Just Got Completely Lost: Gina Livy on Building a Company on Her Gut, and Leaving TV Sports Hosting Behind

Gina Livy built a company on instinct. Then it got big enough to tell her she was wrong.

Hired Because of Her Hair

Gina Livy was hired to host a sports show because of her hair.

"I got the job because I had short hair. I was into boxing at the time and I cut it. And it was blonde." She dyed it black for a Halloween party and went into work the next day.

"They said, you can't go on air looking like that. I'm like — what? Why not? It's still me. And they're like: we hired you. You have blonde hair. This is who you are. This is the persona that we're selling."

She was off air two weeks while they turned it back.

"That really shook me. I was really conscious of what I looked like after that."

Fit and Fabulous

For fifteen years she ran a studio in Aurora and hosted a show called Fit and Fabulous with her husband, a chef. Rogers picked it up. She was working a deal with the Oprah Winfrey Network. The Food Network wanted them as a family.

"I Couldn't Remember How to Turn On the Stove"

Then, one January, he called her from a set.

"He said, something's going on with me. I couldn't remember how to turn on the stove today."

A walk-in clinic diagnosed bronchitis. By the next day he was swollen "like the Michelin Man." Blood pressure 244 over 144. They sat in a hospital waiting room for two hours and nobody said anything. Then the doors burst open and a team came running. Complete organ failure.

When the TV People Moved On

He lived. His heart came back at seventeen percent. There was dialysis, and a personality that wasn't quite the same, and four children, and nobody to help.

"By the time he got better, the TV people were like — oh, that person no longer works here. We've gone in a different direction. And no one's investing in a guy who almost died and is still sick."

She shut the business, fell behind on the rent and the car payments, and picked up a part-time job at a sports bar at night.

Completely Lost

The company she has now started as something else entirely.

"I started this out of a whim of wanting to share. I didn't give it a second thought. I just showed up. And that was me. And I trusted my gut. And it became hugely successful. And then it became big business. And then it became — you can't do this, and you can't say that. And then I just got completely lost."

"I've lost a lot of money and made moves I highly regret by listening to other people trying to do the right thing. Because what do I know?"

Done Trying to Be Everything to Everybody

So, two things.

"I'm done trying to be everything to everybody. And I'm done with not trusting my gut."