Setting the Pace: Chris Strong

Lisa Belisle: Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle, and today I have with me in the studio Chris Strong. Chris has been many things, an attorney, a mother, an owner of a gym, and she's now getting ready to be a real estate appraiser. She's also a friend of mine from the wonderful town of Yarmouth, and I'm glad to have her here joining me today on Radio Maine. Thank you for coming in.

Chris Strong: Thank you for having me, Lisa.

Lisa Belisle: You and I were just talking about the weavings in and out of being high school students in the wonderful state of Maine over the years, and how much it's changed.

Chris Strong: So much has changed, yes. I grew up in the town of Thomaston and I went to Georges Valley High School, a small school. I think I had 60 kids in my class and 300 in the entire school. And over time, as many towns in Maine have, they decided to consolidate. I'm not sure when Georges Valley and Rockland High School consolidated, but it's now Oceanside High School. So Georges Valley no longer exists.

Lisa Belisle: And that's a weird thing to contemplate.

Chris Strong: It is a weird thing. Thomaston is a small town. When I grew up there, there were 3,000 people. Everyone knew everyone in the high school. It was a great place to grow up. I was part of the sports teams there, and it's part of your identity. So it was a little strange when it was usurped into the bigger school of Oceanside. But there's still Facebook pages. We still have connections with people there. A lot of great memories.

Lisa Belisle: It seems like sports in particular is really a mainstay for a lot of Maine kids, and particularly in the smaller communities. It really does, I think, as you've alluded to, contribute to identity. And also town pride, I think, for sure.

Chris Strong: Yes. Sports are a big part of my family. My dad coached boys basketball at Georges Valley for years, and that's where I got into sports. I was a gym rat, and my brothers also. It has definitely been a part of my life. It's evolved and been a part of my children's lives. If people are familiar with Yarmouth, sports and soccer and lacrosse, very successful programs, and a lot of town pride around that. I just think it's great for kids to participate in sports. It's great for confidence building and teaching them how to relate to people and get along with others, and learn how to deal with success and failure.

Lisa Belisle: As you're talking about this, I'm thinking about some of the work that I've done in my other job. I work in a leadership field. And when I talk to fellow leaders, and this is in healthcare, several of them mentioned the fact that they became interested in leadership through their time playing sports, even from their very earliest ages.

Chris Strong: Right, for sure. It's funny. I graduated from Georges Valley, went to UMaine and played basketball there. That was a tremendous experience and a lot of growth there. Went to law school. And when I was hired at the law firm that I worked for out of law school, I did intern there for the summer, but one of the reasons they wanted me to join the team was because I was a college athlete. There's discipline in that. You get to learn how to motivate yourself. You have to be a team player. And they like that.

Lisa Belisle: That is something that, in kind of where we are in the world where everybody has the opportunity to be an individual and go to their own private space and have everything moderated in a way that they like, when you're on a team you actually have to interact with other people, and you have to do it in a way that yields some sort of outcome, hopefully success, maybe not.

Chris Strong: Exactly. And I did have the opportunity, which was so fantastic, to coach girls basketball at Yarmouth for five years. One of my daughters was on the team at the time for four of those years. Taking that job, I obviously have a tremendous love for the game. I was looking forward to sharing that love and the Xs and Os and all of that. But what I realized was it was more about teaching the girls how to get along with each other, and also about having confidence, not being fearful of making a mistake, and learning how to roll with the punches out there. So really it was more about building their resiliency, I guess, versus teaching them how to make a layup.

Lisa Belisle: Do you think that girls and women have more of an issue with confidence than others?

