months I got a call from her, and I remember it clear as day I was sitting on my back porch with the dog, and her name's Sydney. Shout out to Sydney. The SD Sydney called, and she said, so instead of massage therapy, I've decided to pursue becoming an aesthetician. Great. Good for you. She's very passionate about skin. So she said, I think I asked her if she'd found a location yet, and she said, I'm really just not sure about where I would want to be in the Wilmington area. And I said, Well, I can certainly give you my perspective. I was in three different spaces in three different areas. And she said, Well, no, I already did a thing. I said, What did you do? So she went and bought herself like a teardrop trailer to pull behind her pickup truck, and she turned it into a little. Mobile Facial Spa, and we got off the phone, and I sat there for probably an hour just going, Wow, thinking about the possibilities. So then that led me down the rabbit hole of let me find somebody who's doing this already. It wasn't a very deep hole. There aren't a lot of people doing it. I think on the east coast, the best that I could find was a business up in DC, but they had, like, like, a big rock star size bus with a team of five people, and they did chair events and things like that, which is clearly not the direction I wanted to go. So I dug deeper. I found, I think, a couple people in Washington state, Oregon, California, and then I found the one, a woman in British Columbia, and she had trans she transformed a sprinter van into a massage duty. And I was like, well, I could do better than that. And it was almost like it was an out of body experience. When I look back and I think, Julie, you really like thought this made sense and that you could do this. But it's almost like something in me, separated or disconnected, so that I could do it, if that makes sense, yeah, like, almost gave me these blinders. And so then I started shopping for busses, you know, trying to figure out, where do people get these secondary market vehicles? And joined a lot of Facebook and Instagram groups about Schoolies and shuttle busses. And then we traveled. My husband. I went to Raleigh, North Carolina. We went to Fort Lauderdale. We looked at quite a few busses. And then we happened to find right here in Wilmington, there's a wholesaler of reseller, rather, of trucks and busses. So went in every time they had a new vehicle come in. And by the third time I was in there, the guy said, What are you doing with this again? And I told him, and he said, Oh, are you using so and so? And I said, No, but I'd love so and so's number. I mean, at that point, I hadn't thought Krista. I hadn't thought who's going to do the contracting work, who's going to figure out all of the electrical stuff. I was just so tunnel vision. So I got this guy's number, called him as I was driving out of the lot, and we met the next day. He came to my studio, saw my physical space, I told him what I wanted to do, and he, serendipitously, had just moved here with his wife. They lived in a full size school bus for a couple of years. Had a couple of kids while living in it, and he had just moved here to Wilmington to start a business doing just this, converting things on wheels into stuff people need. And so when I gave him the idea, he was 100% down with it. And so I said, you know, could you give me some input as to the vehicle that I choose? He said, Yeah, when you get one in your sights, you know, throw me the contact and I'll go look at it. So when I found the one that I ended up buying, it's a mid body entry, so it doesn't have a traditional door at the front of the bus that the passengers would get on. So it's like the bus you would take from the airport to go get your rental car mid body entry and a big luggage rack and all that stuff. And as soon as he saw that, he said, obviously, you need to get the engine checked out and all of that, and we'll take a look underneath and see what the rest looks like. But he said that that's, that's, this is going to be a good vehicle, and for your purposes particular, it's kind of ideal. So I pulled the trigger. I bought the bus. He said it would take him six weeks to convert it, and again, not necessarily doing things in the correct order. Then I picked up the phone and called the state Marco and said, so I'm gonna do this thing, and what are the rules? And the woman said, You're gonna do what? And I told her three times, and then she said, I'm gonna have to call you back. So when she called me back, she said, the reason I needed to call you back is because there are no rules, because nobody's done this in North Carolina, to which, of course, my husband said nobody's doing it. Julie and I said, Exactly, that's why. I mean, why shouldn't I be the first one to do it? And then other people would say, well, aren't you afraid other people are going to, like, steal your idea and do it. It's like, okay, first of all, it was an idea. It's not that novel, and it wouldn't be stealing. It would be showing respect for something that I had created. And, you know, flattery is the best, or what's the saying about the best? The best, the best compliment is, yeah,
the best compliment is like, when, when somebody like, replicates you, or like,
yes, we didn't say that the way it's supposed. But you know what I mean? I said, you know, if anything, I'm hoping that people do see it. Think it's a great idea and want to recreate one for themselves, because I want to normalize the idea that, you know, this is something. Dog groomers are doing it. Dental technicians are doing it. Mammographers are doing it. Why shouldn't massage therapists be doing it?
