The Hosts
Thank you so much for stopping here to learn about us. We just want you to know that we are creating on Dear Misfits from the true desire of our hearts. That desire is fully driven by the need to pass on information, as we understand it, in bite sizes with practical skills to apply these ideas! This is a new challenge for us and we promise to continue to work steadily on learning and growing so we can help you do the same!
Amy VanArkel
Isaiah Vlasek
I am the owner of the gentleGYM, Executive Director of Agape Therapy, a Physical Therapist Assistant and a Medical Exercise Specialist. Through the last 20+ years I have been on a journey to understand how our amazing body works! I am enamored with it. I see how we care for the body from a business and leadership standpoint, a practitioner standpoint in physical therapy and as one in the fitness world....also I have a body too!
This podcast was a way to pacify a need to make sure that people feel seen and heard. Obviously, I don't actually see a person while doing a podcast. However, the topics we talk about come from patients or clients that have been treated and worked with.
These stories were mounting about how the individual in front of me felt unheard or dismissed. Trying my hardest, I try to be that ear they are missing, the eye contact they maybe didn't receive, and the acknowledgement that what they are experiencing is important. I personally really do not feel good about pictures of myself and certainly not videos, but I have some things I want to share. Dear Misfits was a way I can talk about what I was seeing, learning and experiencing and it took the worry of videos out of it. Plus I love the ideas of being able to learn things on the fly while I am doing something else. Somehow pulling weeds in the flower beds feels even more productive when I listen to something I am learning.
I am a Doctor of Physical Therapy treating as a Physical Therapist with Agape Therapy as well as strength coaching and athlete development programming. However, I have a major desire to continue to learn and create. This podcast allows me to talk to people using a different kind of platform than what I utilize during the day. It allows me to expand upon my own learning and knowledge as well as to pass on these ideas to those who can benefit from them.
The things Dear Misfits talks about is coming straight from experience with patients or topics that I feel are often misinterpreted or have not had a chance to be heard. I see health and wellness as a journey that we as individuals must navigate and discover throughout a lifetime. This journey has a variety of obstacles and my goal with Dear Misfits is to equip individuals with the information they may need to overcome those obstacles.
I seek to create Dear Misfits as a place to go for you to learn helpful information in a way that is easy to understand but digs a little deeper to teach the "why". Learning the why can enable us to make changes we may need to turn the dial of our health one degree better.