We had the good fortune of connecting with Rachel Bellotti and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rachel, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I am originally from a northern suburb of Chicago, IL. At fourteen I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma – Stage II and underwent surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation at the Chicago Children’s Hospital (now Lurie Children’s Hospital). Being diagnosed and having cancer absolutely changed my life, but surprisingly the struggle with my survivorship and my relationship to being a survivor has maybe been harder and had an even more of a profound impact on my life. Since going into remission, I have spent the last 22 years or so wrestling to find my place in the world – my authentic voice. I have always had a rebellion in me. Even as a little girl, my mom said that I was talking about things that I shouldn’t have understood, like infinity and injustice, and challenging people and not following the rules. I had fight and fire. But after getting sick, nothing made sense. I started to follow the path of least resistance. I did what I was told. I trusted others more than my own heart. I was scared of myself and my body and felt betrayed and abandoned by it. I didn’t trust my body to know how to function properly. I worried that it was out to get me. I got used to having to trust adults and doctors over myself, that I eventually stopped listening to me. I spent years curating stories about myself that allowed other people to feel comfortable and safe while neglecting my truths. I had a sugar-coated, canned narrative of my cancer experience, crafted with just enough shock value, coupled with the right amount of courage. Even my delivery was intentional, delivered in the preferred amount of time, as to not overwhelm my audience and give them an easy exit. I numbed myself for most of my twenties in all sorts of ways and struggled with survivors’ guilt. I couldn’t relate to other cancer survivors who had these life-altering epiphanies. They seemed to know what was truly important in life, and how to live from their hearts above all else. I felt like a fraud because that was not my experience. I felt guilty for how I was living – if I was here, alive, breathing, over someone else who didn’t get to survive cancer, than my life better be worthy of a second chance. And yet…underneath this numbed existence, a fire in me raged. Behind closed doors, when I was dancing, in my journals there was a force getting louder and louder, insisting it be unleashed. It started to show up in wild, spontaneous expressions of anger or creativity, but I kept it quiet because I was still scared of myself – I still believed that there was a part of me that was bad, tainted, foul. When I was 30, I shaved my head as part of a childhood cancer research fundraiser, broke up with my boyfriend, and was hired at a company in Vancouver Canada as their brand director. Here I worked with young girls to empower them to be whoever and whatever they wanted to be – to stay true to themselves. As I looked into a mirror through the eyes of these young girls something snapped. My words were rhetoric and meant nothing if I couldn’t live it for myself. So I quit. I quit my 6 figure salaried job with the fancy title in the coolest city I have ever lived and I moved to Milwaukee, WI. With no job. No idea what I was doing. No plan. No self-worth beyond a paycheck and a title. No attachments. No direction. No clue who I really was. And this is where I started to reconnect with myself, and I started to connect with other people who were also wrestling with who they were. I found a woman named Jenell Riesner, who hired me as a Studio Manager of a Cycling + Rowing studio, SPIRE Fitness. When we were working, fixing the equipment and cleaning the studio we talked about life. We talked with raw candor about our struggles and our curiosities and our frustrations and our confusion about life. We talked about how messy cancer and survivorship ACTUALLY was for me. We talked about dysfunction. We talked about losing ourselves in work and life. At some point, we started pulling other people into the conversations who we thought might have answers for us. To our surprise, they too had the same questions we did – these amazing humxns that we looked up to were ALSO wrestling with how to be themselves! Why was no one openly talking about this?! So we started to record these super raw, real, un-edited conversations. Conversations that left the door open to big questions. Conversations that created space to dance with the questions of life without needing answers. Conversations that allowed us to really see and hear one another and celebrate our differences and our humxn universalities. This became THE TRUE NORTH COLLECTIVE – a podcast project of un-sugar-coated conversations with everyday people fearlessly finding and living their true north. It is the work of my heart and soul. It gives me life. It gives me permission to be myself and reminds me to come back to myself when I get lost. It’s a celebration and reminder for me that authenticity isn’t a finite set of qualities or something to grasp onto, but a journey to go on. A way of life. A way of being that is inclusive and expansive and curious. It’s my fight and fire – my second chance at life.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
THE TRUE NORTH COLLECTIVE podcast and brand is a space for un-sugar-coated conversations with everyday people fearlessly finding and living their TRUE NORTH. In 2016, Jenell Riesner and I (co-founders) were both working at a cycle + rowing studio in Milwaukee, WI, called SPIRE Fitness. While spending full days at the studio cleaning and fixing equipment, we started talking super openly about life. The ups, the downs, the chaos, the confusion, the good, the ugly, the inspiring, and ultimately how to be true to ourselves and what that even means. In our own obsessive search for authenticity, we started to connect with other people from all walks of life, doing all sorts of amazing things to live life in their own unique ways. As we spoke with these incredible humxns to understand their “secrets”, we were shocked to realize that in all their glory, they too were also still trying to figure out what it meant to be true to themselves. And that’s how THE TRUE NORTH COLLECTIVE came to be. Our purpose has become to record these real-time, raw, vulnerable, honest dialogues that share the untold stories of the realities of truly being your most authentic self. To celebrate the everyday people who are out there creating their own realities and up to BIG things in their own ways to inspire each of us to do the same. Our intention is to create content that feels like you are here in the room with us – dog barks, mistakes, burps, snorts and all. There is little to no editing as we have found that the real, messy stuff is usually the most magical and impactful. This is not a space for advice, how-to’s, guidelines, or answers but a place to crack open a door, shine a light on the things we keep hidden, normalize and breath life into the parts of life we are told we aren’t supposed to talk about and to know we aren’t alone in this quest of being our true selves. Our approach to building THE TRUE NORTH COLLECTIVE has been to keep showing up again and again even when we aren’t sure we’re ready. To create content that we enjoy making and makes us feel alive. Saying yes and being willing to adapt quickly and walk away from what isn’t working to adjust to what’s needed. We never get too attached to any one way so that we can create content that meets us and our audience where we are at, now. We’ve learned how to be ok in screwing it up and then getting back on the saddle with the same passion we had the first go-round. And finally, as big fans of GaryVee, we would rather have one super engaged and dedicated follower whose life is changed by our work, then a million who just happen to know of us. We are currently in Season 3 and per the request of our collective, have started to expand our reach to bring these conversations beyond the podcast through workshops, virtual community chats, and experiential content. THE TRUE NORTH COLLECTIVE experience is an invitation to open up to who you truly are. To explore the untapped parts of ourselves that have been kept quiet and are ready to be explored. To be exactly where you are on your journey alongside others doing the same and knowing that there is no one way or right way to do this thing called life. THE TRUE NORTH COLLECTIVE can be heard on all channels where podcasts are found (see links below). New episodes go live every Friday and are about 75-90 minutes long, unpacking and wrestling with different aspects of authenticity and living your TRUE NORTH. Examples of topics you can expect to see – trusting yourself, identity confusion, spirituality, relationship to your body, commitment issues, finding your voice, labels, self-sabotage, death and living your true north, how the creative process plays a role in being you, and more. Check THE TRUE NORTH COLLECTIVE’s Instagram page and bio for upcoming events and experiences. s: thetruenorthcollective.org IG: @thetruenorthcollective Pinterest: @thetruenorthcollective spotify: @thetruenorthcollective iTunes: @thetruenorthcollective stitcher: @thetruenorthcollectivepodcast podbean: @thetruenorthcollective google play: @thetruenorthcollective tunein: @thetruenorthcollectivepodcast

