SPOTLIGHT
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SPOTLIGHT:
MOXIE MALAS Jessica Hoch BY REEVE KLATT (SHE/HER)
H
aving been around stones and crystals her entire life, Jessica Hoch didn’t get an idea for her business until she started making malas as gifts for friends. The demand for her creations quickly grew, prompting Hoch to open Moxie Malas in 2015. “I’ve always been drawn to crystals,” says Hoch, explaining how her grandma kept amethysts and malachite in her house. “I used to hunt for stones with my cousins and bead with them. The stones and crystals have just always been there.” Originally from Shoreview, Hoch grew up working in her family’s floral shop, Lexington Floral. Even at a young age, customers would quickly open up
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to Hoch, telling her personal stories as she wrapped up their orders. “I learned so much about life working behind that counter,” Hoch says fondly. “People come in there and they’re buying something for an emotional reason. They would leave and the woman working next to me would ask, ‘Do you know them? I feel like they told you a lot!’” Hoch recalls with a laugh. Hoch’s natural gift for talking to people and her love of stories connects her to customers no matter where she’s selling. She’ll commonly receive questions from a customer unsure of what stone to pick. Hoch will often reply, “Where do you feel like you need support in your life?” She laughs as she
explains customers don’t always want to go deep right away, telling the story of a woman at a trade show who picked up a bracelet with ‘worthy’ inscribed on it. “On the inside it says, you are worthy of your greatest life, no matter what’s happened to you, what happened because of you. And she’s standing there and she’s like, ‘Oh my God, I’m sorry … I’m going to cry!’ I’m like, ‘It’s okay, I’m here. You’re in a safe space.’” Originally a distance runner, Hoch remembers sprinting on the treadmill at the gym, looking over at a yoga class, intrigued. Six months later, she found her way to her first yoga class, and it changed her life from that moment on. “The first thing [the teacher] said was there is nobody needing or wanting anything from you. There is no competition, no expectation. And I just started crying,” Hoch says. The concept of no competition or expectation stopped her in her tracks — and six months later she enrolled in her first teacher training. Hoch trained with YogaFit and began teaching at gyms around the Twin Cities, eventually earning her RYT 500 through Devanadi School of Yoga and Wellness in Minneapolis. A no-brainer for Hoch, she started creating jewelry and malas (spiritual meditation beads originating in India)
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