The Strength of Community, with Michelle Andrews
Introducing Michelle
Michelle’s book club recommendation: Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown
Michelle is the founder of Motus Life and experienced osteopath, strength and conditioning coach. She believes in the combination of hands-on treatment and movement as the key to keep her clients feeling great, seeing the body as one intertwining system. Michelle's motivation for Motus Life is to provide her community with access to an elite team of practitioners who are capable of applying an all-encompassing approach to client needs. She also works closely with Collingwood Football Club. Michelle has worked with AFL (Australian Football League) teams for over 5 years, has been a member of the inaugural AFLW (Australian Football League Women’s) staff and currently works with Collingwood Magpies Netball.
Tell us about what you were like as a kid. What was the first thing you wanted to be when you grew up?
I was a pretty quiet kid. My auntie always used to cut my hair short, never below the shoulders, so between that and playing basketball with my older brothers, I was definitely a tomboy. At one point my athletics coach said to me, “you have to choose between sports!” I chose basketball; that was my main sport for a long time.
I wanted to be a professional basketball player when I grew up - I loved it that much. It was my safe space; that's the best way that I can describe it. As a kid, I never really thought about anything else. It was later in high school when I worked out that I wanted to do something in sports and health.
Where do you think your business acumen came from?
It always came naturally to me. Both of my parents worked in project management, and my cousins are the same. One of my cousins came to live with us in Melbourne to study business and commerce at La Trobe university, and is now working at Microsoft in Seattle. She is absolutely killing it. Looking back, I've always been around people who are business minded.
Tell us about your mother. Are you two similar?
We clash a lot, but in some ways, I’m very much like her.
Back 20 years ago, my mum was both a project manager (an industry traditionally dominated by men) and a woman of color. I can imagine that would have been very challenging, but my mum is strong-willed and works hard. Growing up, she’d leave the house before I was awake and get home when it was dark. Both of my parents worked very hard.
Coming out as different is hard and takes a lot of courage. As you told your family and friends about your sexuality, how did that experience impact your resilience and ability to do hard things?
It's a tough question. It's been 11 years since I came out to my family - I was 19 years old. It was difficult, very difficult… I remember feeling like I was going to throw up. My mum didn't take it very well. I actually thought that she already knew, but no, it was the biggest shock to her. My dad was the complete opposite. He said to me, “well, your mum still hopes it’s just a phase.” My relationship with my mum became sparse for at least a year, maybe longer, but we have a good relationship now. It was a dramatic time in my life.
From that experience, I’ve learned to be strong and to keep going: keep doing what you want to do; keep working; keep going to university; keep exploring your sexuality and being confident to be gay even when your family doesn’t approve of it. People don’t often talk about those experiences, but they’re a big deal.
I work very hard - on myself, my business, my life in general - and I’m proud of that.
Your mother’s side of the family is from Mauritius, an island off the East coast of South Africa. How has Mauritian culture influenced you and the way you do business?
Mauritius is an amazing place, a big travel destination. It’s funny because most people look at me and just assume I’m white Australian, but actually, I’m mixed race.
Being Mauritian is not being raised by two people; it’s being raised by an entire community, a whole country – a whole country! Family is very important to me. At my family’s dinner table, everyone is talking over everyone – that’s where I learned to project my voice! It’s all very accepting. Even if we don’t speak or visit all the time, you know you have a community of people who are always going to look after you. I have a lot of family there.
I’ve carried this through the way we do business at Motus Life. Community connection is our core value and what I’m most proud of. For example, there is a woman who comes here to train and do yoga, and one day she brought in all of these books and made a gorilla library for anyone at Motus Life; I didn’t ask her to do that. She even considered some of our other members who come with their kids and brought kids’ books for them to read while their parents are training. The sense of community here is amazing.
When did you start to feel like you could make a business out of your work?
I discovered very early on that I didn't have a choice, because what I wanted to do wasn’t out there yet. If I wanted to do it, then I would have to go out and make it happen, and I was more than happy to do that. I didn't know if it would work, but the gap was really clear to me.
How is what you do at Motus Life different from other gyms or clinics?
The gap that Motus Life fills is combining strength and conditioning with osteopathy, which is where I really believe you find the best physical treatment results. We also offer a range of other health and wellness services, but this intersection is why I started Motus Life – it just didn’t exist in Melbourne before us.
I’ve worked in high level sport with Collingwood Football Club for more than six years, and while what we do can benefit all types of people and lifestyles, there are huge rewards for athletes in enhancing performance and decreasing risk of injury. There's an indisputable advantage when you're being treated by us, because we can look at the way your body is moving and how it’s all connected.
