Vickie
“Laugh out loud, cry out loud, love out loud.”
Vickie is an entrepreneur who is passionate about making the most out of life, and helping others to as well. She is someone who has had to pour everything into survival. But not only has she survived, she has thrived. At 25, Vickie healed her cervical cancer with holistic nutrition. Later in life, a tragic loss that left her alone with her six children first left her shattered, but then led her to realising her own dreams and starting her own business - Alive, Fit & Free. Now, Vickie devotes her time to helping others uncover their own strength and vitality, while encouraging them to take on life with positivity. Meet Vickie. This is her story.
Vickie running her business, Alive, Fit & Free (her happy place)
P: Please introduce yourself!
V: Hi, I’m Vickie Aigner, a 68-year-old health & fitness guru, mom, grandma, dog-ma, former hippie, life lover, and full of energy.
I’m a health and wellness expert turned start-up founder of Alive, Fit & Free, a community where we host virtual classes and events for any age or ability. My path has been anything but ordinary. I started my career after being widowed at 48 with 6 children, and finally, turned my passion into a social start-up at age 66. I love a great cup of coffee outside listening to the birds sing in the morning, I love to move my body, choreograph moves, dance, see my sweet clients and make them laugh and smile, I love a nice Pinot Grigio and broccoli sprouts, and I love to travel and explore. If you dare me… I can’t resist!
P: Describe or define yourself in your own words.
V: I’m highly energetic, caring, compassionate, a hard worker, dedicated, enthusiastic, loving, and positive. Of course there is the other side as well — I can be impatient, unplanned, impulsive, and too sensitive. The past year I’ve worked a lot on accepting myself completely and being transparent with all of me and sharing that with others...an ongoing process! I’m bored easily and am a non stop dreamer, ready for the next adventure that happens to come along. I love getting people excited about life and getting healthy so they can enjoy their best life possible.
P: What is your favorite thing about yourself?
V: I’m very high energy and always see the positive. Those two traits have pulled me through many hard life challenges. Coupled with that fact that I am dreamer, and being able to focus forward on that dream fills me with hope that is so often needed for this journey called life. From all the challenges I have been through, those qualities have kept me going. Losing a husband, creating a career from scratch in my 50s, raising 6 children on my own — I could not have made it past these challenges without waking up every morning and reminding myself of the positive things to look forward to. I’ve learned to laugh and pick myself up and move on.
P: Tell us a story. Have you had an experience that’s defined you or made you stronger?
V: Wow, yes certainly more than one. You know, I believe our life experiences can either teach us to grow stronger or cause us to freeze. Sometimes after kicking and screaming and sometimes surrendering peacefully, I will always choose to be taught and become stronger.
It seems I learn best from “big” experiences.
When I was 25, I developed cervical cancer which I healed naturally. That spurred me into the field of natural health and wellness in the late 70s. I became passionate about sharing what I had learned with others. I started studying everything I could get my hands onto further my knowledge. I became a dance and fitness teacher and a Holistic Health Practitioner & Nutritionist.
My husband and I had six children and when our oldest was 14 we decided it would be wonderful to raise them on a farm. So we purchased a motorhome and headed to the midwest to raise our family.
In the middle of building our own home, my husband suddenly passed away from a heart attack. Our six children were aged 3-18. I was forced to go to work cleaning houses and I determined this was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
This was by far the most important experience that propelled me to where I am today and how I started my business, Alive, Fit & Free. After my husband died, I threw all my energy into surviving. My oldest son and I finished our 4,000 sq. ft. house and did my best to walk us all through the grieving process.
I always thought that when someone died, we would all come together like the Waltons and comfort each other. But I described what happened in my family was that we all took to our own corner to lick our wounds. For me, I worked hard and long hours and ignored his clothes hanging in the closet. Basically I ran from facing the grief. But I crashed and burned and eventually had to face it. I never addressed the elephant in the room, processing grief and prioritizing my mental health. After I crashed emotionally in 2007, I attended a self-development school, which provided me with that missing piece. As I grew and healed from the grief, I realized what a huge role mental and emotional health play in overall wellbeing. As a health and wellness practitioner, I could give you all the right foods and teach you how to move your body, but if we didn’t start from the inside out, with healing and changing beliefs about who we are, we weren’t addressing our whole health. We are holistic beings. We cannot separate our emotional, mental, and physical aspects; they are intertwined. This gave me a renewed passion for the direction I wanted to take Alive, Fit & Free.
I began Alive, Fit & Free and started training and coaching people in holistic health and wellness, fitness and emotional healing. My passion was for people to be whole and healthy and happy. I started working in senior living communities and fell in love with the people. In late 2019, I started experiencing more demand than I could fulfill. At the same time, I had this feeling that it was time for something bigger. I wanted to scale Alive, Fit & Free to reach as many people as possible. My daughter, a tech entrepreneur, decided to partner with me to make this happen, and we took the plunge to launch Alive, Fit & Free as a social start-up in early 2020. We are soaring and growing and have been able to provide an incredible community for “seniors” not only in the US but internationally as well. We provide 60 + classes and events each month.
Oh and one more thing about that word, “SENIOR”...
SENIOR does not mean we are out to pasture, sitting in a rocking chair.
It does not mean beige and baby blue.
No indeed!!
We are on a mission to take it back
Redefine it
Infuse it with life, excitement, energy
Paint it come alive bright colors
Senior means having the freedom and flexibility to learn new hobbies, try ziplining for the first time, take up aerial yoga, indulge in our fashion addictions, & truly live life to the fullest ANY way we want.
Senior means having wisdom from traveling difficult roads, meeting fascinating people, and climbing huge mountains to see the glittering valley below.
Senior means getting to do all of those things we put on the back burner and to live out loud our dream and live out loud!
It is NEVER too late to pursue your dreams!
P: What is one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?
V: It’s hard to narrow that down to 1, so I have 3.
“Honey, embrace and love on yourself! You are perfect the way you are and don’t let anyone else tell you different!”
“Dream big! You can do anything you put your mind to!”
“Laugh out loud, cry out loud, love out loud.”