Jazzercise: Judi Sheppard Missett

Judi Sheppard Missett wandered into her first dance class when she was 2, and hasn't stopped dancing since. In the late 1960s, she was teaching jazz dance in Chicago and her students—mostly young moms—complained she was acting too much like a Broadway taskmaster, when all they wanted was get in shape and have a good time. Seeing an opportunity, Judi created Jazzercise: a hybrid of aerobics and dance that ushered in a new culture of spandexed, synchronized movement and became one of the first workout programs for women with mass appeal. With the help of video technology and franchising, Jazzercise eventually spread around the world, growing into the $100 million business it is today. Order the How I Built This book at: https://smarturl.it/HowIBuiltThisSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

  We get support from US Bank. A question I love asking founders. What's the one decision you almost didn't make? The one that changed everything? Because it's never the obvious stuff. It's never, I decided to start a company. It's the small, boring, Tuesday afternoon decision you barely remember making until you realize it's the reason everything after it either worked or didn't. Say you're 18 months in. Business is growing. You've got expenses coming from six directions. Gas for the van, office supplies, your phone bill, team lunches that are actually client meetings, and you're putting it all on whatever card you grabbed in year one. You're not thinking about it. Why would you? You've got bigger problems.

• 0:45Guy Raz?

  But here's the thing. Path A, you keep going like that. End of the year, you're sorting through statements, trying to figure out what went where. You've left hundreds, maybe thousands, on the table in rewards you never earned. Money that could have gone back into the business. Path B, you pause and get the US Bank Triple Cash Rewards Visa Business Card. Now, you're earning 3% cash back on gas and EV charging, office supply stores, cellphone service, and restaurants. You pick up an extra $750 cash back as a bonus. And you've got a low APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 months while you're scaling. Same business, same expenses, two completely different outcomes

• 1:30Guy Raz?

  based on one small decision. Visit usbank.com/business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. Our presenting sponsor today is Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Every founder on this show started with a hard question. Not the marketing plan, the 2:00 AM kind. Is this idea any good? Am I the one to build it? Should I quit my job? Anthropic got built the same way. A public benefit corporation founded on one Hard question. How do we make sure AI goes well for people?

• 2:14Guy Raz?

  So they asked over 100,000 people their hopes and their fears and are publishing what they find, even the uncomfortable parts. Me? I've got my own hard question about AI. Here it is. If everyone has access to something that can help them write the business plan, build the prototype, analyze the market, maybe even come up with the idea. What separates the people who actually build something from everyone else? I don't have a clean answer yet, so I've been sitting with it with Claude. There's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai/hibt. If you travel often, you'll want to hear about this unprecedented offer.

• 2:58Guy Raz?

  For the first time ever, new Delta SkyMiles Reserve American Express Card members can earn two Delta Comfort round trip flights for travel within the 48 contiguous US states, Puerto Rico, or the US Virgin Islands. Plus, you can earn 50,000 bonus miles towards your next getaway. And who doesn't appreciate an elevated airport experience? Delta SkyMiles Reserve Card members get access to the Delta Sky Club, your pre-flight oasis to recharge, with 15 visits and four one-time guest passes each medallion year when flying Delta together. That's up to $950 in annual value.

• 3:40Guy Raz?

  Value estimate based on $50 per visit rate to purchase additional visits or bring a guest to the Delta Sky Club. Make every trip feel more rewarding with the card that upgrades your travel. Apply today at delta.com/cardsocial. Offer ends November 4, 2026. Minimum spending requirements and terms apply. Flights are fulfilled as flight certificates valid for Delta Comfort or Delta Main to select domestic destinations. Book 21-plus days in advance. Up to $80 per person and taxes and fees apply. Other restrictions apply. Does your team want a website that looks and feels handcrafted but is still fast to ship? Well, Framer is built exactly for that.

• 4:24Guy Raz?

  With Framer, you design on a visual canvas with responsive layouts, hosting, and a CMS built in, so the work is production-ready from day one. And you can get it done with help from Framer's AI agents. Framer is the AI website builder that helps creators, teams, and businesses ship production-ready sites faster than ever while getting every detail right. Prompt, inspect, edit, and publish in one place at a whole new pace. AI agents and humans work together. The agents bring speed and scale, and people bring taste, judgment, and control. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building

• 5:07Guy Raz?

  for free today at framer.com/built for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/built. Rules and restrictions may apply.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  When I started this class, you know, I had many dancer friends. And they said to me, "What in the heck are you doing?" And I said, "What do you mean?" They said, "Well, you're bastardizing the art of dance." And I said, "Well, you know, I'm doing this to help these women, and they're feeling better about themselves, and they're happy. And plus, I'm able to teach them an appreciation for dance that they never had before. So now, when they come to watch you, my friend, perform, they're going to appreciate what you have to go through to do what you do."

• 6:13Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 6:24Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Judy Shepherd-Macet became one of the first people to turn exercise into a business, and that business into a brand, Jazzercise, still around and now grossing $100 million a year.

• 6:48Guy Raz?

  Even by Southern California standards, my mom was a bit of an outlier. Back in the early 1980s, our kitchen pantry was stocked with things like quinoa and carob beans and Ezekiel bread. And our fridge was packed with things like jicama and rainbow chard and sprouts. At school, I'd look enviously at the other kids as they feverishly pulled out Twinkies and Ho Ho's and Fruit Roll-Ups from their lunches as I unwrapped an Ezekiel bread sandwich stuffed with avocado, alfalfa sprouts and tomatoes. My juice box was the school water fountain. And my mom was already practicing yoga in the late 1970s. And she always had a keen interest in new fitness trends.

• 7:32Guy Raz?

  So in the early 1980s, she became, for a brief moment, an early adopter of Jazzercise. Saturday mornings, she'd move the coffee table in front of the TV, pop in the Jazzercise video and start to warm up as the theme song plays. On the screen, a group of mostly women moved their bodies to a combination of novelty and disco songs. It was all about constant movement, hip gyrations, high knees, toe touches, a mixture of dance and aerobics.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Come on now, tone up that upper torso, yeah!

• 8:09Guy Raz?

  And then it kind of ended. The leotards, the leg warmers, the white Reeboks, all packed away. And Jazzercise seemed to fade away. Or so I thought. Because Jazzercise today is a $100 million business with more than 8,000 franchise locations around the world. But even more significantly, the story of Jazzercise is really the story of the rise of group fitness in the United States. And unlike celebrity-driven workouts like Richard Simmons or Jane Fonda, Jazzercise very intentionally focused on its program rather than its founder, Judy Shepherd-Missett. But Judy is probably as important

• 8:54Guy Raz?

  to popularizing group exercise in the US as Julia Child was to teaching Americans about French cooking. Because before Jazzercise was created in 1969, exercise was considered a thing mainly for men. And it mainly involved lifting weights. Now Judy never intended to turn what started as a dance class into a multimillion dollar business. It just sort of evolved into that. And the jazzercise phenomenon also happened just as the technology of home video was starting to take off. And Judy figured out how to tap into that audience before anyone else did.