Chris Strong: I do. There's an early story that I actually don't tell very much, but I think about this in terms of where my confidence came from. My parents were instrumental in helping me become the person I am, obviously. I grew up playing community soccer. And at that age, you're playing with boys, right? The girls and the boys playing together. I continued to play soccer with another girl in junior high. We were the only girls on the team. And when I got to high school as a freshman, I wanted to play soccer still, and there was no girls team. Again, that's the small town, small school. They had field hockey and cross country in the fall, and I wanted to go out for the team. There was some concern. The coach there had been there for a long time. He is an icon in the soccer world in Maine, and definitely in Thomaston. He was worried about me getting hurt, and I was just like, give me a chance. Let me make this choice, but give me the opportunity. And I did end up playing for four years. I had the opportunity to play with my brother, who's a year younger than me, also on the team. We won a state championship his freshman year when he scored the winning goal, and I was a sophomore. While it was hard, because I couldn't go into the locker room with the boys, the opposing team didn't like me. Oftentimes I'd get heckled. The parents on the other team weren't in favor many times. But the boys that I played with and that coach that supported me were tremendous. And that's a big part of building my confidence. I felt like, given the opportunity and the desire, I'm gonna do it. It was fantastic.

Lisa Belisle: I love that you didn't just accept that somebody said no. You decided, well, this is important to me, and I'm going to keep moving forward with this. How can we make this happen?

Chris Strong: Exactly. I go back to my family, and I think that's why the support you have around you as a kid is so important. Whether it comes from another relative or a coach or a teacher, if you are given the opportunity and the support. They were like, yes, if you want to do this, go for it, if it's really what you want. It was a great experience.

Lisa Belisle: My sister is an orthopedic surgeon with the VA, and she similarly was a high school athlete. Actually many of my siblings were, but I'm thinking of this particular one. She went to the Air Force Academy. There weren't that many women. She worked her way up, she became an orthopedic surgeon. There weren't that many women. And I really think that I see in her this sense like, no, I'm not gonna let other people tell me what I should or shouldn't do. But she also had to have a lot of inner strength, I think, in order to just keep going. It is easy to listen to other people tell you what they believe your path should be, rather than follow the path you think you should follow.

Chris Strong: Right, definitely. I do agree with that. There must be something internal that makes you who you are, and it influences you in those pivotal decisions that you make for yourself. One thing that has probably been a big part of my love for activity and sports and fitness is, as a young child, I broke my leg. My lower leg had a compound fracture, an old oak tree. It was the middle of the summer, beautiful day, beautiful blue sky. And it happened to be a dead oak tree that cracked and fell on my leg. The story's really kind of crazy, and I'm fortunate to be here at all. I was going in, opening the door, and the tree hit my shoulder first. So it was that close to my head. And then the way I was standing, it came down and hit my lower right leg, and I suffered a compound fracture. When my mom got to the hospital to meet the doctors there, and I heard this story later, obviously, they told her that they thought they could save my leg. So when you have a traumatic experience like that, it's gonna change you, it's gonna affect you. And I think I was going to do things because I could. I could run, I could jump, I could play sports. And then when you develop a love for it, you want to share it with people. I've just been blessed to be able to do that. It's why I love what I do. I can share that, and I see other people, it's contagious.

Lisa Belisle: I have this image in my mind about Chris against the tree. Chris against the old oak tree. Nobody can get Chris down.

Chris Strong: It's wild. It's a really wild story. And I don't remember it. It turns out all the oak trees on this property were dead. It was a disease. But the fact that it just kind of cracked in half, it's a pretty wild story.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I'm glad you're still here.

Chris Strong: Yes, thank you. Me too. I get a cool scar from my lower leg from it too. But we won't show that.

Lisa Belisle: That'll be a different podcast program. Part two, maybe.

Lisa Belisle: So tell me how you decided. I know you were at the University of Maine, you were a college athlete. You were an English major, right? And then you went to law school. So share the story of how that transpired.

