By Candice Richardson
The Seattle Medium
Denise Moore Johnson – or Niecy as she insists being called – leads with a bubbly and enthusiastic personality that one can’t help but find infectious. When sitting down to talk with her she wears a bright smile and speaks in a sweet voice that is reminiscent of a southern belle minus the accent and the fact that she’s from Philadelphia.
More than what meets the eye, the Senior Project Manager for a major wireless company originally dreamt of being a lawyer while she played between the row houses that made up her close-knit neighborhood in Philly but her father talked her out of it.
“He said ‘you really need to think about going into computer systems,’” says Johnson. “that was during the time that computers weren’t really heard of, in the early 80s.”
So Johnson attended the Florida Institute of Technology and studied software development which launched her into the corporate world working for companies such as GE Capital and Prudential – which would see her relocating to Seattle – before moving into the retail world where she spent 12 years as a project manager.
Now, leading marketing teams in the wireless market, Johnson has long experienced what many women in today’s working world have come to know: the pressure to have it all can have one losing themselves in striving to keep up with life.
Throughout the majority of her career, Johnson was married with a child. When her son turned 18 she and her husband divorced and she found herself navigating life as a single mom with a touch of empty nest syndrome.
“It was a lot of pressure because during that period of time I was really the career woman and with that mentality I was juggling a lot. Even [with her son] as an infant and then as a teenager, just being a mother and a wife it was a lot,” states Johnson.
“Even though he wasn’t at home a lot, it was still being a mom and figuring out the right direction for him,” say Johnson. “That along with work was very challenging.”
Around that time a friend encouraged her to get more into health and fitness. Johnson, who laughingly states that she had no background in fitness and sports whatsoever, found herself intrigued when she started seeing results both inside and outside of the gym when it came to self-development.
“It wasn’t a physical journey I was thinking of taking at the beginning,” Johnson says. “It was more ‘I need to do something different…My son’s in college, what am I going to do with my life?’”
Johnson says she was introduced to fitness but rather than the exercise alone, it was cultivating self-confidence and discipline that intrigued her.
“I thought if I can get that down I could just write my ticket for anything else that I wanted and then fitness just kind of came along,” says Johnson.
Johnson says her life began to change drastically. She lost 77 pounds — which she has kept off for the past 10 years. She began teaching Body Pump format classes and kick-boxing at her local gym as well as coaching people via online formats using programs such as P90X and helping guide others regarding nutrition, and meal planning. Johnson says she began to see changes with her family relationships as well as relationships at work.
“I was seen as someone who was more of a leader and not just someone who was showing up at work every day,” says Johnson. “Really pushing the envelope and being very driven and disciplined and that really catapulted me into a lot of different things in my life.”
Johnson credits these changes to what she calls her foundation: the support system of people she spends time with which she has nicknamed her “tribe.”
The tribe extends to where she works and it’s caused her to take what she’s learned about herself and apply it to others.
Heather Ratcliffe, a Director of Digital Technology and Development for a tech company, met Johnson when they worked on the same project. She’s one of the individuals who’s joined Johnson’s tribe – not just as a supporter, but also a mentee who was interested in establishing a better life balanceas a female corporate executive looking to balance family, health and other career demands.
“Denise’s bubbly personality leads before anything else which is a magnet to want to know her more. Then you get to experience her positive attitude and you know she is a special person,” says Ratcliffe. “Her patience and dedication is what stood out the most to me.
“She’s looks at setting you up for lasting success as a coach with small lifestyle changes that compound over time,” Ratcliffe continued. “Even when you may want to give up she’s right there with you pushing you along the way.”
As word began to spread around the office about Johnson’s endeavors in both fitness and personal development, she was invited to bring her programs into her corporate headquarters in Bellevue.
“I first thought oh no I don’t think I want to do that,” says Johnson regarding being asked to teach fitness at the corporate office. “The biggest thing in bringing fitness to [the office] was about making it fun. A lot of people think working out, fitness, is so much to do and it’s overwhelming so I started doing small things like having push-up challenges with some of the executive staff and with my team members. It was something that people were really liking and it’s something that we continue to do and we keep challenging ourselves to get stronger.”
Soon Johnson was holding full fitness classes on a trial basis to gauge the interest of employees which quickly resulted in her being asked to hold sessions on a weekly basis.
Considering the amount of time people spend sitting both at work and at home, it could be argued that what Johnson is doing is helping to save lives.
According to a study published in the Public Library of Science (PLOS) the average middle aged American spends approximately 9 hours/day, or 60% of waking time, in sedentary (sitting) behavior with half that time attributed to watching television. Black women reported an average of 45 minutes more total sitting time than White women while Black men reported 15 minutes more on average than White men. Add that information to a 2012 study done in the British Journal of Sports Medicine which concluded that every hour of television watched after the age of 25 reduces the viewer’s life expectancy by 21.8 minutes.
And it’s extending beyond exercising. In Johnson’s office she says many colleagues have asked her different questions about fitness, especially at lunch time. People want to know what they should be eating. While it’s informal, it’s encouraged her to take further action now that she sees people are looking for opportunities to get healthy in other areas outside of a gym class. That encouragement led her to create Do Your Joy, the words stemming from her initials: Denise Yvette Johnson.
“Do Your Joy is all about doing what you think is something that’s important and special and will make you feel successful,” says Johnson. “It’s really about…doing whatever it is you want to do. And that’s from me feeling like I’m not a ‘fitness girl’ and I’ve been in corporate for a long time, but I want to do something different. Can I really start my own business and really help people get to where they want to be and reach their goals. Can I really do that being a woman who’s over 50 years old?”
In asking those questions, Johnson said her initial response was what she was doing was something that gave herjoy.
In creating Do Your Joy, Johnson has expanded her role to that of a personal development coach which she says is about helping people build routines and becoming more disciplined. Coaching started out one-on-one and grew to groups online before she started reaching out to the surrounding community.
Myrnesa Flanagan is a friend of Johnson’s who joined the Do Your Joy program. She met Johnson through a mutual friend at a party and they started to talk goals and ended up exchanging numbers.
“My first impression of Denise was that she was smart and accomplished and very kind because she offered to be my mentor and help me grow,” says Flanagan. “Since she’s been coaching me I have learned a lot about how the body works concerning diet and fitness. She has also taught me to take business seriously and never burn bridges, treat people with respect and always mention what I’m doing in life because you never know who may be looking for what I have to offer.”
Through Johnson’s mentorship, Flanagan also appears at Johnson’s “Network Gatherings” which take place twice a year and are female led and oriented.
“The mission behind [the Network Gatherings] is to be another lever to reach out to people. I wanted to reach as many women as I could to give them the message ‘you are powerful and you have ability’ and we just need to tap into that,” states Johnson who says personal development coaching and motivational speaking were a natural step forward in the progress she was making in helping others with fitness.
“Fitness helps others to turn things around not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally and that’s what’s needed for success in their lives,” says Johnson. “Once they build that non-physical muscle, that mental muscle, that’s when we start to lean into workout programs and meal-planning. But the setting of that foundation and helping them to build a routine and how to stick with it, that’s really the main piece of it…A personal trainer helps you when you get to the gym, I help you get to the gym.”
