Notable met with Slice’s Real Housewives of Toronto ahead of broadcast to get to know the cast on a more professional level. What you may not see on The Real Housewives of Toronto is that each woman is successful in her own right, professionally and personally.
Plus, Jana Webb is not a betch.
I grew in a small town in Alberta, on a working farm. So I’ve been working since the day I remember. My first job was literally chopping chickens heads. What else do you do on a farm? I’ve been working since I can remember so there’s no start or end to my workday. I think that’s why I’m an entrepreneur and I learned about hard work from my father.
You say that with a smile of your face, it’s a lot of work. Can you tell me how you keep self motivated?
I never feel like I’ve worked a day in my life. I think that’s because I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, but it took some time to get here.
I did a TED Talk a while ago and the topic was What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up? I thought I was going to play volleyball, be an athlete. I wasn’t committed to 4 years of college, doing something I didn’t want to do. I never knew what I wanted to be.
So what is the business you have today?
Joga! The reason I started doing yoga was because I was in a car accident and my singing teacher recommended I do yoga but it was so hard for me as an athlete, my muscles were too tight. The part I loved about yoga was its non-competitiveness.
I learned a style of yoga in Japan called Ishta, which meant individualized, so for me that made sense because they looked at your structural anatomy and provide moving and breathing based on you. So I took that practice to teaching athletes in my class, because I too wanted something that would give me results within 45 minutes.
The CFL team reached out looking for a yoga teacher and I got hired to do that job, and that very first day I saw all those big ass football players and thought okay this is not going to work, especially since this was before yoga was popular in the sporting world. That helped me understand that there was something missing in the yoga space. And that was yoga specifically designed, not only for athletic movements but for how athletes train in-season and off-season.
The Joga person is strong in mind and body. Spirited. Results driven. Entrepreneurial.
Do you have any advice for young women who are considering becoming entrepreneurs?
TED is a great platform because it has so many talks on so many different topics for a diverse crowd, because you can be an entrepreneur in so many different ways. I’ve always looked up to Arlene Dickson. I think following her steps. You have to find you’re inspired by and you most want to emulate and follow their stories. Because I think it’s through stories that we can inspire and be inspire.
Do you have any tactical advice for connecting after you find a woman who inspires you? Do you write to them, follow them on social media, what do you do to keep a connection or create one?
I reached out to people on Linkedin. My first boss once told me, smart people learn from their own mistakes, wise people learn from other people’s mistakes. So I always ask my mentors what their biggest mistake was.
What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made?
Not protecting my intellectual property. Always protect your IP.