Chris Strong: I always wanted to be a lawyer. I knew I wanted to play Division I basketball, and then I knew I wanted to be a lawyer. And then once I lawyered for a while, I decided I didn't want to be a lawyer. I loved law school, I loved the education. I'm kind of equal parts geek and jock, I think. And when people now find out that I practice law, they're like, what? Is that true? But I have this desire, and I think this has helped me in my business training also, that I love to dig for answers. One of my friends describes me, in a loving way, as a dog digging for a bone. I'm just going to keep trying to dig for the answer. And I think that's what appealed to me with regard to the law. I wanted to help people and make change and find answers. And then life circumstances happen. I had my third child and I took a year off. I was in a small firm, and then I went in-house counsel. In-house counsel was more conducive to having a family. I didn't have billable hours, so my weekends were at home. I took a year off, had my third child, and during that year I would go to a gym, much like the YMCA where they have childcare. I would drop my kids there for an hour, go work out. And one of the other moms came up to me and she's like, can I work out with you? Can I just follow you around? And I thought, as a light bulb moment, maybe I can share my love, my passion here, and make a career out of it. And so that's how Strong Bodies was born.

Lisa Belisle: This was the first gym in Yarmouth?

Chris Strong: That was in Maryland, actually. That's where I got certified down there. And then came to Falmouth, moved up to Falmouth and had my gym in the garage of my home at the time. So I was taking care of the three kids and started Strong Bodies in my garage. Then I had a few other temporary spaces. And then in 2010 I moved to Sparhawk Mill, and that's where I saw your name on the placard there. And then you had your space for a while.

Lisa Belisle: That's right. Practicing acupuncture in this Sparhawk Mill right by the Royal River.

Chris Strong: Great spot. Beautiful building.

Lisa Belisle: For me, it was very healing for the patients that I was taking care of, and for the people that I worked with in the office. But also a great place to have a gym.

Chris Strong: Oh, yes. People loved it. It's a beautiful space. And the building's just so historical. So that's how I came to training from the law.

Lisa Belisle: It is interesting that you describe kind of this intellectual and also physical. There's something very Olympian about the whole idea. The Greek gods. I think that we often tend to think of ourselves as going in one direction or another. But more and more lately people recognize, well, you actually can be more than one thing, and you probably will be more than one thing over the course of your lifetime. So getting siloed in too early maybe sends us down a path that's just not realistic.

Chris Strong: I agree. I think Covid too. I had to make some shifts when Covid came around, because my business was based on the model of getting as many people into this space as possible and working out together. I did do some personal training, but it was really more about the classes. So when that model went away, I really, to overuse the word again, had to pivot. So I went online and had some classes online. I'm not a video person. I don't like selfies. I don't want to be in front of the camera like this, although I'm enjoying our time, Lisa, very much. Thank you for having me. But it was something I had to do. And it was a great learning experience. It made me appreciate my community even more. People were very supportive. They did show up on Zoom for the classes. But I have found, even with my kids at this point, they're doing things differently now. They're not following the traditional path necessarily. Finished high school, you're going to college. They're making changes and decisions differently. And I'm so happy about that. I think it's important. I think it's more reflective of them, it's more individual, personal. And for me also, I turned 50 during Covid. So that year I was like, this is my 50 and shifty. If I was gonna make a T-shirt, it'd be 50 and shifty. I'm gonna change things up. I love training and I don't want to leave it, but that's where I decided, real estate appraisal, I can use my mind. I can draw on my legal education and mix things up.

Lisa Belisle: What I'm enjoying about this conversation is, oftentimes we bring artists in and we talk to people who have a connection to the art world. But really, I love this overarching theme that creativity exists in many spaces. So you can be creative when it comes to business. You can be creative when it comes to your educational approach. You can be creative when it comes to your life. And so you are really looking at, oh, here's a situation, how do I navigate the situation creatively?

Chris Strong: Right. Oh, I totally agree. In my business, I remember going to a training, because we have to do continuing ed for personal training also. And I was listening to a speaker talk about putting a class format together. There is a lot of creativity that goes into creating a circuit, because you don't want to do all squats or all pushups. You want to make sure you're getting some pushing, some pulling. You're using your muscles, and using the opposing muscles. He described it as an art, it's an art to put these programs together. But I do think, in life and everything we do, can we be flexible? We know change is gonna happen. It's inevitable. So as a parent too, I've just tried to embrace that with my kids, and share that message with them and support them and let them know, hey, listen, if you're not happy doing this, you can change. It's not the end of the world. It's okay to do things differently, if it feels good for you.