Yeah, that's incredible. How soon was your husband on board with the idea? It didn't
take him too long, I think once he spoke with the contractor and he saw the other jobs that the contractor had done, the one he had done just before us was for an art teacher who decided she wanted to take art to communities that didn't have access. And so she would do everything from just coming into a neighborhood and setting up and letting kids get on the bus and paint or whatever, doing birthday parties and all that kind of stuff. And so seeing his work and seeing the potential, because once again, when he saw the shuttle bus, it was disgusting. He's like, Julie, really, you can see this. I was like, I can see it like it's right in front of me. I can. Gotcha, you know, I know I wanted shiplap. I knew I wanted recessed lighting, and, of course, the palette. So, yeah, I just, I had the vision, and I wouldn't let it go. And so it didn't take them too
long. Yeah, it is a beautiful space, from what I've, you know, been able to see on Instagram and and your website as well. And you clearly have this gift of vision. Because, yes, if you look at the before and after photos of the bus, I personally that is not a strong point for me. I do not have the vision, and some people do, and you've got it. You had it when you went to that your first brick and mortar business for your practice, you saw it, you like, saw the space, and you knew exactly what you wanted to do with it, how it was going to be yours, uniquely like is that? Is that something you've always had think, I
mean, I'm a creative person. I consider myself kind of an artist, but, but I'm also not one to let someone else's lack of vision blur my own. And maybe that's naive, or whatever it might be, and not to say that the more somebody poo pooed it, the stronger I felt about it. But, you know, I was like, oh, okay, now you're daring me to do it. Yes, and so, yeah, I think that it's something instinctual that I've always had, and I trust myself, nobody's gonna tell me you can't do that. I mean, I might try it and not be able to do it, but darned if I won't try it
absolutely. Yeah, I love, I love that attitude of trying I and, you know, sometimes we got these blinders on for a reason to not get distracted and to not let that self doubt come in, just to just do it and see where it can go. Do you were the original or that one of the only ones doing this at the time, the first one. Do you know of other mobile massage practices now in your area, not
in the area? No, no one chiropractor has gone mobile. And I'll shout out to him as well. He calls his the back mobile, okay, which is cute, yeah, but yeah, no, nobody else has jumped on yet. And you know, even I think that I naively thought that as soon as I had the bus and it was on the road, people would be stopping and looking and staring and oohing and eyeing and it hasn't been that way. I do have a lot of people who just still are having trouble wrapping their brain around it, and I have to tell them three times what I do. But you know, it's coming up on two years now, and Wilmington is a pretty good sized town, and word of mouth is always a really powerful thing. And, you know, I've had to shift. There have been a couple big shifts in my perspective about what work and being busy means. And because, you know, going mobile has has shifted that. So that was something I grappled with, that was a little bit of a struggle, but I've gotten through it and over it and past it.