• 9:35Guy Raz?

  But long before all that happened, Judy intended to spend her life as a professional dancer. For as long as she can remember, dance was the central thing in her life.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  My first encounter with dance was in Coronado in the San Diego area. And my mom and I were out walking and there was a dance studio and the kids were in the studio dancing. And so I wandered in and my mom just kind of let me stand there. And I started dancing and trying to do what the kids were doing. I was about two and a half. And the teacher came over to my mom and said, you know what? This little girl, she's got, she's got a gift. I think you better find a dance class for her.

• 10:23Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  And my mom said, well, we're moving to Iowa. And he said, well, you look up somebody in Iowa and get her in a dance class.

• 10:30Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 10:31Guy Raz?

  You know, it's interesting because you, you can see that sometimes with little kids.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:36Guy Raz?

  Like on the soccer field, you know, you could just, there's a little kid who just, their little body, the way it moves, it just intuitively understands the game. And, and, and so I'm not surprised.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:46Guy Raz?

  And so when you, when you went back to Iowa, did your parents do that? Did they put you in a dance class?

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. We moved back to Red Oak, Iowa. My parents were from that area in Iowa. And my mother was an incredible woman. She was an awesome mentor for me. She found a dance teacher and they took me to class. And I, because I was the littlest kid in the studio there in Iowa. And so I danced in my first recital when I was three and I did a solo. And, you know, eventually as I got older and I got better, I needed, you know, different instruction. And the instructor that I was going to,

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Was originally from Council Bluffs, Omaha area. And she moved back there, so that left me without a teacher. So my mom is very energetic. And she went to Omaha and she recruited some of the assistants of my dance teacher to come to Red Oak and open a dance studio so that I could have lessons. But also she promoted it within the town so the other kids in town could have lessons as well.

• 12:11Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  And then I got a little bit better and better. And finally, we had to drive to Omaha to my original instructor so that I could continue to progress in my dancing. And that was 50 miles round trip. So she would take me two times a week. Now, at the same time, everybody in town said, well, Judy, why don't you open a studio? So I was 13 and my parents fixed up the basement of our home and made it into a dance studio.

• 12:50Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and about, gosh, three months, I had 100 little dancers, little students.

• 12:59Guy Raz?

  You were teaching dance when you were 13?

• 13:02Speaker 01

  I was, yeah.

• 13:03Guy Raz?

  Judy, what was it about? Because from the time you were two and a half, somebody recognized a natural talent in you and then clearly you loved it.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:13Guy Raz?

  What was it about dance that you just connected with?

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I don't know exactly what it was, but I just knew that it made my life better. You know, no matter what I was going through, dance was always the thing that got me through, whatever. And I still love it. You know, I love teaching. I love doing choreography. I love taking class. I love everything about it.

• 13:47Guy Raz?

  And what kind of dance was it? Was it like jazz dance, or tap dance, or ballroom dancing? What were you doing when you were, you know, 10, 11, 12?

• 13:55Speaker 01

  I was doing tap. I was doing ballet. I was doing jazz. And it wasn't until I went to Northwestern University that I got into any kind of modern or contemporary dance. But primarily, it was tap, ballet, jazz, and acrobatic, because I'm very flexible, still even today. And so I was, you know, that was a crowd-pleasing kind of routine to perform when you were doing all these acrobatic tricks. So, you know, I think also,

• 14:36Speaker 01

  I love performing. I love being on the stage. And the neat thing about what I do today is that my audience is an active one. And when I was dancing in the theater, I had a passive audience. You know, they were watching, but not doing. Now, today, I'm dancing on the stage, and the people in front of me are dancing too. So, my ego is fulfilled, because I still get to perform, even though I'm teaching.

• 15:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So, I mean, the thing I think is important to point out, Judy, is that you weren't just a good dancer. You were like, the equivalent of a Division I athlete in dancing. Like, you, I think at age 14, like, you joined a touring company, and then you would spend your teens touring in shows that, like, West Side Story, and Funny Girl, and Hello Dolly. Like, you went to New York, and Chicago, and Atlanta, and Miami. I mean, you were a professional performer.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Yes. And that's really what I hope for, to be able to do more performing like that.

• 15:49Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Once I got to Chicago, where I went to school, I also was mentored by a fantastic

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Jazz dance master, his name was Gus Giordano. He has passed since then, but he really gave me so many opportunities. You know, I danced with his professional company. I taught in his studio. He was a tremendous mentor.

• 16:21Guy Raz?

  So you get to Northwestern, I think around 1960. And this is really before, you know, universities would become kind of hotbeds of radicalism and the hippie movement. I mean, this is still, the early 60s were basically what we think of as the 50s. And, and what do you remember about, I mean, it's probably a much more conservative place than you think it would be today, right? I mean, it was, I don't know. Or was it? Did you feel like liberated in a sense when you got there?

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I felt liberated. I think people were more open minded in that university culture, which I really came from conservative Iowa and Northwestern was not. And I love that. And, and of course, as we advanced through the 60s, there were many things that started coming to a head. And especially in Chicago, if you remember the late 60s, which I lived in Chicago through all that.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  So I felt blessed that I was able to have that experience and make up my mind about a lot of things.

• 17:35Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  That otherwise, if I'd stayed in Iowa, I might have just followed my parents' ideals. And this way I got to figure out what mine really were and my values.

• 17:49Guy Raz?

  And meantime, I think at a fairly young age, like 20 or 21, you got married to, to a guy named Jack, who you'd met at Northwestern?

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, we met on a blind date and it was during the summer. And it was sort of love at first sight, really. And when I graduated and Jack was still a senior at Northwestern, he was a journalism major, we got married.

• 18:18Guy Raz?

  Wow, wow. And, and I guess Jack eventually, he got a job as a reporter for the local CBS station in Chicago and. Pretty soon after that, you guys have a daughter, Shanna.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But, you know, back then, she was born in 1968, the end of 68. I had to disguise my pregnancy so that I could continue to work. I was doing choreography for a club called the Gaslight Club.

• 18:51Guy Raz?

  Why did you have to disguise it?

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Well, they weren't, they would be afraid of hiring me as a choreographer and a dancer, that something might happen, they would be liable, you know? And so I was working for them, doing choreography, and I needed that job. This was a really good job where I didn't have to travel so much or anything. So I just, I was very careful about weight gain. I wore clothes that pretty much disguised it to the point of, two days before I delivered Shanna, I had done a bunch of choreography with this club.

• 19:36Guy Raz?

  Nine months pregnant.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, nine months, yeah. And so, and then two days later, I delivered Shanna, and I was supposed to do rehearsal that day. And so Jack had to call them, my husband, and say, "You know, Judy won't be in because she's in the hospital." And they said, "Oh, my gosh, did she get hurt or what happened?" And he said, "No, no, she had a baby." And they said, "She had a what? Did you adopt?" And he goes, "No, no, she, it's our child." And they were bowled over, so...

• 20:14Guy Raz?

  That's unbelievable.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  You know, we laugh about that today, but hey, you had to, those kind of things you had to do.

• 20:22Guy Raz?