Lisa Belisle: Where are your kids now?

Chris Strong: I have three children. My oldest is in Australia and she's playing soccer down there. My son is at SMCC in the trades program there. And my youngest is at CU Boulder and she's playing lacrosse.

Lisa Belisle: So this is a different phase of your life as well?

Chris Strong: Yes, that's part of my 50 and shifty. It's funny, because there are evenings where you realize how different your life is when the kids aren't there, because I don't have sporting events to go to and meetings and theater productions or music, whatever the case may be. So I fortunately have a tremendous group of friends, and my activities with the appraisal and the fitness stuff keep me busy. But it's a strange time. I hope to go to Australia and visit my toddler down there. I'd love to do that.

Lisa Belisle: I always use my children as an excuse to travel. So I'm with you in that solidarity.

Chris Strong: A little traveling, see them. Yes.

Lisa Belisle: Why real estate appraisal?

Chris Strong: Great question. My brother has owned a real estate appraisal business for years, over 20 years. The idea is that I would be trained by him as an appraiser, a trainee. You need, I think, a thousand hours, and you need a supervisor. So the idea is that I would be supervised by him. But subsequently, I passed my initial exams and then I was starting to get ready to train with him, and he sold the business to a national company. So it was tremendous for him, but it was unfortunate for me, because he can't be my supervisor anymore. But I do have a fantastic woman who's helping me along. I just wanted to use my brain differently.

Lisa Belisle: I don't know that much about real estate appraisal. So it sounds like there's some sort of a licensing certification process that you go through, in addition to some education. Tell me about that.

Chris Strong: Yes, there are. There are requirements to just become a trainee. You have to take some, like four exams. It's like maybe a semester of college class, but condensed. And then you have to have a supervisor, and you have to, I think it's a thousand hours, but you have to do it. You can't do it in less than six months. So you're doing it at least for six months, being supervised by someone else. And then you take a licensing exam through the state, and they have to review three of your appraisal reports and make sure they're all tip top. So I think the appraisal industry, from my understanding, and this is talking to my brother, is a business that's hard to get into, because you need an appraiser who's equally busy to supervise you, and they have to go over the report, they have to sign the report. So to have someone take time out of their own career to supervise someone else is a big ask. But that's what I'm doing now. And it's working out. It's a steep learning curve for sure. But I've been here before, the legal stuff.

Lisa Belisle: It does seem like you don't just pivot, you actually move to a completely different set of train tracks.

Chris Strong: Right, it is, definitely. I mean, there's some, I have to review deeds, so there are some things that connect to the law, and the research part that I love is an aspect also. But it's been a, there's a form and there's a lot of information you have to gather and put in that form. So it's been a lot to learn.

Lisa Belisle: As you're doing these things that are more intellectual, how are you continuing that physical aspect of things that's really important to you?

Chris Strong: Right. I did want to make sure that I didn't leave fitness altogether. It wouldn't make me happy to leave that. I really need people. I realized that. It's why I didn't stay in the firm ultimately, because I was just researching all the time, typing on my computer. I needed people, which is why going in-house counsel was more appealing. The corporate world has a lot of meetings, probably too many meetings, but I was dealing more with people. So I knew when I went into the appraisal, it can be isolating, because you are on your computer a lot. But the fitness stuff, I'm working at a place called Limber now doing classes. It's a new gym in Falmouth. So for anyone who's looking for a class, that space has been opened up by Casey Erickson. She's a chiropractor, and she's brought in a number of practitioners. There's some massage therapists, physical therapists, a doctor, a yoga instructor. So a number of different fitness aspects and wellness aspects that are coming into this business called Limber. And it's on Route One in Falmouth. So that's where I'm spending my mornings twice a week, connecting with people, and a lot of my clients that I've had for years from Strong Bodies are participating, which is great.