I see you squatting on the gym floor, for example, and you might have a tight hip or restricted back which causes you to squat at a skew, so then you're just strengthening that skewed pattern. What we do is help you to release that hip or manipulate your lower back to better align yourself, so then strengthening a more efficient pattern, which can directly benefit your performance.
Motus Life partners with the University of Melbourne Women’s Football Club. How did that partnership come about, and how does it support the women on that team?
Back before I started Motus Life and alongside working with Collingwood Football Club, I used to work with University of Melbourne Women’s Football Club as a High Performance Manager. I’d seen the strength and conditioning program, and it wasn’t really training. I’d see some of the women in the clinic, but I couldn’t treat them at training. We didn’t have a table. We didn’t have access to a gym. We didn’t have resources and we didn’t have time because the coach wanted them out on the field between this time and that time, and outside of those times, the women had to go home and sleep so they could get up and go to work. When they finally started getting paid, they started showing up in the clinic more which gave me confidence. The demand grew and there was a really positive response to what I was trying to do.
A lot of the athletes I was working with didn’t know what the benefits of combining strength and conditioning and osteopathy were, especially the women’s clubs because they had less resources than the men’s clubs who were getting treatments all the time, literally every day, and seeing big differences. Laura Kane was the president of Melbourne Uni at the time, and she was amazing. She let me do a big education piece with the team.
Built from this relationship and because I really care about supporting these women, we now partner with the Melbourne Uni Women’s Football Club. I see the women come into our gym and clinic and it makes me feel awesome. We sponsor them, provide strength and conditioning coaches and trainers, and give them discounts on our services. The way the partnership has growth in the last year alone has been incredible.
What is it like to run Motus Life with your sister?
My sister is both the opposite of me and the same as me. We fought a lot as kids, but we work well together as adults.
She’s always at the right level and can balance me out. When we're interviewing people to hire for example, I know she’s looking for the same things in someone that I am. I can feel confident that we're on the same page and I have a lot of trust in her, so it makes managing situations really easy. Having her here has been amazing.
Was that always the plan?
My sister and I working on the business together wasn’t always the plan. For years I'd been saying to her, “I think you should come and run this business with me.” At that time, I don't know if she wasn't ready. She actually said, “I don't know if we can work together.” I told her she’d be surprised.
About six months into me starting the business and preparing for launch, I really need her help and it had aligned more to what she wanted to do by then, so she agreed.
Majority of business founders are male, however the number of female founders is increasing. What has been your general experience as a female founder? Have you ever experienced different treatment because you’re a woman and how did you manage that?
Definitely. Even just opening a bank account! The banking consultant (a man) I saw actually told me not to open a business. Can you imagine if I would have listened? I also probably didn’t go into that conversation as confident as a man would have. I totally undervalued myself and went in with the bare minimum number of clients we would need to get by. He said, “is this serious? What are you doing?”
Other times when I’m getting mansplained to or someone is saying something not obviously inappropriate, I often don’t even realize it until much later. Mid-conversation, I just lose my flow, and I’m asking myself, “why can’t I think of anything to say? Why does this feel weird all of the sudden?” And I realize, oh, it’s because anything I say now is fu**ing irrelevant, because they don’t even respect me as a person. They’re not talking to me as a person; they’re talking to me as a sex, as a female.
It doesn’t come up all the time, but in the past when people learn I’m gay, even people who think they mean well, I get reactions like, “I've worked with lesbians before. You don't seem like one; you’re not angry.”
We currently have male tradies coming out to work out the building next door which we’re fitting out, and often they don’t know how to communicate with me as both a woman and the boss. For someone who’s both woman and the boss, they just look at you. You can see they don't understand how to interact with you, because they don't have to do it on a daily basis; it’s not a normal, casual conversation. They're trying to think, “do I say things in this way? Or do I have to say it in another way, because you don't get it?” They expect you not to get it, and they don't know how to tell you that you don't get it without being rude, so they almost just don't say anything.
Before my time at Motus Life, working in various football clubs for example, the senior positions were always men. When women’s leagues started, I remember walking down the hall of a club and hearing a man who worked there saying, “bloody hell, it’s like having your wife at work. Have to watch what I’m sayin’ all the time” - basically, that he had to act differently because he wouldn’t speak to his wife at home the way he would speak to the boys at work. There are so many things wrong with that.