Yeah, can you expand on that a little bit more? So I
started mobile, and it was, I was preparing my clients, you know, in the months preceding, and they all seemed excited. They acted excited, but strangely that some of the folks that I thought would not ever get on the bus still see me twice a month, and there are people who I thought would be 100% behind it, and I haven't seen them since. I had one woman tell me that she thought she would feel claustrophobic. It's seven feet high. You can totally stand up in here. It's larger than my second of my three spaces. What if I have to go to the bathroom? Well, it's got a bathroom. That was, by the way, what the state told me, the only regulations they could come up with is that I had to have a place for people to use the bathroom, and I had to have running hot and cold water. So it was interesting that I just, I didn't quite gage people correctly. So then I'm fully mobile. Business slowed down a little bit. I'd been closed for two weeks during that, the last bits of the transition, and I was getting down, if my book wasn't full and the shift was working, was no longer just driving to that office and sitting there and waiting for people to jump on the table. I had to, I had to rebrand myself. This was a whole new marketing concept that, you know, not only was my business new to it, but it's, new to the industry. And so spending time creating content, or spending time, you know, getting just getting my name in people's faces, was work, right? So I no longer could define work as a body on the table that I was touching. It was all this other stuff. Also, part of it was shifting from just having, you know, individual clients coming, and now I'm looking at booking group events. You know I want, I want to come out for the baby shower, the bridal shower, the girls weekend, the family vacation, and going to businesses as well. You want to show your employees you appreciate them. Don't buy them pizza and chips. Buy them massages and so getting out there and trying to drum up that business in the corporate world. Again, I might not have been making any money that day, but I was certainly working, and there was a guilt that was like, if I didn't have somebody on the table, I'm not successful. So yeah, I've let that go. Yeah,
yeah, for sure, definitely, definitely. There's working on the business, and there's working in the business, and I think that it is a. Hard decision or something to recognize for myself. A lot of massage therapists who do become their own, their own business and their own practice, and you, even though you had experience, were using doing your own business, you know it is a whole different rebranding right now to re educate and and share that novelty of of what you do and why it's superior to, like, say, that corporate chair massage as well. That is, you know, still an option, but like this, this time, you can actually get right back on the table. I think also, one thing that you probably were adjusting to, if I can throw something out there, is that you were owning a brick and mortar business before your expenses were so much, I'm going to guess, larger than what you now experience having your own mobile bus. So I think when you're thinking about how, if you're looking at your full calendar, you want to have that full schedule, because maybe there is still in that back your mind, I need to earn that income. But now, even a less than full calendar probably, I'm guessing, probably earn just as much, or maybe more, than you did when your calendar was fully booked, because you get to keep more of it with you,
absolutely, and not to an extreme extent. Because while I don't have to pay rent and utilities in that space, I had to take out a personal loan to finance this. So I have a loan payment. But what I know is that down the road, that loan is going to be paid off, and then I've got a forever place to work for free. So the prize is there. I'm working towards that ultimate prize definitely, you know, not paying electric and internet and water and all of those things on a physical space have definitely made a difference. And, yeah, I just the, I just love, I love being at home, but not working at home. You know, you know, I know people will take, take the step of, you know, maybe I'm going to convert that third bedroom into a studio, but then you're still in your house, and then people are coming into your house. And so I feel like I've got the best of both worlds. I don't have to leave my driveway, but I don't have to have strangers in my house. And, you know, I can do a 60 minute and then pop in and throw some laundry and come out and do a 90, and then take the dog to the park and do another one, and then watch TV. You know, whatever free freeing up that time allows me to be doing the the other structural stuff that I need to do to build the business concept.