  All right. So you are a young mom and you're also working at Gus Giordano's jazz dance company in Chicago.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:30Guy Raz?

  And I guess you start teaching dance classes there to like to other young moms like you?

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was teaching jazz dance classes in the studio and I was still working, you know, in the theater. I had an agent and was doing stuff like that as well. And I was teaching in the morning, which tends to be a time when a lot of stay at home moms would take class and they would come take a couple of classes and, and then I never see them again. And I was like, oh my gosh, what in the world is going on? So I thought, well, I don't like this. What am I doing wrong? And I, I went to talk to some of them and they said, well, Judy, you know, we like it, but you're teaching it like we're going

• 21:22Speaker 01

  to go on and be professional dancers. And we, we don't want to do that, but we do want to look like a professional dancer. We want to have those bodies. And so, you know, what can you do for us in that department? And, and I thought, wow, that's really interesting. Because by then I'd kind of gotten into the whole fitness thing, which nobody really was into much of at that point in time.

• 21:53Guy Raz?

  Yeah. I mean, this is 1960.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  68, 69. Yeah.

• 21:58Guy Raz?

  Fitness wasn't a thing? I mean,

• 22:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:00Guy Raz?

  I mean, Jack LaLanne was doing things in California and right there's.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Well, yeah. But it was something you did to look good if you had time to do it. But, you know, not a lot of women were into it.

• 22:14Guy Raz?

  You wouldn't like see people jogging around the lake in Chicago in 1968?

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Not too often.

• 22:20Guy Raz?

  Okay.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  You, you know, there would be some, but not like today.

• 22:26Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Anyway, so I, I thought, okay, Gus, can I try something different? Kind of, you know,

• 22:34Speaker 01

  To reach out to these, this whole new group of people that we could bring into the studio who otherwise wouldn't come to a dance studio. And he said, sure, why don't you take that empty studio that's downstairs and try a class once a week? And so I put flyers up in the studio to promote it and...

• 23:01Guy Raz?

  And just to, and just to clarify, what were, what were you advertising? I mean, you, you were teaching a dance class, so how was this gonna be different? What did you call it? Or what did you, how'd you describe it?

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Well, I called it something like jazz dance for fun and fitness.

• 23:17Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  And so, the first class, I had 15 people. What I did was, I turned them away from the mirror. I made the movement simple, easy to follow, and I told them, just follow me. I will be your mirror. And we'll, we'll have fun, and we'll do movements that will really tone your body and your muscles and make you strong, but it'll be fun.

• 23:45Guy Raz?

  And you played music?

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. Oh, yeah.

• 23:48Guy Raz?

  You just put on the radio, or you had like a, this is kind of pre-cassette? This is...

• 23:51Speaker 01

  No, no, they didn't have cassettes then, but I had, I used albums and records, 33s, 78s, 45s, you know, all of that.

• 24:03Guy Raz?

  You just put a record on, and what kind of music were you playing?

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Well, I played things that you were hearing on the radio, you know? So there was variety. Soul songs, like The Temptations, or The OJs. A lot of songs from different shows, musicals, you know, that were popular at that time. That was always fun, because then people felt like, oh, I'm dancing on Broadway, you know?

• 24:31Guy Raz?

  So, did you, did you have to map it out? Or did you kind of just intuitively just say, you know what? I'm just gonna kind of move a little bit this way and then I'll move this way and we'll just see how it goes?

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I mapped it out.

• 24:41Guy Raz?

  Okay. Tell me, how did you do that?

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Well, I just thought, okay, um, how would I do this if I were producing a dance concert? So, you know, there would be an opening number and there would, there would be lots of fun, different kinds of numbers. Then there might be a slower number. And then, of course, there would be a finale. And it was all based in jazz dance technique because that's really became, you know, my, the expertise I had was in that, really. And I think the class was 45 minutes. You know, we did the last number, kind of ended on a bang and everybody applauded and

• 25:29Speaker 01

  it was like, whoa, that was, it's over? Is it over already? They always would say that. It's over already? Oh, my gosh, it went so fast. And when I did the second class, I had 30 people because each of the 15 brought a friend.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  And then the next week, I had 60 people and the room wouldn't hold any more people. And I thought, wow, this is pretty darn cool.

• 26:00Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  But I will tell you a little wrinkle in all of this, okay? When I started this class, you know, I had many dancer friends and they said to me, what in the heck are you doing? And I said, what do you mean? They said, well, you're bastardizing the art of dance.

• 26:19Guy Raz?

  Oh, yes. Uh huh, yes, I was waiting for that to happen because you're a professional.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:25Guy Raz?

  You're a professional. This is an art form. Now you're just turning this into some nonsense exercise. What are you doing?

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Right. That was it. And, and I said, well, I, you know, I'm doing this to help these women and they're feeling better about themselves and they're happy. So I don't think there's anything wrong with it. And plus, I said, you know, these are people that would never come to a dance studio to just take a dance class because it would be a little bit intimidating for them. But they're coming here. So I'm able to teach them an appreciation for dance that they never had before.

• 27:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  So now, when they come to watch you, my friend, perform, they're going to appreciate what you have to go through to do what you do. So I, I, you know, I wouldn't take any of that guff from them because-

• 27:25Guy Raz?

  I think you're right. I mean, this is the classic story of the professional practitioner popularizing something. You know, it could be the story of Headspace and Andy Puttycomb, who was a Buddhist monk, but who brought that to the world through meditation. I mean, right when you're a practitioner and then you try to create something that's more accessible, your friends who are like, hey, this isn't pure, they're going to come after you.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's exactly right.

• 27:51Guy Raz?

  So, so the women who were coming to those classes were saying to you, Judy, I really want to, I want to look better. I want to have a better, they would say a better figure, I guess, at that time.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Right. Yes, they would say that because, you know, these were women who really weren't moving much. So, once you put a little movement into their lifestyle, I mean, you know, the pounds came off.

• 28:17Guy Raz?

  And, and by the way, I mean, what's so remarkable to me is that today, the fitness industry, and I don't know the exact numbers, but I would venture to guess that most of the revenue in the fitness industry overall comes from women, not from men. That there's so many fitness programs, whether it's bar or yoga or zumba or jazzercise or whatever they may be, that really are, are dominated by women. But in the 60s and 70s, it sounds like that, there was really, that culture just did not yet exist.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  No, it really didn't. You know, today, a lot of people say, oh, well, Judy, you pioneered the whole thing. And, you know, I guess I could be one of the pioneers. I would say that.

• 29:02Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  But, you know, there was the Lottie Burke method.

• 29:08Guy Raz?

  Right, who came to the US and was doing Pilates, right?

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Bonnie Pruden, I don't know if you remember her.

• 29:15Guy Raz?

  I don't know that name, no.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was doing things for women, but it was kind of, I don't know, it was very feminine and, you know, let's not sweat too much. That type of thing. Whereas I, because I'm a dancer, I'm used to sweating all the time. So I was giving permission to these women to, you know, hey, it's okay to sweat and it's okay to work hard and it's okay to feel how your body reacts to the movements that you're doing. And, you know, if you feel a little sexy doing it, that's okay.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  And I was always proud that I was able to give a lot of women the feeling of power because they got in touch with their body. They, they got stronger and healthier through what we were doing.