What was it like to launch Motus Life just as COVID-19 was becoming serious and Melbourne was going into harsh lockdowns?
Hard. I leased the building in October 2019; we opened in March 2020, and on that same day, Scott Morrison announced that Melbourne was going into hard lockdown. We were immediately shut down.
I remember on that day in March, I was driving home after the Motus Life launch party, feeling so happy and relieved. We made it. We were open and people showed up. They showed up! Deep down, I was afraid no one would show up, even though that sounds totally irrational now looking back. It was a great opening.
Then, Scott Morrison made the announcement. It wasn’t great anymore, and I just remember crying.
For a long time, there was no projection, no financial goals. It was day-to-day survival of whatever we had to do to keep people engaged. Restrictions in Melbourne and people’s attitudes towards it were changing so quickly, and because of the services we provide, we fell under the regulations of two different industries – allied health and gyms.
We moved everything online, which was really difficult because we didn’t have a following yet. We offered yoga classes for free, but I obviously still had to pay the teachers. I was working over 60 hours a week without pay. It was all on me. I had to put in the work because our clients still had faith in me.
Surviving as a new business through COVID-19 was insane, like an alternate universe. I honestly feel traumatized from it. But our clients and community are still here because of the work I did to keep us afloat, and that feels awesome.
With the stress, pressure and constraint of COVID-19 on your business, how did you keep going?
I know now that I was exhausted. Looking back, I had to keep going because failing was not an option. I wouldn’t let it be and didn’t spend any energy thinking about what failure would look like. I just had to make it work in the best way I could.
During COVID-19, I said to myself what my dad said to me countless of times: just keep plodding along, even when you don’t know what’s next. You’re plodding and plodding, moving forward even when you don’t know what you’re moving forward to. I just kept doing the next thing until we ended up on the other side.
We went back to our ‘why’ and focused on nourishing our community. We added services, online workshops, webinars and whatever else we could think of to keep people engaged. I had to get creative and go out of my comfort zone, like when I asked Chyloe Kurdas to come along for a webinar talking about looking after yourself and building resilience. Shiloh is a pioneer for women’s footy and big reason why we have women’s leagues today; she’s an amazing woman.
If you don’t stick to your ‘why’ then people will lose interest and go to the next place. Your ‘why’ builds connection and community, so people will want to stick with you.
In those high stress periods, how do you make sure you take care of yourself?
It was very difficult, especially for me because I’m so passionate about what I do. I enjoy every aspect of running the business, from the numbers to marketing and social media. It’s my creative outlet and also where I learn. I’m self-taught; I didn’t go to business school.
In the beginning, I was taking my work home with me a lot. I would get home, open my laptop and disengage. You can always find something to do, and I enjoyed it, thinking it wasn’t really work. Looking back, I realize it was my outlet for the stress of the pandemic. I’d say, “I have these ideas swirling around in my head and I have to get them out. I have to write them down and start working on them now.”
My family and partner at the time told me I needed to take a breath and have boundaries, or else I’d burn out. I realized I was exhausted, and eventually stopped taking my laptop out when I get home. That made the biggest difference.
Thankfully, things are more manageable now. I’ve had the opportunity to scale down my hours with others on board who can help, so that I can be less hands on with the day-to-day.
What’s your fit out story of Motus Life’s location? How did you do it?
Originally, it was just a shell. The white bricks you see now? They were not white; they were a hideous brown. My uncle and a mate did a huge amount of work, and my parents helped paint. I become multiple tradies, putting plaster up on the walls, insulation in, rubber flooring down, and sanding until I could no longer feel my fingers. It was insane.
It took a lot of work, but if I start something, I finish it. Things get hard and you get tired; get over it. If you have a vision for something, then you have to do the work to get it there. Seeing what this place was to what it is now fuels me. It’s contributed to the resilience and work ethic I’ve built throughout my life.
What’s something you’ve had to get used to as the new normal in your life as a founder?
I'm getting used to being photographed all the time. I’ve realized that people don’t just come for the business; they also come for the personality behind it. They want to see the owner’s face as an extension of the business, which I completely understand and agree with.
Is that something that you expected?
I expected it, but probably for a different reason. In the beginning, it was just me behind Motus Life, and as others joined the team, I didn’t feel comfortable putting pressure on them to put themselves out there. I knew that if I wanted to realize my vision for Motus Life, then I’d have to do the work, put my name and face to it, and push that vision forward.
Putting my face out there did make me feel vulnerable though, a little bit squeamish in the beginning, but eventually I embraced it. People care about the people behind a businesses they’re supporting.
