The story behind the method

‍ ‍Founder-SHA- Shannon Russo-Pollack

What I'm about to share isn't flattery — it's observation. And it changes things.

While most of my peers were abroad figuring themselves out, I was navigating something far heavier. Within a year and a half, I lost two of the people closest to me — my stepfather and my brother. Back to back. No time to process. No roadmap for what came next.

At 21, I faced a crossroads most people my age never see coming. I made the call: run the family business. A literal boiler room. Think Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny — but make it real, make it yours, and make it work. No shortcuts. Long hours. A creative dream quietly placed on hold. A male-dominated industry that wasn't exactly rolling out the welcome mat.

I stepped up anyway. I took on the responsibility. I became the boss. I learned the trade, did the books, worked with the accountant, became a sponge and gave it my all!

Some people look back and see only what they sacrificed. I look back and see exactly what I was given — a masterclass in grit, leadership, and what it actually means to show up when it counts. That decade didn't break me. It built me. In commitment to the work, to the people, and to a standard I've refused to lower ever since.

Like I said I wouldn’t change my experience because it lead to something greater.

First came love, then came marriage, then came the most unbelievable gift of two children, who changed everything in my life.

For the next eighteen years, I brought my background in marketing, business, and human connection into health and wellness industry. Over 180 corporations. Consulting at the highest levels of luxury. Walking into rooms I never imagined. Working alongside executives and high performers who had everything — except one thing: a true investment in themselves.

The most powerful investment you will ever make is in yourself. Full stop.

The wellness industry became one of my greatest teachers — not because it gave me answers, but because it refused to let me believe there was a finish line. Every time I thought I'd arrived, a new door opened. A new question surfaced. A new light turned on.

But when I met the mat. Everything paused.

Not in the way grief stops you. Not in the way loss hollows you out and leaves you standing in the middle of your own life wondering what comes next. This was different. This was a stillness that had a pulse. A quiet that was somehow louder than everything that had come before it.

A question I hadn't been asked before. What about you, SHA?

I won't pretend it was comfortable. Real turning points never are. The first time loss cracked my life open, I responded by showing up — by running a business, by being the boss, by doing what needed to be done. The second time, I responded by building — eighteen years, 180 corporations, a reputation and a wellness brand. I earned one relationship at a time.

This time, the mat didn't ask me to show up or to build. It asked me to be still. And that — for someone who had always moved through pain by moving forward — was the hardest thing I had ever been asked to do.

I stayed. I breathed. I moved — slowly at first, then with everything I had.

And something cracked open again. Not grief this time. Not urgency. Something older. Something that had been waiting underneath every rep, every boardroom, every inhale I had ever taken.

It was the truth that the body holds what the mind tries to outrun.

Not in one session. Not overnight. Breath by breath. Movement by movement. I built a completely different relationship with my body — spiritual, holistic, athletic, and unapologetically raw. And just like every other pivotal chapter of my life, this one didn't ask permission. It just arrived — and demanded that I rise to meet it.

And then I did what I always do when something hits me at the core. I built something from it.

Pause · Sweat · Move · Breathe -The PSMB Method™ designed to meet you where you are.