• 30:15Guy Raz?

  Yeah. You know, when I was, when I was researching for this interview, one of the things I came across was that in the 60s, apparently, in the US at least, there was new research that came out that really touted the benefits of aerobic exercise, which I guess started people to think, hey, maybe we should start to do this. Do you, do you remember that? People talking about aerobic exercise is good for you?

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Um, I remember a little bit of it, yeah. And actually more in the 70s. And then, of course, there was, um, The Air Force exercise book and you know, the special things that people in the Air Force did, that became kind of popular.

• 30:54Guy Raz?

  Right. That was like a huge deal. I remember that. I remember my mom having those books. Yeah.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But you know, the thing is, it still was geared more toward men. You know, I had an experience while I was developing this and teaching this class in Evanston after my daughter was born. I had been going to the Y in Evanston and swimming and stuff while I was pregnant. So after I delivered her, I went to the Y and went back and I was doing things. They had a testing of fitness and I thought, well, I think I'll do that. So I went in and they said, well, you know, we don't really have any charts

• 31:38Speaker 01

  for women. So we'll have to base your outcome on, you know, the male.

• 31:45Guy Raz?

  This is like, how many pull-ups can you do? How many push-ups can you do? How many sit-ups can you do? That kind of stuff.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  That kind of stuff, yeah. So I said, well, you know, that's okay. You can, you know, scale it down or whatever you want to do. And afterwards they're like, holy smokes. What do you do? And I said, well, what do you mean? They said, well, my God, you're better than a lot of the guys that come through here. And I said, well, I dance. That's what I do. They said, you're not a runner or, you know, swimmer or anything. I said, no. And they were, you know, bowled over. And so that was another motivation for me to keep doing this class, you know?

• 32:27Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And I'm just curious, after, because this is the late 60s, early 70s, after these classes ended, did any of the, any of the women who took it, would they like, light up a cigarette?

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. That's, you know, oh, my gosh. I never smoked, so I could never understand it. Yeah.

• 32:52Guy Raz?

  Yeah. But I'm just imagining the corridors outside that.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:56Guy Raz?

  That class, that jazz dance class.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Well, you know, dancers are notorious for being smokers. You know, because I, I, you know, they, they always had the false impression that smoking kept their weight down.

• 33:13Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:15Guy Raz?

  All right. So you, you, you're doing all this stuff. You've got a, a baby girl and you're teaching dance and, and you're also staying active in the, in the professional world. But I guess around like 1972, um, like there's some major changes at the, at the TV station where Jack is working and he, uh, he loses his job. And, and, and I guess you sort of prompt you guys to move out to, to California. Is, is that right?

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Well, they fired 40 people. And Jack was one of them. And so it was like, okay, we have savings and he has a family out here, which was, you know, nice. Then of course there's just the Chicago weather. And we thought, oh, it's so pretty in California. And my agent in Chicago said, well, you know, if you go, I can still get you jobs out in LA. And I thought, okay, now I hated leaving Gus, but he was so supportive and he goes,

• 34:20Speaker 01

  you know, he just said to me, Judy, you know, go with your family and see what happens. You can always come back to Chicago. So, yeah.

• 34:30Guy Raz?

  So really this is, this is kind of like a lifestyle change. You're both young, a, a young married couple with a little kid and you settle in San Diego.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:39Guy Raz?

  And I guess you could find work pretty quickly teaching fitness. Is that, was that your plan? That you would just find a place to, to, or, or teach dance rather? Was that your, was that the plan?

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I, I don't know that we had a plan. We knew we had enough money saved that we could figure out what we wanted to do for a year or so, you know, and we actually settled in Oceanside, which is north San Diego County.

• 35:09Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  And I thought, okay, well, you know, I'd like to try teaching this class Dance for Fun and Fitness or something like that. So I just found some parks and recreation departments and told them what I was doing. And everybody just was very open and like, oh, sure, let's see what you can do. And the YMCA is a couple of them. And, you know, Southern California is so body beautiful and health conscious, even back then.

• 35:47Guy Raz?

  And, and, I mean, at this point, right, Judy, in your story, you are now an entrepreneur. You are now a business person, even though I cannot imagine you thought of yourself that way.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 36:02Guy Raz?

  You were just like, I'm gonna teach some classes.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:05Guy Raz?

  Did you have like a sense of what you were gonna price the classes at? Or was that not even a priority for you? You didn't really care?

• 36:11Speaker 01

  I didn't care. Frankly, money has never been a motivator for me. I just wanted to try out this class and see if people would like it.

• 36:24Guy Raz?

  How did they know about? I mean, the first time, do you remember the first class you had in the San Diego area after you moved there? I mean, I guess you put up maybe some flyers or?

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:35Guy Raz?

  Did, I mean, how, and did lots of people show up?

• 36:37Speaker 01

  That, well, in the beginning, in Oceanside, it was at the Pier Recreation Center. It's right off the ocean and the pier. And it was a nice size group, maybe 10 people. I mean, it was better than two. And although I've taught classes to two people too, but, but after I finished the class, they were like, what is this? Oh, my God, this is so much fun. I gotta tell all my friends. And they did.

• 37:14Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how Judy started teaching so much that she almost had to stop for good, and how that obstacle actually helped her take the business to the next level. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 37:40Guy Raz?

  Stripe is built for whatever comes next because the pace of change has never been faster than it is right now. New business models, new currencies, and new expectations for speed, reliability, and scale. Stripe builds financial infrastructure that helps businesses start, grow, and operate globally. From payments and billing to fraud protection and cross-border payouts, Stripe is built to support the new pace of commerce. They're trusted by the companies building at the frontier, from 86% of the Forbes AI 50 to global leaders like Salesforce and OpenAI. In fact, more than 1.6% of global GDP flows through Stripe,

• 38:25Guy Raz?

  with Stripe's users processing a combined $1.9 trillion last year. So if you're already thinking about what's next for your business, see what's possible at stripe.com.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  With a Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One, you earn unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. And you get big purchasing power, so your business can spin more and earn more.

• 39:02Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the early 1970s, and Judy Shepherd-Missett is teaching her dance classes in the San Diego area.

• 39:14Guy Raz?

  So I know you guys moved to Oceanside because your husband had family there. But what's incredible about that area is, obviously, it's where Camp Pendleton is. And it had this massive population of human beings, right? In the military, many of whom, or most of whom, were men, because it's a marine base, right?

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they had families and girlfriends and wives.

• 39:37Guy Raz?

  Right, and wives. And is that who started to come to the classes?

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yes, the local people and some that were involved in military. Now, what happened was, I got all these requests for classes. And as these requests for classes came in, there were more and more, I just kept saying, "Okay, yeah, I can teach that," and trying to figure out the schedules, you know. But I would have 100 people in the class.

• 40:08Guy Raz?

  And would you have like a Folgers can of coffee, emptied, of course, where people would just shove five bucks into it?

