Today we’d like to introduce you to Hannah Derrickson
Hi Hannah, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I developed a curiosity for how to best take care of myself at a very young age. I was extremely active, but I didn’t feel like I knew what it meant to be “healthy”. In the seventh grade, I started trying to educate myself on all things health and got my hands on every blog post, Pinterest recipe, and article I could find. I continued to do this throughout high school and college, studying each new trend that came to the market. Keto, juicing, plant-based…you name it. Throughout that time spent studying and trying to pinpoint the ultimate path to health, I quickly got discouraged when I realized how much conflicting information was out there.
I graduated college in the Spring of 2021 and started my job in the fashion industry. Even though I was very passionate about health and wellness, a career in the industry never felt like an option, nor had I really considered it. About 6 months into my corporate fashion job, I realized that this evergrowing interest in health was going to give me no choice but to take it a step further. I would daydream about everything I wanted to do in the wellness space; the education I wanted to provide, the hope I wanted to give those who felt completely lost, and the empowerment I could give others by simply enhancing their health. With the social media landscape continuing to grow and countless opportunities to flourish as an entrepreneur, it felt like the right time to take a leap of faith and lean further into what was starting to feel like a calling. While still working my job in fashion, I enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition’s health coaching course to take my education a step beyond podcasts, books, and online articles. At first, I thought that obtaining my health coaching certification would scratch my itch and allow me to break into the space, but the more I learned, the more I wanted to know. I also quickly realized that I could learn as much as I wanted to about nutrition but every person still needs different approaches based on their lifestyle, health history, hormones, and more. So, to keep immersing myself in the world of wellness, I started schooling to become a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner, which gave me access to top-tier functional lab tests, and ultimately, invaluable data to assess one’s health.
At this point, I had not taken clients yet and was still working my corporate job. I wanted to feel as prepared as possible before beginning to take on clients, so I decided to enroll in two more certification programs. One of these certification programs was in blood chemistry, and it completely changed how I think about health. This was the missing piece I needed to help people assess what their individual body needed and make adequate, data-backed recommendations.
About 6 months later, I took my private practice full time and it has truly been the most challenging, yet rewarding process. I see clients under my practice part of the week and I’m also helping to build out CLEARSTEM Skincare’s telehealth division where we help those suffering from chronic acne uncover the root cause through functional lab testing.
I’m 25, and while there are many unknowns in this chapter of life, one thing I’m deeply sure of is that one of my greatest purposes is to help people achieve optimal health, increase longevity, and prevent disease. We all deserve to feel our best, most vibrant selves, but we’re not always set up with the tools to do so.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
If any entrepreneur or founder says it has been a completely smooth road, I would bet they’re lying. I’ve quickly learned that entrepreneurship is one big personal development journey.
I come from a family of entrepreneurs and have always loved the business aspect of it. The most challenging part of my journey has been accepting that my service will never be perfected. Let me explain!
When you want to sell a product, ideally you work with other companies and manufacturers until you have that product perfected, then you go to market to sell it. In my business, while I have certainly done the work to have a strong and extensive knowledge of the human body, there will always be something I don’t know, a topic I could spend more time studying, and so on. By choosing a career in functional medicine, I have committed to being a true lifelong student, which means there will always be ways I can improve my client experience!
When the above concept seems overwhelming to me, I remind myself that my intention is to serve. If I lead my business with my primary goal being to serve others and add to their lives through the lens of health, I have to be doing something right.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Hannah Brooke Wellness ?
My mission is to help people achieve optimal health through education, functional lab testing and strategic coaching. I believe that health should be personalized, not generalized. We’re all very bio-individual and our bodies require different nutrition, workouts, and lifestyles in order to thrive. Understanding how to best take care of our body based on its individual needs is one of the greatest tools we can possess. By coupling education and personalized data with sustainable behavioral changes, I work to unlock one’s personal roadmap to optimal health.
While I use a variety of functional lab tests, I specialize in blood chemistry. Bloodwork is an amazing tool to show us what the body is needing in the present moment, and if we can look at it through a preventative lens, then we can do a lot of good. In all of my services, I always start with a comprehensive bloodwork panel and continue to dig deeper from there!
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I actually got into the functional medicine field after being misdiagnosed with Hashimotos! I received a diagnosis and was immediately put on medication. After a few weeks, I intuitively felt it wasn’t right so I stopped the medication, which was around the time I started diving into schooling and education about how to read bloodwork results.
Fast forward to today, all of my thyroid markers are in optimal range without any medication. I often share this story with clients because while there is certainly a time and place for medication, it shouldn’t always be the first lever pulled. Additionally, I believe we’ve lost touch with how to listen to our bodies. If something isn’t intuitively feeling right, like a medication, supplement, or diet, we need to help people lean into that rather than steer them away.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hannahbrookewellness.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hannahbrookewellness