What is your role in the business now, almost 2 years after starting, and how has that evolved from when you started?
I still oversee our programs, but am a lot more removed from the day-to-day. I now have staff, who I’m really lucky that I can trust, to implement those things without me needing to be there. I do battle within myself, worrying about not being present enough because I was so close to everything before, but it’s working and now I can think a lot more about business development.
What inspires you?
People inspire me, even though I sometimes say that I hate people. You hate people when they let you down, when you have this hope for a way something will turn out. But when it does turn out, it’s amazing. At their most basic form, I believe people are kind, generous and grounded in community, and that inspires me.
At Motus Life, we really invest in people, making sure they feel safe and comfortable to be who they are, explore and express themselves.
What’s your entrepreneurial style?
I'm quite, naturally curious and inquisitive. I'm always asking questions, trying to figure out why things are the way they are. I try and learn from the people I work with and the bosses I’ve had in the past. I also have great mentors, like Durham McInnis, and friends who have started their own businesses, like My Pet Place.
If you could go back and tell your younger self something you know now, what would it be?
I realize now that I could have started Motus Life earlier if it weren’t for fear of failure. If I could go back, I’d tell myself to stop worrying about if it’s going to work, because it is going to work. I’d tell myself to just go for it.
I remember a friend giving me the advice after she started her own business, “it’s not as hard as it looks.” Now I don’t want to be misleading here: it's hard in the sense that you have to work your a** off even when you're tired, but it's not hard in the sense that you can't figure things out, learn, adapt or create. I’ve found that to be true and a huge surprise to me.
If you have the mindset of, “I’m going to start my own business,” then you’re already able to. It’ll be enduring, but it won’t be difficult for you or something you can’t figure out. Reading the Encyclopedia is harder. You are far more capable than you realise. If you want it, then you can get it.
Something else I wish I’d known when starting a business is that it’s going to work for you, but it’s not going to work for everybody - and that’s ok. Not everybody is going to agree with you, like the way you're doing it or how you're doing it, and unfortunately, that can be disappointing and heartbreaking. But no matter what, you have to be true to your vision and back yourself for it.
Where would you like your business to be in 10 years’ time?
We’ll have multiple locations, and I know the most challenging part of that will be creating the same sense of community and quality of service at every location. We don’t ever want to have a commercial feel. Now that we have proof of concept with our main Motus Life location, I have a feeling that expansion will come sooner than I realize, which is exciting and scary.
I think it will hinder our growth if we don't expand, and I’m in it for the long-term. My favorite quote is by Seneca, “luck is what happens when hard work meets opportunity.”
What are you reflecting on at the moment?
I’m reflecting on vulnerability, which has never been easy for me. I just sit here uncomfortably with something until I get over it. Sit with the discomfort; those emotions are a good thing.
I'm currently learning to do headstands, because that feels vulnerable to me. Before, if someone asked me to do a headstand, I’d say, “absolutely not; I'm going to break something or look ridiculous!” The first time I tried, I actually got stuck. I said to our yoga instructors, “help! Get me down; what am I doing?” So I’m trying things that make me uncomfortable and wouldn’t normally do.
I’ve also been reflecting on a podcast I recently listened to by Hugh Van Cuylenburg who runs the Resilience Project, interviewing Ben Crowe. The key takeaway from that was, “your self worth is unconditional.” They talk about how you might win a game or lose a game, but your worth as a human being does not change. I’m going to have that put up on the wall at Motus Life.
Plunging into a new business means putting yourself on the line, and it’s important to know that even when you put your face to it, it’s got nothing to do with your self worth. If we went bankrupt, it wouldn’t reflect my self worth, and for me that’s a pretty big realization.
What’s next for you?
We’re growing by one! We’ve leased the building next door and are currently fitting it out. In the current main building, the yoga space is not very big, and not exactly a vinyasa vibe… you can hear weights banging through the wall. So, we're building to two rooms next door that we can run multiple classes in at once. We’re also building treatment rooms for remedial massages hoping to add an infrared sauna.
I have these wild ideas to make it a really cool place, with things like: an indoor fireplace, a tree inside, cushions and couches where you can drink your tea and have your quiet time with the company of others. You can get a massage, stretch in yoga class or have some sauna time. We want to do more workshops and possibly rent the space out to different groups.
Find Motus Life
Website: motuslife.com.au
Facebook: facebook.com/motus.life
Instagram: instagram.com/motus.life