• 40:16Speaker 01

  I did have that, not at the Y, but at the, when I did Parks and Recreation in Carlsbad, they collected the money. But then, it got to be so big, it just ballooned, and, you know, just tons of people. And then, I noticed I wasn't getting paid. And I went into the director of Parks and Rec, and I said, "You know, I haven't been paid in a couple of months, and I really could use the money." And he said, "Well, I know, but it's quite a bit of money.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  And I have to turn this in to get it approved at the city council." And it's just kind of embarrassing that, here you are, you know, this little exercise class, and you're making all this money.

• 41:17Guy Raz?

  Wow. What was his problem, though?

• 41:21Speaker 01

  I don't know. I think it was his fear that people would think I was making too much money, and that, you know, I'm not, I wasn't a doctor, or a lawyer, or, you know, I was teaching fitness. And it didn't deserve...

• 41:40Speaker 01

  I didn't deserve to be paid like that.

• 41:42Guy Raz?

  And it was just people paying five bucks a class? Or something like that?

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, not a class, a month for eight classes.

• 41:51Guy Raz?

  Wow. So, so what did you say to them?

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Well, I said, really? Do you think that I don't have training in this? Do you think these people are all coming for no reason? Because there's a reason why they're coming. And the reason is me. And, and I'm doing a good job for you. So I said, I, I need that check. And I need it today by four o'clock. Because if I don't have it, I, I don't know if you know this or not, but my brother-in-law is the publisher of the local paper. And I think that might be a really good story. He would be interested in. And he goes, oh, well, you wouldn't do that.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  I said, well, no, I won't do it if I get my check at four. And, well, we, we'll see. I, I don't know. It's short notice. I said, no, no, no, it's not short notice. It's, it's, I was supposed to have it two months ago. So you see what you can do. And I just turned around and walked out. I was so mad. And I went back at four and the secretary was there. And she handed me an envelope. And I opened it up and inside was the check. So what happened out of that was eventually this guy quit. And there was another guy that came in. And so I talked to him and I said, why don't you let me collect the money?

• 43:22Speaker 01

  And then I will pay you your percentage. And I will keep books and I will do, you know, the whole thing. And he said, that would be much easier for us and you. I said, yeah, everybody wins.

• 43:35Guy Raz?

  So you started to collect the payments?

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:38Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  And that's what they would do. They would put their money in a can and sign their name on a piece of paper. And there it was.

• 43:47Guy Raz?

  And I'm just curious, back then, because I can't imagine it wasn't like, today, music rights, it's very complicated. You gotta pay a million people. Imagine back then, you just kind of played music, right? In the seventies and you didn't, you didn't have to worry about that as much.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  No, I didn't know that was something you needed to worry about. You know, I found out later, but yeah.

• 44:09Guy Raz?

  All right. Well, Eric Clapton or Led Zeppelin, if you're listening, you know, in the 70s, just please, please just forgive Judy for.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Please do, because I did use quite a bit of Eric Clapton. So there you go.

• 44:21Guy Raz?

  All right. Meantime, the name Jazzercise, I guess, kind of pops up around 1974. How does that name, because before then you were just teaching dance for fitness or whatever.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:35Guy Raz?

  And how did the name Jazzercise come about?

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Well, I had a customer in the La Jolla Y where I was teaching. And she said to me one day, you need a name for this. And I said, well, what have you got in mind? And she said, why don't you call it Jazzercise? Because it's exercise, but it's also jazz dance. And I think, wow, yeah.

• 45:03Guy Raz?

  Like immediately you thought, I love it. That's great. That's perfect.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did. I liked it right away, but I had to think about it a little bit more. And then I liked it even more. It kind of says it all. And then my husband said to me, I like, are you going to use that name? And I said, yeah, I think I will. And he said, well, you know, you might think about copyrighting it. So I asked in my classes in Carlsbad, I said, does anybody here know anything about, you know, copyrighting anything?

• 45:36Guy Raz?

  IP law, any IP lawyers in here?

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and this one woman came up to me and she said, I work for my husband, who's an attorney, and my dad is a copyright attorney in Washington DC for Westinghouse. So I think I could help you. She looked it up and, and she and I filled out the form, sent them in and we got the name.

• 46:02Guy Raz?

  And were you, I mean, I know that you were never that interested in money, but was it, were you making enough money to actually sustain your life at that point from just teaching classes?

• 46:13Speaker 01

  We were, we were. Now, there were times when Jack took occasional jobs. One Christmas, he was a Santa. Another time, he worked in a bakery because he just wasn't that interested in going back into news. He'd had job offers, but he just, you know, he liked taking care of Shanna and he liked seeing me do what I was doing. He was very supportive and so, yeah, we were getting along. We weren't lavishly, you know, living, but it was, you know, it was fine.

• 46:53Guy Raz?

  Meantime, you were, you got to a point where, because this is like pre sort of, I mean, there were microphones and PA systems in the 70s, but not like there are now where you could just wear one on your hip and, or, you know, it was like Bluetooth wireless, like they, and they were expensive. So I think you were like, imagine you were shouting things out like, and now to the left, and in the back, to the right, okay, stretch it out. And you had to like pump people up, right? This is like, like you watch Peloton today and they've all got like, you know, wireless mics around their, you know, their whatever, the mic mask or whatever they use. You were just shouting this stuff out, right?

• 47:29Speaker 01

  That's exactly what I was doing, yes. By 19, around 1977, I was teaching about 30 classes a week.

• 47:41Guy Raz?

  What?

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know.

• 47:43Guy Raz?

  How did you do that?

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Well, my body was okay, but my voice, by the end of the week, by Friday, I was whispering. I had no voice.

• 47:56Guy Raz?

  Wow, yeah.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  So I went to the doctor. The doctor said,

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Okay, you have nodules on your vocal cords.

• 48:05Guy Raz?

  Oh.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Um, I can, I can help you with them. First of all, you have to stay silent for five days.

• 48:13Guy Raz?

  Oh.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  And let the swelling go down. He said, then, you gotta figure out, you gotta do something differently, you know, with what you're doing. He said, maybe you need to quit teaching so many classes. And, um, you know, I, you know, I was devastated because that's scary. He said, if I didn't do something differently, I would lose my voice permanently.

• 48:40Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  So, um, I stopped talking for five days. Actually, Jack kept the notepad that I used to communicate. You know, like, get me a glass of Dr. Pepper or whatever.

• 48:55Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  And so during those five days, I had time to think. And I thought, maybe I could train some people to help me. If I picked women who had been with me in my classes for a while, and who had dance backgrounds or physical education backgrounds. So I trained five women, gave them the choreography notes, got the music for them. About a week later, I got all these calls from other customers saying, "Oh, Judy, thank you so much for training these instructors.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Because we knew you were gonna cancel our class and we just didn't want that. And now you've got help and, and they were great and thank you." And wow, that was such a relief, you know, off my shoulders.

• 49:53Guy Raz?

  Hmm, but, but what about your voice? I mean, how, how are you gonna keep from losing it again?