Yeah, absolutely. So, just so people understand you have your you have your bus, but it's you do like you park it at home, and then you have people come to your home and go on the bus to do your your massage, and they don't even they don't have to go into the house, use the washroom. Nothing has to happen inside the house. It's your space. And then all the massage business happens on the bus. But then they also have the option to travel to other people's homes. Like you said, for corporate events, I love the idea of these bridal parties and, like, girls weekends, just again, having that separate space. I do mobile massage myself. But then you're, you know, you're sort of set, you're setting up inside their space, and there's, you know, you're, you're there, and you're doing your your job. But there is some, still some of this kind of, like, it's, it's a little bit awkward in some spaces, so it's great you've got your energy in your space. Like, you just travel with it, and they come in and then they leave, yeah,
and that's, you know, you you said it so well there for me, people are like, Well, why don't you just come into the house? No, I do what I do in my space. I want my toys, my tools, my tricks, my smell, my energy. And I don't want to come into your house and then leave and my comforter smells like cigarettes, or there's your dog's hair or whatever. If I'm going to do what I do, I want to do it in my space. So it's really the best of both worlds. I can still be in my space, but you don't have to leave your driveway. And there are people who walk out their front door in a robe and get on the bus and then go back inside. It's really nice. One of the markets that I'm trying to tap into, in particular with these group events are like wellness retreats. I've got a weekend coming up, three days consecutively of a Women's Yoga Retreat just at one of the beach towns down the road. And so to be able to, you know, park in one place and have multiple people come out to the bus, you know, I'll go into a neighborhood Suzanne wants a massage. Will Suzanne tell Theresa and Lori and Nancy if they want one too? Then I'll be in your driveway that day, and I've got a travel expense. If you're within a 20 mile radius, there's just a $25 charge for the mobile piece of it, but that's just a flat fee one time. So if I come out there for Nancy, well, then you guys all are going to split the $25 which I think that going forward, this is what I'll be interested in when other people start to do this, to see how they they deal with that. Like somebody told me, you can't charge a travel fee. You're mobile. Well, do I quote it as my higher price? And then if you say you're going to come to me, then do I give you a discount? Or do I have my rates here? And then if you want me to come to you, it's extra. I don't know if I did it properly or not, but it's, it's been working pretty well. And people like to hear that, you know, come to the neighborhood for one person, and you guys all split that $25
Yeah, yeah. I think I and it's going to just be like a work in practice. And really, whatever does feel good for you, whatever works out for you, obviously, financially, things need to, need to work out as well. But I would agree, like you're still, you are mobile, but you're still providing that extra luxury of showing up at their front door, versus them using their gas and time to come to yours. So I don't see anything. Yeah, I think that that's
and the truth is, I mean, there are some people who have outright said to me, I'd love to have you come here, but for some reason, they're uncomfortable with their neighbors knowing that they're not in the house and that they're in a vehicle on the curb. Totally respect that some people don't have a flat area that will accommodate a 26 foot bus point where they live in a community, a community the HOA restricts service vehicles, so those people want to see me, but they can't see me at their house. I can't, I can't park in a public place and do this. It's got to be on private property, per the law. So so being, being able to treat people here in my driveway is just as valuable, you know, for those people who don't have the option they live in an apartment building. Maybe, yes, that's, it's best of all worlds.
Yeah, lovely. Yeah, that's, that's great. So it's been two years now that you've been operating from the bus, two years, August 1. Okay, fine, so what were some of the initial or you're probably still getting initial reactions from clients. What are some of the initial reactions when they come onto the bus,
lots of just eyes wide open looking around. I can't believe it looks like this in here. Oh, it smells so good. Oh, you've got air conditioning. Oh, look at the doTERRA. What do you mean? The table has a warmer. It's like any everything. I don't know what people's expectations are. I know that they always are pleased when they get on the bus. But, you know, I try and emphasize to people, it's everything that I had in my brick and mortar. It's just on wheels now. So I've got a hot towel cabinet, cabinet. We can do hot towels and hot stones. I've got the table warmer, I've got aromatherapy, I've got Bluetooth music. I have I do a lot of cupping, and my cupping machine is kind of my baby. And so, you know, to be in something that's outfitted that can handle all of the electrical that I need, so that I can use all the tools. Then people, you don't miss a beat being on the bus, you know, people want to move into it. People say they would spend, you know, hours out here just lying on the table, staring at the ceiling. Sure, somebody said, I feel like I can smell the ceiling. So it's a beautiful cedar wood. I Yeah, really, really positive reactions. Yeah,
no, it is a beautiful space. Like I said, you've got some great, great vision. And I mean, even when you're parked in your own at your own house, from what I can tell, like you're still not parked, like in your in your driveway, like you have a beautiful path, like you said, you love gardening, so you make it like this whole environment. It's not just the side of the road. You're getting onto the bus. So I think that that plays a big part in it as well. I think at the end of the day, the massage therapist, the clients are happy to see a fantastic massage therapist, and they will follow us, kind of wherever we we end up, yeah, but when you can create that welcoming space, you're already like getting that client ready for such a wonderful experience. I think it's very important, although the hands on skills are one thing, but I think creating that space is very special, yeah, hands
on, you know, technique and skill are obviously important, but I think that feeling of a safe environment that's comfortable and that's inviting, and obviously, you know what our heart gives out to people? You know, I feel like I've been on the table of many a skilled therapist, but I didn't feel a connection to them. I didn't feel like they were that they were really not, that they weren't in it for the right reason, but they there wasn't an exchange of energy that felt right. So our energy, and much of my energy, is rooted in this space.
