While most people are deep in REM sleep, Shea Vaughn has already worked out for 2.5 hours, including a 22-mile ride on her stationary bike. Without the aid of an alarm, her eyes open every day at 3:30 a.m., and she makes her way down the stairs to her home gym. After she hops off her bike, she mixes up her daily routine with a variety of exercises—from Pilates to barre.
Shea lives life to the fullest, not only personally but professionally. She’s the founder of the WorldWide TV Network (WWTVN), creator of SheaNetics, and an international health and wellness keynote speaker. She is deeply rooted in family, enjoying quality time with her husband, Steve, and her three children and six grandchildren.
“My kids are the heartbeat of my life,” explains Shea. Though raised in the Midwest, all her children call the South Bay home and often spend weekends at Shea and Steve’s enjoying her homemade acai bowls.
A Pilates instructor for Beach Cities Orthopedic in the physical therapy department, Shea helps patients recover from injuries with a customized workout on the reformer. Twice a week, she rushes over to 24 Hour Fitness to teach a mat workout incorporating Pilates, yoga and possibly even some martial arts. “I like to start my class by thanking everyone for attending, because I know it takes a commitment just to attend,” she shares.
An avid golfer, most days Shea can be found on a golf course after she helps others with their health and fitness. “Golf lets me enjoy the outdoors,” she says, “and the focus it brings me is a calming and meditative experience.”
The daughter of a ballet dancer, Shea learned the importance of maintaining good health at a young age. When she took up ballet at age 8, she gained a greater knowledge of the human body as she strengthened and soothed muscles. By 14, she was teaching her own workout classes—a passion she’s pursued her entire career.
As founder of the WWTVN, Shea has been nationally recognized for giving women an opportunity to be heard and to promote their brands and businesses on her network. With SheaNetics—a lifestyle formula she created to transform the quality of one’s physical, nutritional, mental and emotional intelligence—Shea gained national notoriety as a lifestyle pioneer and a health and wellness authority, in part due to her work with celebrities and corporate leaders.
In 2011 she released Breakthrough, a book based on the philosophical cornerstones of the five living principles at the heart of SheaNetics’ pathway to wellbeing: commitment, perseverance, self-control, integrity and love. Each principle is designed to bring a unique benefit and level of meaning into one’s life.
“I like to start my class by thanking everyone for attending, because I know it takes a commitment just to attend.”
Although this process is transformative and helps a person evoke mindfulness—also referred to as a meditative state—it is how the principles are incorporated into one’s life that can lead to a “breakthrough.” Shea describes a significant breakthrough in her life: “I realized where you are right now is more important than where you are going. Our true purpose in life is usually more elusive than what we believe it to be. We should continue to plan for tomorrow, but it is not something over which we have exact control.”
She believes that people, women especially, are prone to taking care of others and easily sacrificing themselves. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle and eating well helps everyone gain higher self-esteem, which in turn leads to a healthier and vital life.
The word retirement is not in Shea’s vocabulary. With unmatched vitality and energy for her age, she plans to live her life on her terms. A grandmother with the physique of a teenager, she shows no signs of slowing down.