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Well, in the meantime, I went in search for a microphone for myself. And let me tell you guys, ah, it was a search. I went through every kind of mic there was. I had lav, lavalier mics that hooked around my neck, but it was so big that it would bounce in my chest. And when I got done teaching, I had a big old bruise. Finally, I found one that was a lavalier mic that was smaller and had a kind of a big old battery pack, but I could get a belt, clip it onto the belt, and then stick the lavalier, you know, on my leotard. And that worked pretty darn well. And it amplified

• 50:43Speaker 01

  my voice and my nodules went down. And as I trained instructors, they all got microphones like that. So I really believe I was certainly the pioneer of all that.

• 50:58Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So all those Peloton instructors can thank you, Judy.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  You're welcome, Peloton instructors.

• 51:07Guy Raz?

  So, I mean, this is a big turning point, that now you realize that you don't have to do everything. You can actually have other people do it.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:15Guy Raz?

  Was a part of you just worried that even if you were going to train people to teach these now jazzercise classes, that they wouldn't be able to do it to the quality and level that you expected of yourself?

• 51:28Speaker 01

  Well, there were two sides of that. First is, yes, I was worried about that. And the second thing was, I was worried that they'd be too good and then nobody would like me anymore.

• 51:41Guy Raz?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  You know, my performer ego kind of came to light there. But it worked out. And then, as I got more requests for more classes, for new classes, the requests were coming from all over. People were coming from everywhere. So now I was bringing people, we would come to my little rented house in Vista, California, and train. And I had a lot of women who were

• 52:20Speaker 01

  either in the military, or they were spouses, significant other, you know. And they got deployed, or they had to move, and they wanted to keep teaching.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  And they said, well, you know, can we? And I said, well, I guess so. Let's try it. But it's really hard to interpret the written choreography into the real thing. But guess what came out on the market about that same time? Home recorders and video cameras.

• 53:00Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  And my husband had a background in broadcasting. So he said, well, I'll videotape you. And then the instructors, whoever it is, we can send them the tape. And then they'll be able to see the real live thing.

• 53:18Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  And it was brilliant. We were able to expand on a more national basis because of that. Because eventually, we didn't have just two video recorders. Our living room in our little rented house in Vista was filled with recorders.

• 53:36Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  So that became-

• 53:37Guy Raz?

  Just copying, copying, copying tapes and sending them out?

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:41Guy Raz?

  Wow, which of course meant that jazzercise could go anywhere in the country, like anywhere, anybody with a video player.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Right. And, you know, we had these military people moving out and then other people. For example, there was one of the gals who was in my class and she wanted to become an instructor. Her husband was the quarterback for the Cleveland Browns.

• 54:06Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  So she went to Ohio. And then, of course, as she taught, people in her class wanted to be instructors. And she said to me, Judy, can I train some of the, they all happened to be wives of the Browns? And I said, sure.

• 54:25Guy Raz?

  Okay, let's break this down a little bit. When you first had these women who wanted to teach jazzercise in Cleveland, how did you structure it? How did you make sure that, you know, you, you know, they, because it wouldn't be fair if they just took your idea and then just-

• 54:39Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 54:40Guy Raz?

  -charged people and made money from it?

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Well, when I trained those first instructors, we worked out a commission process that they would pay me a certain percentage for the choreography and the instruction and the training. And then the rest of it, they could keep. And then when people started moving to other parts of the country-

• 55:04Speaker 01

  The instructors continued to pay a percentage back to Jazzercise.

• 55:10Guy Raz?

  Right, because you were sending them videotapes of

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:13Guy Raz?

  new choreographed material. And by the way, these instructors, just to be clear, they were not like going and getting a brick and mortar studio that said Jazzercise. They were teaching Jazzercise at like, community centers, just like you were doing it, like YMCA's and rec centers, right?

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, and a lot of them, even in church basements, and some churches had gymnasiums, so that worked for them.

• 55:37Guy Raz?

  And by the way, that's still the model to this day.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  It is, but we have a lot more brick and mortar now.

• 55:44Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  Well, and of course, eventually, I stopped going out and had my own brick and mortar place as well. But now, I realized I had to have some help with this organization. It was just growing like crazy. And so, the woman who had helped me with the copyright, I asked her, would you be able to come and kind of be my manager for all of this? And she said, oh, my God, I'd love to. I don't want to work for my husband anymore, and I want to get my MBA. So she said, I can do that and work for you. And her name

• 56:26Speaker 01

  was Margaret Stanton. And she was with me for over 20 years.

• 56:32Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  And became my COO.

• 56:34Guy Raz?

  I mean, so cool. And by the way, before we go on, voice feeling okay?

• 56:40Speaker 01

  So far, so good.

• 56:41Guy Raz?

  Okay, great. I read that in 1979, this is essentially 11, 10, 11 years after you started to teach what would become Jazzercise, you finally incorporated the company. Like, it was not an incorporated business until 1979.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:02Guy Raz?

  So I have to imagine by that point, you thought, all right, this is a business. This is what I do now.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I had to. I mean, it was growing. I brought in another woman who kind of helped me with marketing. Then I had to get an accountant, of course, and an attorney. And I actually asked a couple of people to be workshop trainers for me. So- The new instructors would come to the workshop and I wouldn't have to train them, but these designated women that I trusted were then the trainers. That was a great thing to be able to have them do that. But then, all of these instructors, they're all independent contractors.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  So, you know, we're getting, there's like a thousand of them now. And they're all over hither and thither. And my accountant and my attorney, they said, you know, you're gonna have to make a decision here because you're asking more from them than just being an independent contractor. So, you don't fit into that niche and you're gonna get into trouble if you don't make some changes. And I said, okay, give me my options. And they said, well, you can make them employees, or you can make them a franchisee.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  And I, this is like 1980, around 80, 81. And I, and I said, okay, well, I know what employees are and I don't want to do that because all these women feel like it's their business. You know, they know they're tied into me, but they have a lot of options and it's their own business and I don't want to take that away from them. So they said, well, then franchising is the way to go. But, you know, at the time, franchising wasn't what it is today. Back then, it was Burger King or McDonald's.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  You know, we didn't quite fit into every little niche, but we fit into enough. So, we turned it around and we made it into a franchise. And I didn't lose one instructor that I can remember. Everybody understood it, you know?

• 59:31Guy Raz?

  And how did you set that up? That they would basically pay a franchise fee upfront and then a percentage fee every month or something like that?

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 59:39Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  They would have a low franchise fee, which really paid for their training.

• 59:44Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  And then they would have a continuing franchise fee, which would be monthly, based on the amount of money that they took in.

• 59:54Guy Raz?

  Hmm.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  And, you know, that worked well. And in fact, in the eighties, there were two big franchises. Us and Domino's Pizza. Which is kind of ironic, because it's sort of like, well, Domino's kind of kept us in business, and then we would get people fed and they could go eat their pizza, you know? So it was a trade.

• 1:00:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah. From what I understand, the model that you put out was very unorthodox and really interesting. I mean, I guess at the time, initially, the cost to start a Jazzercise franchise was 500 bucks, which is very doable.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:38Guy Raz?

