Wow, this sign was so bright and easy to read back in the day! It’s super faded now 😅

Picture it: Ferndale, Michigan. 2002.

(And I hope that you read that line as Sophia from the Golden Girls)

I was 24, still living with my parents in the house I grew up in, and had been working since I was 14. I came home from my job as an administrative assistant for a magazine (Ward’s Auto World for the automotive people). I enjoyed my job and had resigned myself to working in a cubicle for the rest of my life. However, coming home from work at the end of a tiring day with a headache was starting to wear on me, so when I came home from another day of phone calls, interruptions and everything else that comes with the territory of being a working woman and I saw a brochure sitting on the stairs leading up to my sleeping quarters (because when you live in a bungalow it’s more fun to call it sleeping quarters than a bedroom) for Irene’s Myomassology Institute.

Me being the impulsive person I was back then, I set up an appointment to take a tour and learn more. And even though I had never given a massage or gotten a massage before that point (not even doing what most people do where they rub some necks of friends and family and they say ‘you’re really good at this, you should go to school for it’), something told me to give it a try.

The next day I went in to my work, I had a heart to heart with my amazing boss Gayle (who I am still in touch with 20+ years later), cashed in my 401K to pay the $6000 school tuition, and declared that I was tired from working for the past 10 years and I deserved a break, so I was taking a year off from work to focus on my studies. Even though my ‘studies’ were about 12 hours a week of class time plus homework.

Working for 30 years = tired

School was interesting. And it’s funny how when you start you’re excited at the prospect of getting a massage every week. Then toward the end of the year you are tired of being touched and don’t want another massage. Boy if I could tell my young self now I’d tell her to soak it up and take care of herself, because this field is not for the weak.

While I was in school I had decided that my dream was to work in a fancy day spa doing fancy body treatments, and low and behold, shortly after I graduated I got a job doing just that at a no longer in existence spa inside of a hoity toity department store at the Somerset Collection. (If you’re not from around here, Somerset is not a ‘mall’, I mean it is but don’t you dare call it a mall). And I worked on the south side. The ‘fancy’ side. If you know me, you know that it not my scene, like at all.

I quit that spa job 4 different times before I left for good.

Fast forward to 2004. I had finally left that toxic job for good. I had 2 clients on my roster that I was providing house calls to. I had no plans for what I was going to do, and even though I was fortunate enough to be living at home, I was an adult and had bills to pay. And also some health issues to work out. Which is what led me to my first home on Catalpa Avenue in Royal Oak.

You see, I was never looking for a space. But I went to have my first appointment with a dietitian in that little wellness clinic, and we got to talking and I mentioned what I did, she mentioned that there was a room for rent in the back, I said I had 2 clients, I had no need for an office (nor did I have the funds to rent). Then the owner came in, we had a chat, she mentioned that there was another therapist looking to share space, so I figured what the hell, I can pay $200/month to see what happens. And on October 1, 2004, I started my business.

Fun fact, my dad always had his own business, for as long as I can remember. He was always home for us (both of my parents were) and I guess I got my entrepreneurial spirit from him, and he would always ask me how business was, or tell me how proud he was of me, and share some wisdom from what he had experienced. Dad passed away on October 1 2021 so I find it fitting that a day of celebrating my own path of entrepreneurship is a bittersweet one now, but I know he’s still cheering me on in the afterlife.

One year later, I had a decision to make

My room share person was leaving. Do I try to find someone else to share the rent or do I try it on my own?

I decided to throw caution to the wind and swallow the increase in rent pill and give it a try myself, and over the next several years I built a name for myself and my business. What started out as Customized Massage Therapy by Rebecca turned into Royal Oak Massage. It was the dawn of Google and all things internet, and back then when I had no idea what SEO actually was, turns out that Royal Oak Massage was the best SEO I could have asked for!

After about 5 years on my own I was connected with a woman who was also a massage therapist and her and I started working together. It was my first experience with having an employee/partner/whatever you want to call it, and for almost 6 years we grew together. Until it was time to make some changes, so we parted ways but still worked under the same roof, but in different rooms because I had moved into TWO rooms there!

