Interview: Life & Work with Bianca Schaefer

An interview of Bianca with Voyage Tampa Magazine.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bianca Schaefer.

Hi Bianca, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’ve always been active—even as a kid. I started running at 11 when I joined the cross-country team at school. I wasn’t very fast, but for me, just being able to participate was enough. I ran indoor track and played a variety of sports from basketball, soccer, and field hockey to curling, tennis, and water-polo.

I took my first official swimming lessons at 16 and became a lifeguard with the National Lifesaving Society of Canada just one year later. My first coaching experience came with that job as a swimming and aqua-fit instructor. Teaching came very naturally to me and became my passion from that moment on.

All throughout school, I was torn between wanting to become a teacher or pursuing my passion for travel—becoming a flight attendant seemed to be a great way to travel the world! In the end, my passion for travel took over and I acquired a diploma in travel and tourism. From there, I spent almost ten years living in Germany working in various jobs not all necessarily in the tourism sector.

When I moved back to Canada, my passion for health and wellness was reinvigorated when I felt a need to teach people how to combine regular exercise with healthy eating.

Though I had a full-time job in the skincare industry, I quit and enrolled full-time to become a Registered Holistic Nutritionist. I also took courses required to become a Certified Personal Trainer and Fitness Instructor.

From there, I began training clients inside gyms around Toronto and coaching people outdoors. From there, my business vision started to take shape.

Once I became a nutritionist, I started my mobile nutrition coaching business consulting clients in their homes, offices, and even coffee shops. I didn’t have money to pay for office space so I spent a lot of time driving to wherever I could meet my clients.

I kept taking various courses and certifications to build on both my credentials and what I could offer clients. I took whatever little savings I had and invested in a license to open up my own Adventure Boot Camp in Canada. At the time, I flew to California for training and had just enough money left over to pay for a website (which was very expensive back in the mid-2000’s), to fund local marketing, and to purchase all the fitness equipment I needed.

My Boot Camp classes started at 5:30am and I was a one-woman operation. I ran 3-4 morning classes and spent the rest of the day driving around the Greater Toronto Area either personal training, nutrition counseling, teaching yoga, doing community fundraisers, or running nutrition workshops at local businesses.

Did I mention I was also running marathons and training to become a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do? LOL. It was a crazy busy time and I still can’t believe I did all of that for so long!

But my life changed in 2016 after some major life circumstances impacted my health. My husband (fiancé at the time) and I experienced four deaths between our families and my body broke down. I became very unhealthy and unable to move without extreme pain. I lost my passion for health and wellness.

I retired my Boot Camp and spent the next two years going from one doctor’s appointment to another trying to figure out why my joints were inflamed and why I had a mysterious pain in my stomach. Everybody kept saying they couldn’t find anything wrong with me but I was in pain and had no idea why. I couldn’t run, do Tae Kwon Do, or even practice yoga the way I was accustomed to. It was a low point in my life not knowing if I would ever be able to be active again.

I’m a Christian so I spent a lot of time in prayer wondering what the point of all of it was. And I even began to doubt my abilities as a health coach. That’s when I lost the motivation to teach and coach others.

But throughout that two-year journey, God taught me a lot about myself, my purpose, and He healed me from the inside out! He restored my passion for Health and Wellness and that’s when my vision and mission completely changed.

I began writing a book (hope to have it published this year) which integrates physical and spiritual health. I also had many doors open through writing opportunities such as writing magazine articles, blogs, and even most recently writing devotionals/blogs for a Canadian non-profit organization called Gather Women.

My business has completely evolved and now combines my passion for health and wellness with writing, life coaching, speaking, and podcasting which I’m still learning how to do. It’s certainly hard to sum up my life as an entrepreneur right now, LOL!

Splitting my time between Florida and Canada gives me a unique opportunity to meet different people and network with local businesses. I love eating at local restaurants and promoting them through social media. I do the same with any fitness or wellness businesses I encounter. Even as a coach, I’m always a student and love to learn new ways of doing things.

I realize this is a long story, but hey, I’m a writer so I guess that’s par for the course!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road or an easy one. When you start out as an entrepreneur, there’s so much you don’t know. Trying to figure all that out can be both exciting and exhausting.

On top of the challenges I mentioned in my story, there’s always a question of doubt that creeps up every now and then. Whether it’s that you doubt one of your abilities or how people will respond to you, you have to keep believing in what you were ultimately called to do and be willing to learn, make mistakes, and keep persevering.

And of course, you’re always asking yourself, how am I going to finance this or that, how will I be able to earn a living?

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Professionally, I’m most well known as a Health and Fitness Consultant, a Writer, a Life Coach, and all-around Wellness and Outdoor Enthusiast.

Creating recipes, eating, writing, traveling, being active and sharing my faith are the things you’ll see posting about regularly on Social Media.

I’ve been writing professionally since 2016 and plan to publish my first book this year, 2022. Hopefully, many more books will follow, a recipe book, and devotional are in the plans as well.

With my published book, my vision is to share my philosophy of physical and spiritual heath with in person (and online) speaking engagements and seminars starting with the U.S. and Canada and hopefully around the world.

What sets me apart is the unique way of integrating physical, mental, and spiritual health. I call it my B. LOSOPHY and share it in detail in my book as well as with anyone who wants to learn about it.

B.LOSOPHY is based on learning how to improve your health and wellness journey from not only a physical perspective but a spiritual one as well. It’s an inside out approach which is easy to learn and based on you as an individual. It’s not based on dieting, meal plans or exercise programs. It’s a way to live that encompasses who you were uniquely created to be and evolves with you as you grow in your faith.

What am I most proud of? I’m most proud of the fact that I haven’t given up on my dreams and vision and I’m becoming more courageous in sharing how Christ has changed my life.

Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
Oh, there are so many I don’t know where to begin! I am an avid reader and gobble up any books that challenge me to grow, think, create and learn. Recipe books do that as well, LOL!

The most important book to me is the Bible. Without that, I don’t know what I’d do. I have an old study Bible that’s falling apart but I haven’t found one I like as much to replace it yet.

Dream Big by Bob Goff and Holy Ambition by Chip Ingram are also very inspiring books.

Professionally, I’ve read a lot of dieting and health books for research purposes, recipe and cookbooks, fitness, running and anatomy books, personal growth and business development books and a ton of books based on spiritual development and Christian Living.

Favourite Blogs are from Proverbs 31 Ministries, (in)courage and Gather Women and I love magazines and YouTube videos as well.

Some of my favourite people to watch on YouTube are Tony Evans, Christine Cane, Priscilla Shirer, Louis Giglio, Andy Stanley, Beth Moore and there are so many more.

I just started listening to podcasts recently and I’m a big fan of The Christine Caine Equip and Empower Podcast and The Strong Way with Cathie Ostapchuk.

See Bianca’s original interview with Voyage Tampa Magazine.