The Art of the Pivot: Virtual Wellness

Well Fit Human founder Wendy Yates is a beam of light in the wellness travel community.

Contributed by Lisa Blake, Writer, Editor, and Content Creator 
 
Colorado entrepreneur Wendy Yates is a woman on fire. Not even COVID-19 can shut that down. The luxury lifestyle designer has spent the past year carving out a trailblazing niche, bringing together destination travel, fitness and philanthropy with her groundbreaking retreat series, Well Fit Human.
 
Spurred from her successful national luxury lifestyle design firm Abigail-Elise Design Studio, Well Fit Human takes wellness destination travel to the next level, amping it up with intense cardio workouts (think booty-shaking hip-hop sweat sessions), coach-driven strength training, soul-nourishing yoga and mindfulness talks and impactful volunteer efforts.
 
Yates had planned to travel with her team of coaches and humanitarian volunteers to Hopkins, Belize in May and Vis Island in Croatia this October. In the wake of COVID-19 and subsequent travel and retreat shutdowns—and, who are we kidding, all around life shutdown—she is pivoting and inspiring others to stay mentally and physically well.
 
Her organization has shifted to growing community through connection and promoting personal growth and positive impact. Yates’ virtual community dinners, dubbed Cocktails and Conversations, are bringing people together over Jeffersonian-inspired BYO feasts. Friends and strangers gather over Zoom screens to share their travel and wellness stories and books and quotes that lift them up and to listen to encouraging speakers share their success stories.

Yates is a beautiful example of how showing up for ourselves and connecting with friends and strangers is so important right now. With her retreats and in-person wellness day gatherings postponed for the time being, she is funneling that energy into launching a new podcast, sharing one-on-one Q&As that delve into everything from physical fitness to emotional mindsets.
 
Her lifestyle design firm Abigail-Elise Design is embracing the pivot as well, shifting from in-home design consults and build-outs to an online platform focused on cultivating wellness within our new work-from-home spaces. The eDesign consultations take a close look at ways to feel nurtured, connected and productive as we retreat into our homes.
 
Well Fit Human is collecting and donating food for mountain town food banks, setting up a lighthearted contest where volunteers snap a pic of themselves dropping food off at donation centers and entering them into a drawing for a spot on a future wellness retreat.
 
The group is hosting a virtual wellness day for teachers in April, offering a mental health break loaded with guided meditation, yoga and barre classes and emotional support conversations.
 
Like the former freewheeling lives we’re longing for right now, Yates’ impact travel retreats will return and the theme “Sweat. Help. Heal” will ring truer than ever. For now, we can find a smile in women like her, knowing they’re here for us, spreading kindness and connection and inspiring us to live harder and burn brighter.