A successful fitness entrepreneur with national TV credits, Dong led master classes in conditioning and a professional development session, "Harnessing Your Authenticity to Launch Your Career," during a campus visit
Finding success as an artist and entrepreneur has as much to do with understanding your purpose as talent and hard work, Colette Dong ’14 told undergraduates in Elon’s Dance Program during a recent campus visit.
Dong should know. She’s the co-founder and co-owner of The Ness — a booming fitness company with clients around the globe — and has been featured on NBC’s “Today,” “The Drew Barrymore Show” and in the New York Times. She also was Elon’s first student to graduate with degrees in both dance performance and choreography and dance science.
Through several master classes offering instruction and critique, as well as a career-building session, “Harnessing Your Authenticity to Launch Your Career,” Dong provided students with real-world advice to develop the mindset, skills and resilience needed for success.
“Your purpose and your passion are essentially your brand. It’s who you are and how you put yourself out into the world. That purpose is really what’s going to drive you in life and it’s how you lead an authentic career where you find happiness,” Dong said Thursday, March 30, to about 30 dancers assembled in the Center for the Arts. “What’s the point if you’re not happy in what you do?”
After graduating from Elon, Dong completed a season with the American Dance Festival before returning to New York City where she worked as a dancer and Pilates instructor with hospitality jobs on the side. Shifting into fitness training, which she found aligned with her values and purpose, she and Alison Giampolo founded The Ness in 2018 to create in-person and online movement- and choreography-based workouts — some of which involve trampolines. They officially launched in 2019, introduced the trampoline routines in 2020, and their revenues tripled over the next two years. This year, The Ness is opening a location in the Hamptons.
“We’re continuing to grow and now the business is almost running itself,” Dong said.
Dong had students complete a brief exercise in identifying their values and purpose before plotting a roadmap to success involving research, organization and building an authentic network.
“Your network is essential, and your network is in this room with you right now. Lean on them and create authentic relationships. Play the long game. Really give to them as much as they will take from you,” Dong said.
While at Elon, Dong was also the first dance science major to present research at the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science and be awarded a competitive internship at Harkness Center for Dance Injuries at NYU Langone Health. Professor of Dance Lauren Kearns worked closely with Dong while she was at Elon, including mentoring her in undergraduate research, and followed her career in the years since graduation.
“Colette’s career expertly blends both of her degrees, and I wanted our dance performance and choreography students as well as our dance science majors to gain a deeper understanding of the various career pathways in movement that they can forge,” Kearns said. “Colette is a creative innovator and disruptor in the boutique fitness industry who has methodically build an authentic and wholistic career centered on body-mind conditioning and wellness.”
Early after graduation, Dong said she was initially hesitant to ask people for help or money to pursue goals. Experience taught her the best ways to ask people for favors: Ask the right person and make sure you tell them why they are the right person; offer something in return; set a schedule and offer dates and times to follow-up.
“If you don’t ask, it doesn’t happen. Period,” she said. “Make it easy for the person, be direct, and make sure you have a purpose going into it.”
She advised students to create crisis response plans for worst-case scenarios, identifying in advance networks for support, financial assistance and mental well-being.
“I like to think about it as planting seeds,” Dong said. “Every day you are planting seeds. So when you’re feeling defeated, tell yourself, ‘I planted a lot of seeds today.’”
Students appreciated the candor and practicality of Dong’s advice.
Makayla Kanerviko ’23, a double major in dance science and entrepreneurship, said Dong’s guidance helped her better identify a path toward a career in fitness entrepreneurship.
“She’s very well-accomplished in how she brands herself, and I think that’s really important as to how you put yourself out into the world. She really covered how to do that today,” Kanerviko said. “I’ve made connections with trainers outside of Elon, and Collette really dove into how important that kind of networking is.”
Madison Valgardson ’24, a dance science major said Dong’s conditioning master class provided a greater awareness of the connection between the mind and body, while the career-building workshop helped her begin to confront fears about venturing into the world after Elon.
“This workshop was a beautiful reminder to ask myself, ‘Why not go for it and try?’,” Valgardson said. “We often don’t go for things out of fear. I think that’s because we forget that we aren’t going through things alone, we can always have or find a support system. Collette is inspirational because she decided to jump and go for what she wanted.”