Some people are just naturally talented at making their dreams come true. These types of people generally set a goal and don’t stop working for it until they get there. In the process, they rarely (if ever) complain, learn from their mistakes, appreciate their mentors and know the meaning and value of hard work.
Julia Taylor Cheek is one of these individuals. Today, she is the founder and CEO of her own company, EverlyWell, an at home health testing company based in Austin, Texas. Julia Dawn Taylor, as she was known on the show circuit, was one of the heavy hitters of the AQHA industry during the 2000’s. She was also on the cover of the very first issue of GoMag in June 2008.
We caught up with Julia recently to find out what she has been up to since exiting the horse show world in 2009.
And like most successful people, she hasn’t slowed down at all.
But first, a little history…
THE COVER
If you take a look back at equine advertising throughout the years, you will see a major shift between the early 2000s and the latter part of the decade. It was commonplace at the time in advertising to use either a picture taken in front of a backdrop at a show or a static picture done during a farm call in show clothes taken by one of a handful of equine photographers.
Then things started to change.
“I remember Suzannah and Landon Fuhrman (whose equine marketing company was helping me with my advertising) told me they had this idea to do a very different kind of photo shoot,” Julia said. “They wanted it to be more personal and more like what you might see in a fashion magazine and I was very excited to give it a try.”
A lifestyle photographer was flown in and many of the rules of “equine advertising” pretty much went out the window. The results were quite stunning and we see a lot more of these kinds of photos in ad campaigns today.
“Then, Suzannah told me they were launching this revolutionary idea at the time, as digital magazines and content were just starting to take off, and she said she would love for me to be on the cover,” said Julia. “I have to say, I am so happy it’s been such a success and brought the horse community together.”
As we know, that revolutionary idea was GoHorseShow and GoMag.
The horse featured with Julia on the cover of the introductory issue of GoMag is Floating On Assets, a beautiful 1999 AQHA gray mare by Investment Asset.
“Vicky Holt found “Ellie” for me and I eventually moved her and my other horse, LT, to Highpoint Performance Horses with Charlie Cole and Jason Martin,” Julia remembered. “She was a wonderful horse, so loving and sweet and when she was on, she was unbeatable. We taught her the all-around and we had some great finishes. When I had her, it was a really busy time for me and I didn’t have as much time to spend with her as I would have liked.”
(Julia was in the thick of her college career and then a management consulting job at the time.)
Julia and Ellie enjoyed some top five finishes at the Congress and were fifth in Amateur Showmanship at the 2006 AQHA World Show before she sold the mare in 2009 to Lauren Crivelli. Today, Ellie is owned by Carly Estreich-Lueck who will compete at both the Congress and AQHA World Show in Amateur Horsemanship and Showmanship.
THE LTD YEARS
The name Zippo LTD, or LT as most people call him, is synonymous with greatness. The legendary 1987 bay AQHA gelding by Zippo Pine Bar is one of the few horses in AQHA history that you can refer to by their barn name and everyone knows who you are talking about.
The AQHA second all-time point earner found his way to Julia and her family in 2000 from Andrea (Farley) Kail.
“He is definitely one of the things that defined me as a youth,” said Julia. “I knew immediately that he was a once-in-a-lifetime horse and was very fortunate and grateful to everyone involved with our career.”
LT was thirteen when the Taylors purchased him, and he and Julia went on to have a fabulous career for six years until she retired him in 2006 at the age of 19.
With countless accolades, the team’s most notable accomplishments were: two AQHYA World Championships (Western Riding in 2002 and Showmanship in 2003), three AQHYA Reserve World Championships (Western Riding in 2000 and 2003 and Horsemanship in 2002), and two Amateur Reserve World Championships (Horsemanship in 2004 and Western Riding in 2005).
“Everyone had so much respect for him and always wanted to make sure he was happy,” she said choking up. “I don’t think I have ever spoken about this publically, but when my parents came to me with the option to sell him, it was actually my dad who said, ‘You know, LT is a part of this family and I don’t want to sell him.’ We then made the decision to keep him.”
Julia shared that the decision to keep LT was made long before his retirement and they also made the decision to back off in his latter show years, “to make sure he was healthy and happy.”
Those loving and wise decisions paid off, as LT is coming up on 30 years young and Julia still owns him to this day.
He has been retired at Kristin Pokluda’s farm in Whitesboro, Texas for a number of years and Pokluda’s daughter, Madison, is his new little girl, which Julia just loves.
“He has always loved his job and loves to have a little girl to love,” she said. “LT taught me all the events which gave me the skills to go on and teach Ellie. Even though he was a finished horse when I got him, I worked so incredibly hard with him. There was no coasting. I got involved with horses when I was seven or eight years old on the open Hunter/Jumper circuit and never received any recognition until I got LT and was sixteen years old.”
Author’s Note: When speaking of LT, it was so incredibly obvious how much Julia loves this gelding. In a world where many horses are bought and sold and it takes a while for them to find their “forever” home, LT found his soft landing with Julia and the love has never faded.
Moving on Up
In late 2009, Julia said goodbye to the show pen to focus on her MBA at Harvard Business School. She competed at the 2009 Congress and won the Amateur Showmanship with Corporate Credit, another stellar all-around gelding that Julia had for about a year. She decided to hang up her hat at that point.
