Becoming an actor takes the same mindset, determination and persistence as becoming an entrepreneur. Creativity and self-motivation are driving factors for both professions, especially learning to market, build a network and increase brand awareness effectively.

Amanda Kloots, television personality, author and fitness entrepreneur, has statistically beat the odds to expand and grow her brand on and off the camera. Known as the cohost of CBS’ Daytime Emmy Award-winning talk show The Talk, the actress executive produced and starred in her first-holiday film Fit For Christmas in December, which she co-wrote and developed alongside Anna White. As a businesswoman, she has partnered with brands like American Express, Vita Coco, General Mills and Swanson W/I/O. Additionally, the release of her upcoming children’s book, Tell Me Your Dreams, is set for release this spring.

Kloots’ husband, Nick Cordero, a well-known Broadway actor, made headlines during the pandemic when he had complications with Covid. He passed away during the height of the outbreak, leaving behind his wife and newborn baby. Through her bedtime ritual with her son, Kloots came up with the idea for Tell Me Your Dreams as one of the ways to keep her late husband’s spirit alive with their son.

“This one bedtime routine of ours became something special,” she shares. “I was starting to tell him what his dream would be that night. And I would take him on a big fantastical adventure idea every night… This book has a lot to do with dreaming. I’m a big dreamer. It also incorporates seeing the people that we’ve lost in our lives when we dream. I very much wanted to encourage that for any widow or widower like myself or any mother or father that’s lost a child that when you are dreaming, you can visit these people, or they can visit you. You can go on amazing adventures.”

Kloots discovered her love for the arts in middle school. As she began auditioning for top-rated arts colleges, she realized that her dancing skills alone wouldn’t get her admitted; she had to sing and act as well. She attended AMDA, a musical theater conservatory in NYC.

During her senior year, she started auditioning for shows. Kloots had been cut from the 42nd Street musical; however, she took the dance audition combination and practiced it every evening to perfect it. The show finally held another audition for the national tour. She received a call two days before graduation stating she had booked the role. That show was her foray into the world of entertainment.

Over 17 years, she performed on stage and in film and television productions, most notably as a Broadway dancer and Radio City Rockette. Her love of dance and fitness led her to work and lead classes at one of New York’s premiere fitness studios, where she developed the jump rope method after years of trying different ways to stay in great shape.

In 2015, Kloots decided she was going to leave performing behind and start a fitness business. She reveled in the idea of working for herself. Then in 2016, she launched and solely focused on her AK! Fitness brand—signature classes featuring jump ropes and dance mixed with cross-training. In addition, she and her sister, Anna, launched the apparel company Hooray For.

“I needed a time in my life that I could control my career,” Kloots explains. “When you’re performing, you can’t control anything; you’re subject to people hiring you and being right for certain jobs. So I started my fitness business and left the world of acting. I never really thought I would go back. Then years later, we moved to California, and I’m starting my fitness business, retrying to keep it up and running here as we’ve taken this big move after it was very successful in New York.”

When she first left the studio where she had built a large following, it was difficult for her to gain traction in a new line of work, but she kept at it, practically begging her friends to join classes, so they looked full. Her persistence catapulted the brand’s image and success.

“As a first-time entrepreneur, I really didn’t know anything,” she humbly explains. “I have a very creative mind. I don’t have a business mind. I love having people on my team with that business mind because I’m just more of a creative cat. It’s impossible not to learn. You learn by your mistakes; you learn by your successes.”

Then in 2020, the unthinkable happened: Cordero fatally suffered from Covid complications. To find some sense and joy in her life, Kloots watched Christmas movies, which sparked an idea for a holiday movie centered around a fitness instructor. Fit For Christmas began production two years later and became Kloots debut writing career for television.

As Kloots continues to expand her brand and transition within her career, she focuses on the following essential steps:

• Ask for help. Especially if you’re starting your own business, there’s a lot of pressure on you. Subliminally, you’re telling yourself you must do everything on your own, which isn’t the case.
• Surround yourself with cheerleaders who can help get you out of your own head when needed.
• Embrace your feelings but don’t let them sway you in one direction or another.

“There is a beauty and silver lining in a lot of sad times and trauma,” Kloots concludes. “One of the things that death teaches you is how to live. A lot of my drive now and my force for living just comes from knowing how fragile life is and how my husband would only want me to succeed and go for my dreams, live my life to the fullest, and never let anything stop me.”