  But then there was a 30% commission rate that would go back to Jazzercise. So that enabled somebody to kind of start up quickly, recover their startup costs pretty quickly, and then they're off to the races, I guess.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Exactly. And even today, our startup fee is only 1,250. But so you had that expense and your wardrobe, and, you know, it's a little bit more involved than that. We have better sound systems. For people who have brick and mortar, it's going to be more expensive. But they have control of that, as far as if they do have a brick and mortar, if they don't build it themselves and they rent it, it's, you know, their rent and their build out and all that.

• 1:01:27Guy Raz?

  Did you go out to seek any money to, I mean, did you need money? Was it just entirely self-funded? Did you go out and look for loans or to investors or anything like that?

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  Well, we were doing fine. We never really had to do that. And there was one time that...

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Margaret, my COO, said, "Well, you know, I think we should try to get a line of credit just in case something big comes up and we need money for it." And so we had been banking with this one bank in Carlsbad, and their corporate headquarters were in LA. So we go to LA. We have all of our papers, all of our ducks in a row to show them how well we're doing and everything. And so the gentleman looks through everything. And I could tell he wasn't impressed. He looked at me and he said, "Well, it looks like

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  you're doing really well in the Southern California area and a few other places." But he said, "You know, I just don't see this as being something that will grow. And, you know, it's an exercise thing. And I just don't know if that's really going to catch on."

• 1:02:53Guy Raz?

  Wow. And that was it?

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And out the door we went. Well, you know, here we are, Guy, 51 years later and still thriving. And that bank went out of business like seven years after I had talked to that guy. So I don't know. Who's the smart one here?

• 1:03:18Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how in those very early days of fitness marketing, Judy stumbled on the idea that there was money in merch. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 1:03:54Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the early 1980s and Jazzercise is starting to franchise and it's starting to make money. And Judy is starting to make a name for herself.

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  I had written a book in the late 70s with another woman who happened to be in my class. So we wrote this book with pictures of how to do different exercises and, you know, a little history of dance and all of that. And the publisher was Bannan Books, which was quite a large publisher. And my husband said, well, what are they going to do to market the book? And I said, well, I don't know what they're going to do to promote it. But the Dyna Shore Show was a big hit.

• 1:04:44Guy Raz?

  Oh, yeah. Huge. It does a national talk, like, track show, right?

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  Yes. And I had this one woman who was helping me a lot with marketing, who was gregarious and good. And she just kind of kept after him. And after a few months, absolutely, they called me and off I went, did the show, and it was very successful. The book sold over 400,000 copies.

• 1:05:09Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Which is, at the time, I didn't know if that was good or bad. It didn't sound like it was very good to me, but...

• 1:05:16Guy Raz?

  That's insane. That's insane today.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  I know. I know. But anyway, I, you know, OK. So then the interesting thing was, I went on this show, but I thought, before I went on, I thought, you know, I need to wear something that says Jazzercise on it. And I had an instructor who was also an artist and a good friend. And I said, Connie, can you design like a logo? And we'll put it on the front of the leotard. And she designed this cute Jazzercise and had a couple of little exercise dancer figures on it. And I wore it on the show.

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  Well, when I taught class the next day, everybody came up to me. Where can we get those leotards? We want, we want those, you know? And what about a T-shirt? And I was like, oh, my gosh. So I went to Connie and I said, hey, do you want to go into business with me a little bit? We'll make some T-shirts and some leotards and sell them in class and see what happens. So that's what we did. And we sold out in two days.

• 1:06:32Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  And that was the beginning of Jazzercise apparel, which is a big part of our business today.

• 1:06:42Guy Raz?

  Was Judy, was there in any way a connection between the women's rights movement that really kind of began to take shape in the 70s around the Equal Rights Amendment and the rise of Jazzercise? Was, was there any kind of conscious or unconscious connection that you felt or recognized?

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I was always an advocate for women's rights ever since my Northwestern days. But I have always tried to keep Jazzercise apolitical, a-religious, you know, all of those things. But on my own, I was always vocal about women's rights. And I was always proud that I was helping women become business people and to build a business that they could use and hopefully thrive with.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  So in my own way, even though we were not, you know, standing on our soapbox preaching women's rights, we were doing it in a subtle way. And we still do today, of course.

• 1:07:58Guy Raz?

  You know, really, my earliest memory of Jazzercise was when I was a kid. This is in the early, early 80s, maybe 81 or 82. Watching my mom put that VHS tape in the VHS machine. I always remember the theme song. It was like the San Diego Zoo and there was the elephants and there was on the beach and it was jazz. Let's go jazzercise-ing.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:23Guy Raz?

  Exercise-ing. I'll never forget that. And I remember my mom, who's now 75 and in incredible shape and has been a yoga practitioner. She was always experimenting with what was coming out and trying these different fitness programs. And Jazzercise is a big part of that. But as you became bigger and as this became, I mean, I think by 1983, from what I understand, you were like a $40 million company. This was a major enterprise, right?

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:55Guy Raz?

  Around that time, you start to see celebrities. Jane Fonda starts to get into this business. I remember Olivia Newton-John, "Let's Get Physical," right? And wearing the leg warmers and all that stuff. Like, that was a thing. It started to become a fashion trend. What'd you think about that? What'd you think about the celebrity kind of entry into this space that really was pretty much you at that point?

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it never really bothered me because I felt like the people who were celebrities, and of course, we have Richard Simmons as well, you know, all getting into it. It just gave people more awareness. And then they could pick what they wanted to do. But I don't consider myself a celebrity. I am the founder of this program and this company. And we have many, many, many people who are representative of the program in our instructors. Whereas the people who are celebrities are pretty much just that.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  You know, they were just one person. We were thousands of people. And, you know, there were times when, you know, I've met Jane and all those other people and we've gotten awards, all of us together. And, you know, it's always very friendly and it's always been just fine.

• 1:10:27Guy Raz?

  So the 80s really just boom. I mean, I think you went from, you know, in 1981 or something, $2 million in revenue to 1983, $40 million, just massive rapid growth.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:40Guy Raz?

  And then the 90s happened.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:42Guy Raz?

  And a few things happened in the 90s. For one, yoga starts to become more popular and Pilates. And from what I understand, the 90s would turn out to be one of the hard, if not the hardest decade for Jazzercise. What happened?

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was. It was a hard decade. You know, we'd been around for a long time and we were having instructors retire. And when they retired, their classes weren't, you know, replaced.

• 1:11:14Guy Raz?

  And there weren't enough people who were becoming new instructors, essentially.

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  Right, right. So we weren't able to hold on to some of those customers. But one of the things that we did is we put together a new structure to help us with that problem called a Jazzercise associate, which is an instructor who doesn't run a business, who only teaches for instructors who own their own Jazzercise business. So now, if an owner decided to retire, usually there was an associate who could take over and keep the customers and keep the classes. That worked really well.

• 1:12:02Guy Raz?