Yeah, that's special. Of course. You probably went through all of the pros and cons of having this business. I think when you get your blinders on, it's all about like it's okay, I'm gonna just do it. We're gonna try it. But at some point you got to step back and go, Okay, so what can really go wrong here? Can you share some of those? You know, just working out some of those details of what if scenarios. So one
of the big ones, and I don't know diddly about electronics or power things like that. So when my contractor was, you know, telling going through the list of all the things, all the features, and this many horsepower and that many whatevers and voltage and amps and BTUs whatever, he gave me a shoreline plug, and I've got an extension cord. And so I plug in here at the house, just right into my sun room, just a standard plug. It powers all my outlets. But then going. On the road, I had to have some self contained power, because not everybody's going to give me a plug to plug in, right? So then it was Welcome to the wonderful world of generators and things I didn't anticipate. Like, you know, when I should and have anticipated it, but you know what, if the generator doesn't work, and things like that have happened, and have just had to, you know, on the fly, figure out what to do, the mechanics of a bus, you know, I again, I don't know anything about engines. How many more miles does this thing have on her? What would happen if I were to break down those things with the blinders on? I wasn't even I was just thinking about the pretty parts. And my husband's very good at kind of keeping me back on the ground and saying, You got to think about this, and we need to think about water, and we need to think about all the other things. And so there have been a couple of, I guess, moments of stark reality when I went I really didn't think this very well, but it's all worked out well. I had a problem with every time I started the bus, I had to jump start it. Something was draining the battery, and we couldn't diagnose what it was. And this is now we're a year and a half into this. I've resolved it as of two weeks ago. Okay, so for a year and a half, I've been jump starting the bus every which is not a good look when you're in front of a client's house and you're like, Okay, I'll be out of here in a minute. Hook up like things. But apparently there were two batteries mounted under the bus that something was connected to. So when I took it to be diagnosed, he's like, yeah, that thing is pulling like 10 amps off of your battery. So of course, it's going to kill it every time. So we got that that taken care of. And so that's one less thing I have to worry about, learning how to drive the bus. Enormous learning curve, which, again, I know I'm bringing my husband into this quite a bit. I don't know if he's going to be happy with me or not, but he was like, you know, it's big. It's 20. You don't realize how big it is. And so we would do some driving lessons, and then we took her to get wrapped, to get some the outside stuff done, and it was time to we were dropping it off for the wrapping. And I said, All right, well, you can follow me in the Honda. And he's like, what? I said, I'll drive the bus, and you drive the Honda. He's like, Oh, he said, I just thought I would drive the bus. I said, why? He said, well, because there's that one turn you have to make, and it's really this. And I said, and like, you're not gonna be able to drive it for me everywhere. Like, when am I gonna learn if I don't start now? So against better judgment, He let me drive it, and, you know, he would get in the bus with me and we were driving, he's like, okay, see that, and you gotta be watching out for that. Always make sure you stay in your bubble. And people are giving you the finger. Just keep going, you know, stay in your bubble. But now I love driving her. I mean, it's, it's like, it's not different than driving my Honda. But again, blinders didn't even cross my mind that I need to be sure that I have the ability to drive a vehicle this big,
yeah, successfully. Yeah, excellent. And I love that attitude as well. I'd be in the same place at some point it's gonna only be me, so I gotta, gotta learn. And I'm definitely like that. And I also have a very supportive husband, but he's also very good at saying, Okay, but what about exactly? And I appreciate that in the moment you're like, like I was, I was on my little cloud, and now, thank you. But bubble, yeah, it's all good. I appreciate, appreciate that. Yeah. And then one of the other aspects, I mean, yes, you're driving the bus. It's large, but you got it wrapped as well for for advertising, which is wonderful. The other piece, one thing that I've found with some people who choose not to get their vehicle wrapped is one point like, they're they're like, it's good advertising. But if there's ever an altercation or I do something like, that's not, yeah, it's like, Ooh, okay, great. Everybody call like, yes, how's my driving? And this is the business that that I'm
