Women With GRITT: Rachael Finch On Tuning In, Prioritising Wellness And Why Self-Belief Will Get You Anywhere
“When launching my business, I never looked at it as something to create as a point of difference. I launched it because I believed it was going to work. I launched it because I’m truly passionate about it. And, at the end of the day, me launching it was the point of difference. It was mine and I was going to do everything to make it a success.”
Welcome to Women with GRITT: a series where we interview the resilient, hardworking women who have kicked in the glass ceiling and inspire us to do the same.
She’s one of Australia’s golden girls. Recognisable almost anywhere and looked up to by wellness-loving women across the country, Rachael Finch is the health big sister we all need in our lives.
First introduced to the Townsville-native in 2006 when she competed in the Miss Teen Australia pageant and then again in 2009 when she competed in Miss Universe, Finch quickly rose to fame. Whether it was international modelling campaigns, hosting duties on some of our favourite networks or coveted ambassadorships, Finch’s determination is not to be underestimated in her success.
But it was when she met her now-husband Michael Miziner on Australian reality TV show, Dancing With The Stars, that Finch’s focus changed from life in the limelight to giving back to her loyal fans. Joining forces with her husband to launch not one, but two, wellness-related businesses, she is now a business force in her own right.
In this interview, Finch speaks to Gritty Pretty about her online fitness platform and skincare brand, how she tuned into her body, why prioritising personal wellness should never be regarded as selfish and why self-belief will get you just about anywhere.
Hi Rachael! Thank you so much for speaking with us today. We first came to know (and love) you when you competed in the Miss Universe pageant in 2009, which spurred you into modelling and then hosting. How did you find coming into the spotlight at such a young age?
I feel like that was 50 years ago! It was certainly interesting. I didn’t really know any different. I was such a sporty kid and spent my whole childhood outside and I competed in athletics until I was in my teens. My goal was actually to compete at the Olympics. Then, when I was actually travelling to a carnival for athletics, a model scout came up to me in the airport and wanted me to enter this competition. I took the information home to mum and entered on a whim. Fast forward and I ended up winning that competition. That’s when my life went in a completely different direction. I started travelling around the world to different countries and began building my book as a model. I spent about four or five years living between Singapore, Germany, New Zealand, New York and London.
Obviously, as an athlete, you have an understanding of how your body works and what it needs for optimal performance. This focus would have shifted as you entered the modelling industry from being less about how your body works to how it looks. Did you find this challenging?
Absolutely. It’s probably only with hindsight that I can see how this was a challenging shift in how I thought about my body and health and fitness. I was so young and I guess I put the pressure on myself that I needed to look a certain way in order to book jobs. I went through a phase of my life where I was way too strict on my diet and I was too severe with my training. I was not tuning into my body and I was not nurturing myself. I had a modelling agent say to me once, “If you lost five kilos, you’d be perfect.” As a teenager, when you hear that, it’s so confronting but you also don’t know how to question it.
Wow. Thank you for being so open about your journey with us. How did you then come out the other side of this and repair your relationship with food, fitness and wellness?
The turning point for me was waking up time and time again completely exhausted. One morning I just woke up and thought I’m so over this and I need to make some sort of change. It was an intuitive feeling that I finally listened to. I started doing anything I could–researching, reading and following different holistic health experts. I started educating myself by studying different courses including health coaching, yoga teacher training, personal training and a whole heap of different things to open my mind up to new ideas. I started to include all food groups back into my diet (not just one or two) and started to tone down my exercise regimen and listen to what my body actually felt like on a day to day basis. It didn’t happen overnight but slowly and surely it became a lot better and a lot easier. My body started to balance itself out and create equilibrium.
You definitely took those learnings and then applied them to your online program and app, Body By Finch, which you launched in 2019. The health and fitness market is certainly quite saturated. So, what was your point of difference?
When launching my business, I never looked at it as something to create as a point of difference. I launched it because I believed it was going to work. I launched it because I’m truly passionate about it. And, at the end of the day, me launching it was the point of difference. It was mine and I was going to do everything to make it a success. I launched the app with my husband and we just wanted to have a place where all our health and fitness knowledge could sit in synergie. We also wanted to be able to spend more time with our kids and be our own bosses, so it was a perfect alignment. Sure, as an entrepreneur, you do always end up working weird and crazy hours but it’s up to us when and how we work which means we can spend more time with our two kids, which is really important to us.
Central to your business is the community of women who use the platform and share it with their circles. How do you go about nurturing this community?
Our community of women have helped drive everything we do in our business. From product creation to the direction we’re heading with our brand in terms of formulations and the ever-evolving purpose, our community is behind everything. We want to be able to cater for everything they want and need. Our community were also key in helping us launch our next business: Kissed Earth.
Tell us more! Kissed Earth is a skincare and health brand. What does the product formulation process look like?
Every product you see in our range has had anywhere between one and two years of prior development. So, we aren’t a trend or fad-based brand because we simply can’t turn around products that quickly. We expect perfection for our customers and that times time and effort testing and revisiting formulas. Working in the health and beauty industry for the last 10 to 15 years I’ve been very blessed to work with some of the best health experts including naturopaths, nutritionists, herbalists, natural beauty experts, food scientists, chemists and even makeup artists. They are all a wealth of knowledge and I think being able to bring on people I trust and respect makes the whole product development process quite seamless. We are all working towards a common goal, at the end of the day.