Lisa Belisle: Was it hard to give up your own business? Because you had worked so hard to do this, and then had your name on it, and you had developed a group of people that you worked with. And then I know it must have been pretty significantly impacted by Covid. But despite all that, was it hard to finally say, no, this isn't working for me anymore?

Chris Strong: You know, I think when I made the decision, it was fairly, I was fairly certain about it. So that part was fine. It kind of dissolved and there was a transition. I was able to hand over the gym space and some clientele to another trainer, which was great, because it was some consistency for people. And this trainer was starting out and wanted her own space. So that was great. That made me feel good. But I suddenly had a lot less interaction with people, and I wasn't in the gym space doing the exercise and the training with people. And there was definitely a void for sure. My identity was certainly tied up in Strong Bodies. And I did have to go through a bit of a grieving process with that. I was very fortunate to hook up with a high school friend, Mark Holmes. He opened up a gym called Health Coaches in Portland. So I'm doing a little bit of personal training there, and kept some clients I've had for 10 years or more. And then I'm doing classes with Casey at Limber. And in both cases they've allowed me to keep the name, which is really nice. It's a really nice gesture on their part. It's a way to stay connected with that community that I built. And I'm grateful for that.

Lisa Belisle: This idea of identity is something that's interesting to me, because you're describing the identity being associated with the business that you built. There's also the identity of being the coach and the mentor and the teacher, and how that has morphed into the next aspect of your life, how you bring that along. I don't know enough about appraising to say whether that's actually an element of it or not.

Chris Strong: Are you asking about the relationships that are built, or the —

Lisa Belisle: Well, I think it's more like who you consider yourself to be.

Chris Strong: Right, that's a tough question, Lisa. I have to think on that one.

Lisa Belisle: You're a little bit, you're an attorney, so at least trained as one.

Chris Strong: Yes. I think, this is, I'm not unique in this. I think we all get to a point where something changes in our lives and we're stuck with ourselves. We kind of look at, okay, who am I and what do I want? And I know bottom line that relationships are important to me. I need my solo time, but it may not be in the gym setting ultimately. I think I rely on my family kind of to anchor me. And I want to be that for my kids too. I want to make sure that they know I'm here. But I think just being open to what comes, ultimately that's where I am. I'm gonna be open to whatever comes my way and embrace it.

Lisa Belisle: So it's interesting. I love this response, because what you're saying is, my identity is not as the owner of a business, the owner of a gym, a coach, an instructor, a mentor. My identity is in its connection to other people, whatever that looks like. So not getting locked into having to be in a particular profession, or playing a particular role. It's just knowing what you yourself feel passionate about.

Chris Strong: Exactly. And my identity doesn't have to have a label, I don't think. If it's connection with people, I mean, I have one of my very good friends is 20 years older than me, and then I have a very good friend who's 20 years younger than me. So that's part of who I am. I have a lot of relationships with a lot of different people. After this, I'm going to go have coffee with an 84-year-old client of mine who I'm not training right now. So that's who I am. That's my identity, I think, is just the connection, the people I have relationships with. And that's super fulfilling.

Lisa Belisle: And that's a much easier thing to bring along with you as time goes on.

Chris Strong: Yes. Because it can change. And it's less, I think if I were just to identify with Strong Bodies, I'd be a pretty sad person right now, because it's not as big a part of my life as it was.

Lisa Belisle: And yet that's what a lot of people do. What people identify with: the person they've trained to be, the education they have, the degree they have, the business they build. And I think it's incredibly difficult for people to give that up.

Chris Strong: Yes, I agree. And I'm not sure what the answer to that is, but I think it's just self, it's work that people need to do on themselves.

Lisa Belisle: I agree. It's hard.

Chris Strong: It's hard. It's hard being human.

Lisa Belisle: It is hard being human.

Chris Strong: It's hard being human. But it's so fantastic too. I love it.

Lisa Belisle: I learn a lot about humans every day, including myself.

Chris Strong: Yes, I bet you do.