who did it. It was a big bus with an ocean scene on it. Yeah,
yeah, that one. But no, that's great. I love that you can honestly share. You know, like we have our skills as a massage therapist, you've got your vision, you can run a business, but mechanics, electrics, Nah, let's they'll leave that to somebody else.
I stay in my lane. It's usually men that say it when they get on the bus. You're like, wow, did you do all this yourself? No, I stay in my lane. I'm a massage therapist. I found a contractor to do the rest.
Yeah, and it's so wonderful that you did have a great contractor. Like, you said, everything happened serendipitously. But like, yeah, like, that's how when you know something is right and when you're on the right path, like it is just easy, like that. So that must have been such a huge relief from, you know, your previous business experiences. Why hands in the sands you've got, you know, you said your ocean scene on the outside of the bus you are ran away to the beach to do massage, is one thing that you've already said. Tell me more.
We I was in school, and it was the chapter where we were doing business and marketing. So I think he the teacher, had us making like a vision board, and we had a bunch of magazines, and we were cutting pictures out. And obviously, I mean, the hands part is obvious, and. Ran away to the beach in the sands, but hands in the sands, plural is like, well, hands in the sand doesn't rhyme, doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well. And so for the Practice activity that we were doing, I called it hands in the sands. And then, okay, loud, let's practice making business cards, and let's practice making a website. And so I just kept using it. And then I was like, you know, this is growing on me, and I think I like it. In retrospect, I get confused with hand in stone. Sometimes I have to tell people, no, it's hands in the sand. And you know, while there's nothing relaxing about sand on your hands, it sounds like an abrasive, exfoliating massage, I make sure that there's no hands actually on my sand, no sands on my hands. But I love the beach. And you know, it goes without saying that the energy of the ocean is undeniable, and it's, it's a source of joy for me. And so I thought, why not just stick with that? Like hands in the sands?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, who hasn't sat on the beach and just like, you know, dug their hand into the the warm sand? We can all like, relate to that sensation and just how grounding it is and how, yeah, it's so it's such a calming experience, for sure. Well, you've reinvented your life clearly in such a bold and beautiful way. You know? I can see why Jen obviously would recommend you. I can see why Jen would consider you such like a mentor and and just such a wonderful massage therapist representing the massage therapy community and courage. What advice would you give to a massage therapist who's at a crossroads, who wants to take a different a different approach to how they want to pursue their career? I
think that one of, one of the things I've already said that I would hope resonates with some people is that if you have these mile markers or goals that you're waiting to do something until see if you can realistically go, You know what? Let me throw that out the window, because, again, the universe needs to see that there's a need, and you need to create that vacuum. So if you've got a thought, let that thought become a word, and let those words become action, and then that action leads to that new reality, which is literally what happened. Just started with a thought on my back porch,
yeah, and then just follow, follow those, those little inspirational moments and see where they they go. Yeah, I completely agree. Do you find that the creativity, the creativity aspect, helps in your career. I'm always curious, because I'm always encouraging massage therapists to take the free time that we have and do something very personal for themselves. And I feel that it's important to be creative, especially as we get into adult, adulthood, we kind of lose that connection. Do you find that being creative has enhanced your career at all, or at least your your health and well being.
