Meet John Watson | Full Control. Bloom Fitness, our logo, virtual people name of BloomLIve, our tagline of Lead With Heart are all trademarked.

We had the good fortune of connecting with John Watson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi John, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
At its best, a person starts a business because they want to solve a problem that is currently not being solved. We started Bloom Fitness, a fitness program that looks to lead all people living with an intellectual and developmental disability diagnosis to choose a lifetime of fitness.

There is a massive need in this area for this population and Bloom is approach this issue in a way that no one ever has.

What should our readers know about your business?
I was in the mortgage industry for 32 years and was lucky enough to have success, which including starting my own mortgage banking firm that I eventually sold to a publicly traded bank. So, I have some basic business ability and knowledge, as well as experience being an entrepreneur.

Starting any business of any size is never easy. Especially since I had no experience in the nonprofit world that I thrust myself into about 10 years ago.

The benefit of not knowing much was that I became a good listener and observer. I listened to many experts that serve the IDD population. But mostly I listened and observe the people we were working to help, people living with an IDD diagnosis.

The main thing I learned early on was that the motivating factor was not offering a great fitness class, even though we do that and those classes are built for this population and are fun. The key is making an emotional connection. That is why our tagline is “Lead With Heart” not about coming to a great fitness class. Making an emotional connection almost always can shape behavior. Because we have found a number of ways to connect with this population on an emotional level, our retention rate is well over 90%.

As it relates to branding, other than fitness being in our name, everything else conveys making that we seek to make a deep and authentic emotional connection. Even our trademarks logo/emblem is a sideways heart.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We have almost 40 locations in 5 states. Most locations are in the Houston area and throughout Texas.

All we would have to do is have a person join us in a live Bloom class with our athletes. It is fun and meaningful. Our athletes are so very inspiring. Just to watch their smiles, joy and how hard they try in class is amazing. An experience that is difficult to describe until a person does it.

One of our longtime volunteer instructors says, “They (our athletes) give me 1000 times more than I could ever give them.” That is exactly how we all feel about the gift this population offers.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My 28-year old daughter, Emma, has an intellectual and developmental disability diagnosis. I didn’t start Bloom for Emma, but I know that she led us here. Emma has taught us a lot about how to serve and connect with this population in an impactful way. Bloom has developed and grown into the program it is because of all of our athletes that live with an IDD diagnosis. We learn the best way connect and motivate them from them.

Because this population has limitations that those in the general population might not have, we tend to tell them what is good for them, instead of learning these things from them. What they like. What are the things that motivate them. It is amazing what we can learn for a person living with an intellectual and developmental disability diagnosis if a person will just listen and observe them.

So, the encouragement to keep reaching more people and continuing to improve Bloom’s value to this population comes from them. If you watch some of the videos on our website home page, you will see how inspiring they can be.

Website: https://www.bloomfitness.org

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bloomfitnesscommunity/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bloomcommunity/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bloomfitnesscommunity

Youtube: https://youtu.be/h6SDVENeFww