Lisa Belisle: So when you think about your own children, is there anything that you hope they would bring forward from the time you've spent with them? Any sort of life lessons that you hope they've moved into their own adult lives with?

Chris Strong: Yes. They've all had challenges. And I kind of like to embrace the challenges. So I like to help them embrace it. There's lessons to be learned in the hard times, and there are a lot of good times. I think, if you look at Facebook and Instagram, it looks like it's all good times. There are no hard times there. But there are, there are hard times and challenges. And I think ultimately, and this is kind of overused also, but just teaching them self-worth, to love themselves first, it's gonna dissolve a lot of other issues. Other things just won't matter as much. And they'll be maybe a little less angst and a little less pain along the way if they can just love who they are, and embrace things. Embrace the hard times. Be like, okay, there's something to be learned in this, and I'm gonna be better for going through this. That's what I hope for them.

Lisa Belisle: That's a good hope.

Chris Strong: Yes, thank you.

Lisa Belisle: I'm gonna dramatically change scenes here, and I want you to tell me the story about Christina's World. And I'll tell you why I want you to tell this story. Having myself not that much background in art, this was one of the early things that I learned about, was Christina's World and the print that somebody once showed me when I was a youngster at Yarmouth High School, living on the coast, not that far away from the Wyeths. It was one of my very early touch points to art. So when I saw that you had this story, I thought I would like to hear this.

Chris Strong: Yes. It also is my early touchpoint to art. It was the singular print we had in our house growing up, and it was in a very prominent position in the living room. It was always there. I can't remember a time where it wasn't there, until my parents moved from there. My mom always loved that print. They picked it up at a store in Rockland. The Wyeths summered in Cushing, and my mom's grandfather had a place not far from Christina Olson's home. So my mom would frequently pass by there. So it had some significance to her. And obviously having the Wyeths the town next door was very cool. But there is a funny family story connection to the Wyeths. And again, there was no real personal relationship or ongoing experience with them. But my aunt and her friend, her girlfriend, they had a double date set up with Nathaniel Wyeth, Nicky. So it's Andrew Wyeth's son, one of his kids. He had five kids. So she was going on a double date with her friend, with Nicky and his friend. And apparently the boys stood the girls up. They did not show up. So Nicky came by my grandmother's house to apologize to my aunt for that. And I guess he ended up staying for two hours and talking to her. They were just kind of having conversation in the kitchen. And my mom, who's younger at the time, she must have been junior high or high school, was in the bathroom next to the kitchen with curlers in her hair for two hours, because she did not want to leave the bathroom and be humiliated with the curlers in her hair. So that's this Nicky Wyeth story that we had. And I guess there was no animosity, the conversation just ended after two hours, and they never dated again. But my mom could not leave the bathroom because she was so embarrassed.

Lisa Belisle: So her hair either looked really good, or —

Chris Strong: Oh, really bad. Really bad. Two hours.

Lisa Belisle: She said curls though. And your life could have been completely different, if that double date had maybe taken place.

Chris Strong: Oh my goodness. I never even thought about that. Yes, I guess so.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I do love the fact that you and I are basically just at heart two girls growing up on the coast, experiencing art in a really specific and different way than maybe others do, through these prints on our wall. And I think your life, from what I'm hearing, you and I share a lot of similarities over time. I appreciate having had the chance to learn more about you.

Chris Strong: Well, thank you so much. I've known about you and run into you so many times, but never had the chance to really sit down and talk to you. So I appreciate this opportunity. Thank you.

Lisa Belisle: Today was the day.

Chris Strong: It was. Thank you.

Lisa Belisle: Today on Radio Maine, I have been speaking with Chris Strong, another woman from Maine who I've shared a lot of commonalities and experiences with over the years. And if you're in Maine, I hope that you actually look her up when she becomes a real estate appraiser officially. Or if you think you need some limbering, you can certainly find her for some personal training and some fitness. But we are fortunate to have Chris Strong as one of the wonderful women living here in Maine with us. I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle, and this is Radio Maine. Thank you.