Women In Wellness: Kim Overton of SPIbelt On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Seek advice from people who care and people who’ve been there done that. I was operating so fast and head-down when I started that I didn’t always take the time to seek advice from mentors or experts when a challenge popped up. Pretty much every challenge I ever faced in business, and continue to face, is something someone else has navigated. Learn from others.
As a part of my series about women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kim Overton.
SPIbelt founder and inventor, Kim Overton, wanted to solve the problem of what to do with her small personal items while she was out running. Her solution to this challenge was SPIbelt, which has now been the leader in running belts for 15 years! As CEO, Kim Overton leads her team and community to embrace an active lifestyle, infusing the SPIbelt ethos and practices with the values of health, wellness, and balance.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
Within the first year of being in business, I was at a house party in NYC wearing a SPIbelt. A producer from the Rachael Ray show who was at the party absolutely loved the SPIbelt and asked me a ton of questions about it. All of a sudden, there was a group surrounding me, all so excited about the SPIbelt. Next thing I know, the SPIbelt was featured on the Rachael Ray show. It was one of the best online sales events we’ve had to date!
What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
What I learned from that was to always have your product on you and always be prepared to show it off and talk about it! The passion you have for your product will shine through, and others will get excited about it as well.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting?
Within one year of launching SPIbelt, I thought the next move that would get me to the next level was to produce a short-form spot commercial. Short-form spots are like modified infomercials that last anywhere from 1–2 minutes.
Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
This grand idea came to me from a conversation I had with a gentleman on a plane. I guess I got swept up in his conviction for this type of advertising and was impressed with how well he said it worked for him. Instead of doing the research to really see if this was right for me, or compare the expense against other marketing opportunities, I went for it and lost over $30K (this was a lot for me when I was getting started). Keep in mind this was also before social media.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
Our products are the sidekick people need to hold their small personal items when they’re running, working out, or otherwise living their best active life. SPIbelts also provide peace of mind to individuals who need to carry their special medical devices on them at all times. SPIbelts are low profile, soft, comfortable, and are often forgotten about when in use because they are so light and discreet! Our motto is Free to Be; free to be your best active self without the worry of how and where to store your personal items.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
I’m learning daily as I go but 5 tweaks that work for me –
Take a pause for yourself in the morning before starting your day. Personally speaking, if I don’t stop to pause before my day gets started, my day will rule me versus the other way around. Take charge of your mindset before the day begins.
Take a moment to transition from work mode to personal mode and/or parent mode. This one is super important for me whether I’m working from home or the office. When I’m done with a work, I make a conscious effort to take a pause before I jump into mom mode. Mom mode, or personal time, is often a huge mind shift, so taking a moment to mentally downshift and let go of the challenges of my workday with a moment of gratitude and deep breathes helps me step into my post-work space with ease, patience and a clear mind.
If a to-do can take 2 minutes or less, just do it, don’t wait. It’s so easy to push little tasks off to a later time but if you get into the habit of knocking out little items on your to-do list, you’ll be surprised by how relieved you will feel at the end of the day.
Truly stop and smell the flowers. I have two your kids and they literally will stop to observe or smell the flowers. A random break to observe natures helps keep me grounded no matter how my day is going.
Know where the Big Dipper is in the night’s sky. When I take a pause to find the constellation, I am reminded how big our universe is and how small my day-to-day problems are in comparison. It’s easy to get bogged down by the issues in our own lives, and a look at the night sky really puts things in perspective. Observing one of the easiest constellations to spot always leaves me with a sense of calm.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I believe a 4-day work week would benefit everyone. More time off for personal and family time, plus physical and mental wellness would be a better way to go about things.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
Put your brand on the exterior of everything that you sell. For the first 6 months of selling SPIbelts, the elastic band was plain black, no branding! It’s a missed opportunity to help spread your brand.
Hire support as soon as you start thinking you need it. I allowed myself to work 10+ hours days to keep up, but I wasn’t as effective and efficient as I could have been in launching my business as I would have been if I hired help sooner.
Carve out YOU time! We all know about this one. I absolutely loved working extreme hours and on weekends when I started so it didn’t always occur to me that my head was down so much. That said, sprinkling in a little fun and workout time is truly important for balance.
Take time in hiring the right people. I hired quickly and not carefully in the beginning. It’s so important to fully vet and feel confident about your hires rather that investing in them only to discover they were the wrong hire. Take your time to hire the right person, don’t rush it because you need to fill a seat.
Seek advice from people who care and people who’ve been there done that. I was operating so fast and head-down when I started that I didn’t always take the time to seek advice from mentors or experts when a challenge popped up. Pretty much every challenge I ever faced in business, and continue to face, is something someone else has navigated. Learn from others.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Mental health. The mind and body are so connected. If our mind isn’t working, the body will not want to work either; they work as one and I like to treat them as one. I’m not sure there’s much I can do as mom, partner, employer, sister, daughter, friend, etc., without good mental and physical health.
What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?
SPIbelt.com and on mine and our company’s social channels — @spibelt and @kimjoverton.
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
Women In Wellness: Kim Overton of SPIbelt On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.