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Oh boy I am the worst host every, however, I do have some favorite spots! We would eat breakfast at Taco Joint in Old East Dallas, then for sure walk the Trinity River Levees and check out the Fabrication Yard to tag some TRUE NORTH signs. Then maybe head over to the Oasis Plant shop in Bishop Arts to get some new plant friends, grab some Aesop samples, and wander around the shops looking for crystals. When we get hungry, we’d swing by Chris Harrison’s brewery and bar, Steam Theory Brewing (Bachelor is my guilty pleasure!!), have a pizza, play a board game, and then head back over to Bishop Arts to hit up Melt for a cup of their amazing Velvet Vegan. Finally, we’d end the night at Reveler’s Hall for some New Orleans Style Jazz and dancing in the streets, with a bottle of Lone Star (I’ll take the riddle cap, please!).

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to dedicate this shout out to all the guests of our podcast – THE TRUE NORTH COLLECTIVE – for courageously trusting us with their stories of authenticity. For being vulnerable and willing to pull back the curtain of their lives so that others can feel less alone, more connected, and inspired to be their own unique selves. You have all profoundly changed Jenell and my life and we wouldn’t be who we are today without you. I would also like to shoutout one of my friends and mentor, Mark Gullickson (Gully), who met me as I was moving to Milwaukee with no idea of who I was or what I was doing. He has always believed in me at all costs and allowed me to see the magic that is me even when I was brought to my knees. He had a stroke last year and is slowly recovering, and he inspires me every day to do my best and let go of the outcome.

Website: http://thetruenorthcollective.org/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetruenorthcollective_/?hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/37556713
Other: Pinterest: @thetruenorthcollective spotify: @thetruenorthcollective iTunes: @thetruenorthcollective stitcher: @thetruenorthcollectivepodcast podbean: @thetruenorthcollective google play: @thetruenorthcollective tunein: @thetruenorthcollectivepodcast