Better Beings Founder Michelle Zellner Marks 25th Year of Helping People Achieve Physical, Mental & Emotional Wellbeing

Michelle Zellner, founder of Better Beings^®, is celebrating her 25th year in the business, providing a holistic approach to physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Zellner is a personal trainer, CEO, coach, author of two books, podcast host, and keynote speaker who has been a catalyst for thousands of people transforming their lives.

According to Zellner, the journey began in her childhood in a small town in Wisconsin, where she was a competitive gymnast. This developed in her a love for exercise, as well as shaped her relationship with food and nutrition. However, Zellner felt that the small town life wasn’t for her, so she chose to attend college at University of Hawaii at Manoa to study psychology. Following that, her interest in health and fitness led her to obtain her Master’s degree in kinesiology at University of Colorado Boulder.

With her educational background helping her understand how people’s minds and bodies work, Zellner became a personal trainer when it was still a niche occupation catering only to the very wealthy. Beginning as an independent contractor in 1997, she named her business Better Beings ®, acknowledging that helping people achieve better bodies and better minds resulted in better human beings.

“My professional mission is to help people become better human beings physically, mentally, and emotionally. I guide people who are not 100% satisfied with their health, happiness towards the best version of themselves. We work closely together to determine what needs to be done and, most importantly, how to do it,” Zellner says. “It’s going to require a lot of hard work. I’m not the type to sugarcoat things and I tell clients the truth. But, I try to do it in an empathetic, kind, and compassionate way.” In 2019, Zellner published her first book,The You Revolution®: The Journey of a Better Being,

which she compares to a user’s manual for how to be human, as we are rarely taught how to take care of ourselves and, instead, are expected to just know how to do it. The book contains the class content that Zellner has been teaching over the years, as well as her personal stories and experiences. It also provides a layman’s approach to understanding the various workings of the human body and mind, such as blood sugar and cholesterol levels, stress, and work-life balance. According to Zellner, an updated second edition of this book is on the horizon.

Her second book, published in 2021, is The PFF is Your BFF ® Handbook, which is short for “protein, fat, and fiber is your best friend forever”, a phrase that she has trademarked. It is an extrapolation of the nutrition chapter in the previous book, and discusses how having the three nutrients in each meal is key to proper nutrition. The book is a quick guide to demonstrate how to fuel a busy body, including examples for those with dietary preferences or restrictions.

In 2020, Better Beings^® launched its online learning resource, the YOU Revolution YOUniversity, containing numerous self-paced courses in topics such as weight loss, nutrition, and stress management. Learners can select individual courses or purchase the whole catalog.

Harnessing the growing popularity of podcasting, Zellner launched the Be a Better Being podcast earlier this year, co-hosted with her friend Sasha Berscheid. The weekly podcast provides listeners with information and inspiration to help you live your healthiest, happiest life.

While she has been working as a personal trainer and coach since 1997, Zellner has branched out into public speaking over the past decade or so. She conducts corporate wellbeing seminars, conferences, empowerment workshops, and leadership workshops on topics concerning becoming a healthy, happy human. More recently, she became a keynote speaker, being invited to speak in front of the American Heart Association in Alaska at the Go Red for Women annual fundraising event.

“I am looking forward to doing more keynote speaking engagements,” Zellner says. “No matter what the theme of the speech is, I always connect with the audience. I try to be entertaining even when the subject might not be so fun. Whoever your audience is, I make sure that I curate a message that is appropriate for them, while delivering it in an inspirational and informational way. I want them to leave feeling not only uplifted, but knowing that they actually can do something to improve their lives and others’.”