She said, “I am a person who knew I would never be a horse trainer. I made the decision to leave the industry during my first semester at Harvard. I had shown all throughout my undergraduate career and knew I had the opportunity to soak up the experience at Harvard. Plus, I realized how much my parents did for me in regards to paying the show bills and felt it was time to support myself.”
A 2005 Summa Cum Laude graduate of Vanderbilt University, Julia shared what led to her decision to pursue an MBA and Harvard Business School (HBS) where she ultimately graduated at the top of the class as well.
“I was doing management consulting for Deloitte right after I graduated from Vanderbilt and in that industry, it is pretty common to eventually go back and get your MBA,” she said. “I decided to apply to five schools, one of them being Harvard, and after visiting the campus I fell in love.”
Julia said her initial thoughts were “Great. I just fell in love with the school that is the hardest one to get into,” and was of course, was thrilled when she was accepted. (She was also accepted to the other four programs where she applied.)
“Harvard really teaches people a level of confidence they never knew they had,” she said. “The school challenges you to think of things that can’t be done and I absolutely love that about HBS.”
Upon graduation in 2011, Julia accepted the position of Director of Strategy and Operations at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, Texas after interning for President Bush while he was setting up his Presidential Library. (Julia pictured here with her parents, Natalie and David Taylor and President George W. Bush)
“It was one of the best leadership experiences I’ve ever had…observing President Bush lead,” she said. “I remember walking into one of my first meetings and sitting there were Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove, and many others. And I was just like, how did I get here? It was amazing.”
But then another opportunity came knocking that she couldn’t pass up.
“My boss at the Bush Foundation, Mark Langdale, introduced me to Pam Patsley, the CEO of MoneyGram with the intention of her being a mentor to me,” she said. “I knew that I eventually wanted to work for a public company and all of the sudden things started moving very quickly. I started at MoneyGram as the Vice-President of Corporate Strategy and Global Communications in March of 2013 just before the opening of the Bush Presidential Center.”
It was during her time at MoneyGram that Julia began having a number of unexplained health issues during her extensive traveling.
“I would go to the doctor to have some diagnostic tests and insurance didn’t cover any of them, it was all out of pocket,” she said. “Even worse, I wasn’t getting answers. So after spending a lot of money and getting nowhere, I finally went to an acupuncturist who ran some additional diagnostic tests and we found out I was deficient in a number of vitamins and minerals.”
And… that’s when Julia got the idea for Everlywell.
A New Adventure
Julia chuckled and told us that while at Harvard, she always dreamed of moving to San Francisco (the capital of start-up companies) and starting her own business one day.
“You don’t really go for an MBA without having the idea of starting your own business in mind,” she said.
And while the whole San Francisco deal didn’t pan out, in August of 2015, Everlywell was born.
The company is a direct-to-consumer health testing company that provides the consumer with easy to use at-home kits and redesigned lab results that are easy to read and understand.
“We offer seven tests right now and will be offering several more by the end of the year,” she said. “We handle all the doctor authorization for you and all our labs are fully certified. We hope to offer insurance coverage soon, but right now our prices are comparable to that of which insurance would normally cover.”
In addition to starting a new company, Julia married Carter Cheek in May 2014 and the couple made the move from Dallas to Austin just this year.
She mused, “A funny connection is that my husband actually grew up on a horse farm in Atlanta. His family showed AQHA halter horses for about ten years. When I first met him and mentioned AQHA, I didn’t think he would know what I was talking about and the next thing I knew, he was whipping out pictures of him and his sister showing halter on the AQHA circuit.”
Full Circle
There have been countless articles written about how horse showing is an invaluable experience that can easily be applied to one’s daily and professional life and Julia is no exception. She credits her time in the show pen for a number of things that impact her to this day.
“If you asked my parents, they would say I understand delayed gratification,” she laughed. “I showed horses for a long time before I was really successful and the discipline required in the show world really correlates with that of the discipline in the business world.”
She continued, “Things sometimes aren’t fair in the show pen. And at a very young age, I learned how to deal with that…things that are completely out of your control. Your horse gets hurt, the judge didn’t reward you the way you thought you should be, and countless other things. I think Vicky Holt told me once that I had ‘ice in my veins.’ Horse showing taught me that not letting things get to you was an invaluable skill.”
She is also incredibly grateful to the network that one builds while showing and what a great outlet it can be.
“I would say two-thirds of my friends on Facebook are horse people,” she said.
Julia also said that in her entire professional career, she has had to give countless presentations and speak in public.
“People ask me if I ever get nervous,” she chuckled. “And of course, I do. But showing horses taught me that sometimes you have to get things done despite the nerves, and I would definitely credit my time in the show pen for helping me deal with nerves in the business world.”
When asked if she has ever considered returning to the show pen, Julia said, “I would love to go back to it. And I had such fantastic trainers throughout my career. Hopefully, someday, I can call Charlie and Jason and ask them to find me a horse.”
For now, however, Julia said she is happy with being able to take a step back and she wants to take the time to redefine what she wants out of showing.
“I want to do it when it is fun for me,” she said. “I don’t think I could ever go back to being at the level I was at, and I need that to be ‘okay’ before I go back. I can’t put that kind of pressure on myself. I want to go back and just do it for the experience, the people and the horses.”
Everyone is eagerly awaiting your return, Julia.