  Right. You know, this is, I mean, this is going to be a sort of a slightly annoying thing for you to hear. There is a perception among certain people who know about Soul Cycle, let's say, or who go to, you know, yoga classes, or Pilates, or do Peloton, or even Zumba, that Jazzercise, like, you know, every once in a while, people say, oh, is that still around?

• 1:12:27Speaker 01

  Still around, yeah.

• 1:12:28Guy Raz?

  And how do you feel when you, when you hear that? Does that frustrate you?

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  Well, sure, it's a little frustrating, but I certainly accept it and understand why people might think that way. The thing about it is, we're really thriving right now in a time when a lot of other businesses are not, and a lot of other fitness businesses are not thriving. I think it's when people say, oh, is Jazzercise still around, or are they still, you know, doing what my mom used to do? Well, I say to them, stop and think for a minute. Would we still be around if we were doing the same things? Of course

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  not. The reason we're the only fitness company that started way back when that's still thriving is because we've made good choices. We have changed through the decades. We've never stayed the same.

• 1:13:36Guy Raz?

  I know that there are like 8,500 Jazzercise franchises around the world. Do you know off the top of your head how many brick and mortar Jazzercise locations there are?

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think there's about a thousand.

• 1:13:52Guy Raz?

  Wow, around the world. So, so that's...

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, there may be more because things change, you know.

• 1:13:58Guy Raz?

  And it's still just 1,200 bucks to start a franchise.

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, 1,250.

• 1:14:03Guy Raz?

  Right, 1,250. And then you pay a 20% fee or every month or whatever from receipts. And in the COVID era, how have you guys been able to weather this? Because you depend on instructors selling classes and then paying you a share of those classes. Now it's mostly, much of that is happening remotely. I have to imagine it has been a challenging year.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's been challenging, but we're really doing quite well. We were able to pivot almost overnight. The minute our classes shut down, we were able to bring our customers all over the world onto our Jazzercise On Demand app so that they wouldn't have to miss class because they could do them online. And with this app, they can do them at 3:00 in the morning or whatever works for you. So that really kept a lot of our customers with us.

• 1:15:10Speaker 01

  Now granted, sure, we've lost some, but as time has evolved, we not only have those kinds of classes available, we also helped our instructors be able to livestream their own classes to their own customers. So they've been able to keep them.

• 1:15:35Guy Raz?

  One of the interesting things that I came across, because I confess, I have never taken a Jazzercise class. I've seen the videos of my mom, I remember them, but I've never been to one.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  Well, those are old, so you need to go.

• 1:15:48Guy Raz?

  I do, I do, I need to do it. But from what I've seen, the classes actually attracted a significantly more diverse, you know, like a group of clients than like a SoulCycle or yoga class. And I guess part of the reason that people say or believe that it is is because the price point is actually fairly reasonable, right?

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:12Guy Raz?

  Like, how much does an average Jazzercise class cost?

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  Well, each franchise is different, depending on the area that they're in and so forth. But the average would be maybe around $79, $69 a month.

• 1:16:28Guy Raz?

  And you could just take as many classes as you want?

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:31Guy Raz?

  Right. Which is cheaper than many, like, you know,

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:34Guy Raz?

  yoga studios and stuff, yeah.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. So there's a lot of options and the diversity is what we love. And we always say to our franchisees, when you look out at your customers, you should be seeing All kinds of different people, all kinds of body shapes, all kinds of colors and ages. And because somebody who is older, 65, can do the class right along with somebody who's 25. And, you know, you make friends with a 25-year-old, or a 25-year-old goes to coffee with, you know, three 55-year-olds, and everybody enjoys it.

• 1:17:19Guy Raz?

  You know, Judy, I'm wondering, as your business grew, right, from a little dance class at a rec center into now a $100 million business, did you like becoming a CEO? Did you like running a business? Because, I mean, you always wanted to be a professional dancer, right? So, did that side of it come naturally to you? Was that something that you came to embrace?

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  You know, it was fun. I mean, I think it did come naturally to me, even though my mother used to say when I was growing up, because she was such a great businessperson. But she always would say, "Oh, Judy will never be a businessperson, because you just don't have a head for figures." But let me tell you, the secret, I think, to anybody's success is having people around you who lift you up, people who are passionate about your passion, but who have their own passion that they bring to the party.

• 1:18:30Speaker 01

  And I have been extremely lucky in being able to have those kinds of people around me all the time. They're smart, and I want them to be smarter than I am. I think that's one of my gifts, to find people like that, and let them help me, because goodness knows, I don't know everything.

• 1:18:55Guy Raz?

  Well, it's also a smart strategy, because you can't scale one person.

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:19:01Guy Raz?

  And also, if you want to build a legacy company, right? You want to build something that doesn't need that person.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. And I've got to tell you, if something happened to me tomorrow, this company would go on. It would be wonderful.

• 1:19:20Guy Raz?

  When you think about your journey and all you accomplished and the influence you've had, how much of that would you attribute to luck and how much would you attribute to just hard work and skill and intelligence?

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's 50/50. For me, that's really what I feel. I think, you know, timing has been right in so many instances, which we talked about. But then, you know, the timing can be right and it can be sitting right out there in front of you. But if you don't take advantage of it and you don't have the awareness that this is something you gotta do and you're gonna have to work your dairy air off to make it happen, then it ain't gonna happen.

• 1:20:08Guy Raz?

  Judy, you were intending to be a dancer. That was your dream and then maybe a Broadway performer. It was never your plan to become a fitness pioneer. Like, when people talk about fitness pioneers of the 20th century, they're talking about Jack LaLanne, they're talking about Richard Simmons, they're talking about Judy Shepherd-Missett, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few others. But, I mean, you really created a movement. I mean, would you ever, when you reflect on that, that you are, like, historically, an important figure in the history of American fitness, is that just crazy, that thought?

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. I find it still hard to believe. I'm very honored by it and I respect it and I feel responsible. But, yeah, it's still, it's still often difficult for me to believe because, you know, at heart, and this might sound sappy, but at heart, I still feel like I'm that little Iowa girl, you know, growing up in the Midwest, having that hard work ethic and get up in the morning and do what you can and make a difference.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  So if I can say that I've made a difference in somebody's life and more people than I would have thought, I will die happy. I will.

• 1:21:50Guy Raz?

  That's Judy Shepherd-Missett, founder of Jazzercise. By the way, Judy's daughter, Shanna, is now president of the company. But Judy is still the CEO, and she is still teaching and still dancing. In fact, some of the women who first signed up for those early classes in the 1970s are still taking classes with Judy today. And once a week, they all get together for coffee. And even though she's one of the iconic fitness gurus in America, Judy swears by Dr. Pepper, especially cherry flavor.

• 1:22:27Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also write to us at [email protected]. And if you want to follow us on Twitter, we're at HowIBuiltThis or at Guy Raz. And my Instagram is at Guy.Raz. Our show was produced this week by Jed Anderson, with music composed by Rymteen Arablouei. Thanks also to Julia Carney, Farah Safari, Dareth Gales, J.C. Howard, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our brand new intern is Janet Lee. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

• 1:23:13Guy Raz?

  This is NPR.