And what would you say is the most challenging aspect of juggling your working life with family and personal care?
I think, with anything, the most challenging part is not knowing where to start. Everything is new and you’re trying to create something you really believe in but also need some familiarity. When we were first launching Kissed Earth, there was a lot of picking up the phone and cold calling people to get the answers we wanted. There was a lot of working late nights and running around and those were sacrifices we had to make in the beginning. Now, I feel like we’re at an equilibrium where we have the luxury of designing our own work days so that we can spend time with the kids and also slot in moments for ourselves. With anything, there is a bit of push and pull.
Sage advice, Rachael! Thank you for speaking with us.
Hi Rachael! Thank you so much for speaking with us today. We first came to know (and love) you when you competed in the Miss Universe pageant in 2009, which spurred you into modelling and then hosting. How did you find coming into the spotlight at such a young age?
I feel like that was 50 years ago! It was certainly interesting. I didn’t really know any different. I was such a sporty kid and spent my whole childhood outside and I competed in athletics until I was in my teens. My goal was actually to compete at the Olympics. Then, when I was actually travelling to a carnival for athletics, a model scout came up to me in the airport and wanted me to enter this competition. I took the information home to mum and entered on a whim. Fast forward and I ended up winning that competition. That’s when my life went in a completely different direction. I started travelling around the world to different countries and began building my book as a model. I spent about four or five years living between Singapore, Germany, New Zealand, New York and London.
Obviously, as an athlete, you have an understanding of how your body works and what it needs for optimal performance. This focus would have shifted as you entered the modelling industry from being less about how your body works to how it looks. Did you find this challenging?
Absolutely. It’s probably only with hindsight that I can see how this was a challenging shift in how I thought about my body and health and fitness. I was so young and I guess I put the pressure on myself that I needed to look a certain way in order to book jobs. I went through a phase of my life where I was way too strict on my diet and I was too severe with my training. I was not tuning into my body and I was not nurturing myself. I had a modelling agent say to me once, “If you lost five kilos, you’d be perfect.” As a teenager, when you hear that, it’s so confronting but you also don’t know how to question it.
Wow. Thank you for being so open about your journey with us. How did you then come out the other side of this and repair your relationship with food, fitness and wellness?
The turning point for me was waking up time and time again completely exhausted. One morning I just woke up and thought I’m so over this and I need to make some sort of change. It was an intuitive feeling that I finally listened to. I started doing anything I could–researching, reading and following different holistic health experts. I started educating myself by studying different courses including health coaching, yoga teacher training, personal training and a whole heap of different things to open my mind up to new ideas. I started to include all food groups back into my diet (not just one or two) and started to tone down my exercise regimen and listen to what my body actually felt like on a day to day basis. It didn’t happen overnight but slowly and surely it became a lot better and a lot easier. My body started to balance itself out and create equilibrium.
You definitely took those learnings and then applied them to your online program and app, Body By Finch, which you launched in 2019. The health and fitness market is certainly quite saturated. So, what was your point of difference?
When launching my business, I never looked at it as something to create as a point of difference. I launched it because I believed it was going to work. I launched it because I’m truly passionate about it. And, at the end of the day, me launching it was the point of difference. It was mine and I was going to do everything to make it a success. I launched the app with my husband and we just wanted to have a place where all our health and fitness knowledge could sit in synergie. We also wanted to be able to spend more time with our kids and be our own bosses, so it was a perfect alignment. Sure, as an entrepreneur, you do always end up working weird and crazy hours but it’s up to us when and how we work which means we can spend more time with our two kids, which is really important to us.
Central to your business is the community of women who use the platform and share it with their circles. How do you go about nurturing this community?
Our community of women have helped drive everything we do in our business. From product creation to the direction we’re heading with our brand in terms of formulations and the ever-evolving purpose, our community is behind everything. We want to be able to cater for everything they want and need. Our community were also key in helping us launch our next business: Kissed Earth.
Tell us more! Kissed Earth is a skincare and health brand. What does the product formulation process look like?
Every product you see in our range has had anywhere between one and two years of prior development. So, we aren’t a trend or fad-based brand because we simply can’t turn around products that quickly. We expect perfection for our customers and that times time and effort testing and revisiting formulas. Working in the health and beauty industry for the last 10 to 15 years I’ve been very blessed to work with some of the best health experts including naturopaths, nutritionists, herbalists, natural beauty experts, food scientists, chemists and even makeup artists. They are all a wealth of knowledge and I think being able to bring on people I trust and respect makes the whole product development process quite seamless. We are all working towards a common goal, at the end of the day.
And what would you say is the most challenging aspect of juggling your working life with family and personal care?
I think, with anything, the most challenging part is not knowing where to start. Everything is new and you’re trying to create something you really believe in but also need some familiarity. When we were first launching Kissed Earth, there was a lot of picking up the phone and cold calling people to get the answers we wanted. There was a lot of working late nights and running around and those were sacrifices we had to make in the beginning. Now, I feel like we’re at an equilibrium where we have the luxury of designing our own work days so that we can spend time with the kids and also slot in moments for ourselves. With anything, there is a bit of push and pull.
Sage advice, Rachael! Thank you for speaking with us.
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