I believe it has, and I believe that the, you know, the tie in to what we do, we can get so stuck in the way that we do a massage, you know, I start with x, and then I go to y, and then I go to C, and with watercolors in particular, you you got to let things flow. And so it certainly has reinforced in me and in my style, don't don't act things don't need to be so predictable. Be prepared for something to get blurry and that you're going to have to touch it up or change directions. Sure. Yeah. One of the questions, one of the leading questions that you put on here. I wanted to make sure that we hit Yeah, and I hope I'm not jumping ahead. No. The reinvention question, and what the thread has been through my different career paths?
Yeah, please. Sure. So
I said I graduated with a master's in education with a Spanish focus, and I was going to teach, but I got scared right before student teaching. I was watching my peers pulling their hair out. They're frustrated, and so I decided to change to a business track. So I ultimately got my BA in Spanish with a business focus, and I worked for T Rowe Price doing investments. So I worked in their retirement planning department, and I was part of the support team. So if you were an employer who had your retirement plan with T Rowe Price, you might call and say, hey, you know, participation in this one department has been really low. Can you send a rep out to do like a rah rah enrollment meetings. And I did that in English, and I did it in Spanish. So they would call from the Marriott Marquis in New York City and say, housekeeping, they're just not participating, and we've got the materials in Spanish, but they're just not biting. And so I would go and I would teach, right there's the thread education. So I was teaching people who otherwise would not have access or not have interest in pursuing the information. I was teaching them why they should be putting money here. Marriott's gonna give you money to put in money, and then it can grow and all those things. So I loved bringing that information, in particular to people who didn't otherwise feel like it was accessible to them. After doing that for five years, I traveled a ridiculous amount of my life alone. It became really lonely. It was me and airplanes and, you know, to check in at the hotel and then stand in front of a group of people and talk and then get on a plane and go home. So I got out of that. I decided to revisit the education. I went back and I did the student teaching, got my certification, and then I taught for 17 years. Loved it, but all the reasons that I need named before made me move away from that. Yeah, and so without really realizing it, I really feel like the trajectory, trajectory for me in massage was not only to learn about my own physiology, but to teach people. So, you know, I let people know if, if you talk, I'm going to talk. I'm going to follow your lead, right? So I'm not going to the whole session. Some people need to talk. Some people need to not talk, but I tend to attract folks who not only want to talk, but who are interested in what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and understanding their bodies better. And so I feel like that, that that thread of giving people information, teaching people things that they can find value in that they wouldn't seek on their own. So I taught people how to save for retirement, I taught kids how to speak Spanish, and now I'm teaching people how to give their body the love that it needs to be at its best.
Yeah, that education component, and it's really empowering as well. When you can educate, as you said, in all three of those areas, you're empowering people by giving them the information that they didn't they didn't have before. So that's wonderful. You're speaking from a place of like passion and kindness and your you know your hearts in the right place. So that's so that's so beautiful. Yes, thank you for for for sharing that as well. All right, anything else there that you want to touch on that I might have missed from here.
No, I think I covered it all. And of course, folks can go look at the same photo gallery that you did and see the transformation. But she is my happy, happy, happy place. I love to be here. It's very private. You can see those doors behind me. They have 5% limo tint on them so we can see out, but nobody can see in. And also the floor comes down here so that the stairwell is not exposed. And then we have a curtain that I draw across. But I did keep three windows in the cabin because they're emergency exits and because sometimes I want natural light if I'm in here by myself, but they're also covered with 5% tint. And so, you know, I make sure to give everyone that feel like I walk them around the bus and go, Okay, see this enormous window in the back? Well, that's the bathroom, but see how you can't see in, just so that when people do enter, they do feel like this is, you know, a safe sanctuary where nobody's gonna be peeping on them or threatening in any way. And I just love to be here.