Eventually, it was time to move on from the little shop on Catalpa Avenue and I found an opportunity that was so exciting. Moving my business into a brand new business that provided float therapy. It was a beautiful space and I was so excited about my clients being able to try some other services that could complement their massage sessions, but sometimes you need to take a step back to catapult yourself forward, and I now look back at that time as just that. A stepping stone. And it gave me the kick in the ass that I needed to land where we’ve been since 2017.

Michigan Massage and Wellness is born

I’m not going to lie. I miss the days where my office rent was only $400. And I didn’t have those silly things like utilities and internet to pay for. But bonus points to you if you remember seeing this lobby for the first time! Going from a single page ‘lease’ agreement that I was on month to month for over 12 years to signing a 5 year lease that is an 11 page legally binding contract was absolutely terrifying. What’s even scarier is how quickly those 5 years went!

Moving to Troy meant that it was time to let the Royal Oak Massage name go and Michigan Massage and Wellness replaced it. I was at a spot in my career where it wasn’t just about massage, but I was looking at the bigger picture and what wellness looked like to people. You see, the massage therapy industry is a hard one to be in. The average career span of a massage therapist is 5-7 years. And here we are, 2024, and I’m into my 21st year in this field as a career, not a hobby. And having longevity like this means you need to mix it up a bit, and mix up I did. Between 2016 and 2018 I went on a continuing education bender. Learning things like fascial stretching, movement, mobility and more.

“If You Build It, He Will Come”

Anyone else remember Field of Dreams? A young Kevin Costner builds a baseball field on his property, and suddenly, things happen. People start to catch wind of what you’re doing, and young massage therapists who haven’t even gotten their start in this field find out about you and want to do their student externship with you and then you develop a relationship with Carnegie Institute in Troy where you spend 5 years welcoming an influx of student interns and discover that you have another newfound passion: working with new massage babies to help mold and shape them into the best massage therapists they can be, and identifying their strengths and passion so they can explore all that this amazing field has to offer.

Some of our therapists have moved on to new careers, new homes, new everything, and some have stayed and grown beyond what they imagined they were capable of. And when I say that Michigan Massage and Wellness wouldn’t exist today if it wasn’t for the team that I have, I am dead serious.

Being in this field for 20+ years, while it has been more rewarding than I could ever have imagined, it has also come with a lot of instability and problems. From a physical standpoint, I have done a lot of damage to my own body and I joke that 20 years of fixing everyone else has left me broken, but that is why it is so important for us massage therapists (and really, anybody) to learn about balance and self-care. You can’t continually give so much of yourself and your resources that there’s nothing left in the tank for you. This is a lesson that I have had to learn several times over and will still need to learn as I progress into the next phase of growth.

Several months ago, I got a message from a friend about a program called the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business and figured what the hell, and applied. Then in September 2024 I received a call welcoming me to Cohort 31, where I and 34 other small business owners and entrepreneurs would be spending the next 12-14 weeks with faculty and business advisors to create a 5 year growth plan for our business. And at the time of this post, we are only on week 3 and wrapping up Module 2 but if my growth plan pans out like I’m hoping it does, strap yourselves in because there’s going to be some amazing things coming down the pipeline.

What’s Next

Looking back and reflecting on surviving for the past 20 years, as small business owners we are often the last to get paid, the last to be celebrated, and we give all that we have and then some to working towards success. And it’s NOT easy. Learning as I go and grow, figuring out how to keep staff and clients happy while still turning a profit, navigating the scary landscape of things like the financial collapse in 2008 (although I say that the banking meltdown allowed me to buy my house that I could never afford in todays market), that thing that shut the world down for a while in 2020 and also had us closing our doors for THREE MONTHS, and not knowing if we would even have a business to come back to. Dips and fluctuations with the market and economy which has people cutting out extra spending, although if you are a client of ours and you know our work, massage isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity. And if you are one of our clients that have followed us from Royal Oak to Clawson to Troy and you’re still raving about us and supporting us, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

If you’re reading this and being introduced to us for the first time, welcome! Thank you for taking time to read this little origin story of mine, and we would love to meet you in person so you can experience what Michigan Massage and Wellness is all about.

Here’s to the next 20 years of healing, friendship and community.

In Good Hands,

Rebecca, Naomi, Nicole, Julie, Carrie, Cooper and Elliot (aka the whole MMW family)