Hi, my name is Leesa Barnes. I’m an award winning blogger, social media expert and author of Podcasting for Profit.

After being known as a podcasting expert for a few years, I recently combined my successes in social media, online marketing and active living to create a unique approach to promoting online.

I’d like to welcome you to Marketing Fit. My mission is to help small business owners energize their body, brand and business using innovative social media marketing tools.

Marketing Fit is a combination of my expertise in social media and my ongoing desire to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle. I believe that if you take care of your mental and physical health, you will produce a prosperous and healthy business.

You see, I’ve been an athlete all my life. My parents tell me that I learned to run before I could walk. When I was in elementary school, instead of playing hopscotch with the girls, I’d play soccer with the boys. You name the sport, I could play it. I was a tomboy and really proud of it.

By the time I reached high school, I focused exclusively on basketball. I was the captain of my high school basketball team and when the high school season was over, I played at the provincial level (or state level if that helps). I have countless medals and plaques that commemerate all the championships and individual awards I’ve won as a basketball player.

My dream was to get a basketball scholarship to a college in the United States, represent my country at the Olympics, then play in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) league. I was really happy when in my senior year of high school, an American college approached me about playing for their women’s basketball team on a full scholarship.

But an unexpected event changed my path for good. I’ll never forget the date - February 7, 1993. I was practicing with my basketball team and jumped for a rebound. When I came down, I did so awkwardly. I felt a bit of pain in my knee and my coach ordered me to sit out the rest of practice.

At the time, I had no clue how serious the injury was, but it didn’t take long for me to find out. In the 24 hour period after injuring my knee, it swelled up to the size of a cabbage. Six days later, I had reconstructive surgery to rebuild the ligament I ruptured in my knee.

I went through 8 months of painful physiotherapy and to add insult to injury, the American college was no longer interested in giving me a scholarship. Because most WNBA players are selected from American college teams, my dreams of playing professional basketball were shattered.

I ended up going to a college close to home and although I made the college basketball team, my body was just never the same after the injury. In 1995, midway during the college basketball season, I re-injured my knee. I made the most difficult decision to quit the very thing that once brought me so much joy. I officially hung up my basketball shoes for good and never played basketball competitively again.

I had never quit anything before. I always stuck it out because doing so built character. So, quitting the college basketball team mid season made me feel like a failure. I couldn’t even watch basketball on television because anytime I did, it reminded me that I failed. I was angry at myself for quitting and angry at God for letting this happen.

On top of that, the lean body I had while playing basketball for so many years soon became chubby and soft. Getting a desk job after I graduated from college in 1997 didn’t help either. My body weight climbed to just over 200lbs. This was due to working long hours at a software development company and eating really unhealthy.

I finally recognized that I had to do something about my weight When an evening dress I planned to wear to an important fundraising gala couldn’t zip up. That dress fit perfectly just 6 months earlier. At that point, I knew that it was time to do something.

I joined a gym and really had no clue what to do. I watched how others lifted weights and I joined a few classes, but I felt like I was all thumbs. It didn’t help that after 6 weeks of working out really hard, I only lost 2lbs.

Determined not to give up, I hired a personal trainer, I read everything I could on healthy eating and I subscribed to a couple of fitness magazines to get new workout tips.

I also changed my mindset so that I was more realistic about my weight loss. I looked at being active as a lifestyle change, not a quick fix. And I finally released the anger I had towards basketball for “abandoning” me and welcomed the new purpose that God had for my life.

It’s taken 10 years, but I feel better and healthier physically and mentally now in my mid-thirties than I did in my mid-twenties. While my injury still bothers me from time to time, I’m happy about my weight, I feel energized about my life and my business grows healthy each and every day.

The steps I’ve taken to shed, lose and keep those extra pounds off my body are the very same techniques I use to help small business owners shed the excess fat off their chubby marketing plans. You can sculpt the business you really want by trimming the flabby and bloated marketing tactics from your business plan and replace them with fat-free social media tools. This is the Marketing Fit way.

Ready to be Marketing Fit? Here’s how you can get started on this journey:

- Hire me to speak at your next event
- Sign up for my free Marketing Detox Bible
- Watch my weekly online syndicated show, Marketing Fit TV