Yeah, that's That's wonderful. I can tell that that's wonderful, that you love your space, it makes, again, a big difference. When you love your space, you can welcome clients into it. I feel like the work that you do is so much better when you enjoy where, where you're working. Personally, I really agree with that. So give us some details about where people can find you on your Instagram, or if they wanted to reach out to you for more information. Pretty
straightforward. Everything is hands in the sands. So my email is hands in the sands@gmail.com. My website is www dot hands in the sands.com my instagram handle is hands in the sands. And on Facebook, also hands in the sands. And you know, being of an older generation. I'm learning, I'm learning content creation, and I'm not great at it yet. But you know, we're all works in progress. It helps that I've got one of one of the clientele, one of the sets of clientele that I treat are the men's basketball team at our local university, and so they're allowed to do name, image likeness agreements with small businesses. So so I get players who get a massage once a month, and in exchange, they create create content for me or let me create content with them. And that's been kind of cool to not only because they're creating it and because I've got their stamp of approval, they're, you know, they're, what's the word, promoting me, but I also learn tricks about content creation through watching what they're doing for me. So, you know, I think that the way that you posed the question was, you know, how can people follow you and learn more? I don't do as much, ironically, I don't do as much educational content as I should, especially considering what I just told you about, the whole teaching aspect, but it's something I'm striving for, you know. And I think coming into this conversation with you, you know, I'm not good enough. I'm not important enough. Nobody's gonna be interested. Nobody's gonna listen to me and remembering that like I'm not there yet, none of us are there yet, and feeling like you need to get wherever there is, then you're not focusing on the journey. So you know, I'm not ashamed that I don't have a great grasp of Tiktok, because I'm,
yeah, absolutely. I think the learning, learning piece is, is, is important. I mean, you've already said, like, it's okay to stay in your lane as well. You know, if you're getting organic referrals, then why? Why? You know, spend more time or energy on on social media anyway, right? Like, I think it's just going
through the motion just because you feel like you have to do it exactly.
And you've got such wonderful clients, as you said, who can, who are sharing that they're getting massages with you so they're doing like the content creation almost on your behalf. For. Motion and education. So, you know, I think you're doing a wonderful job. And yes, we're all, we all need to just stay in the in the moment and not worry about what's happening on tic tac all the time. Because, yes, I'm, I'm also in, like, the elder millennial category, where I still, I have no idea what's what's going on over there.
You're you're faking it pretty well because your stuff looks good. Well, thank
you. Thank you very much. Well, Julie, it was a pleasure to chat with you, to meet you. Thank you for bringing me on the bus. Absolutely. I think it's such a phenomenal idea. I hope it inspires massage therapists in a lot of ways. I hope this conversation does inspire them, you know, to try, try new things, to consider different environments and and just to take risks and
to trust their instincts. And if they don't have, you know, we talked about this vision that I have. If you don't have the vision, go to my studio gallery pictures, because, like you've seen it. When people look at that and go, Wow, she did that from that that maybe it'll, it'll click for some people that, okay, I just have to, have to have the vision,
yeah. Or you guys to have had the vision, or you get somebody that that can help with that vision, right? Like, again, like, it's, you have the idea, but then you need someone else to execute it, no problem. Yeah.
And I'm always willing, you know, sharing is caring. I'm always willing to talk to people. I'll get instagram messages. Like, you probably get a million people asking you this. I'm like, No, I don't. And anybody who does ask, I respond to there's a woman in Ohio who's having her bus built by my contractor as we speak. She flew from Ohio to come visit me, have a massage on the bus, see the bus. And so I'm all about sharing my experience. And so if people want to reach out on Instagram just to pick my brain ask questions. I'm available.
Yeah, wonderful. Well, thank you again for sharing your time on the podcast. I hope you have an awesome day.
