Editor’s note: ExitEvent and WRALTechWire are cooperating in presenting news about the region’s entrepreneurial sector. Today, ExitEvent Editor Laura Baverman interviews Lisa Jones, the doctor who founded CurvyGirlHealth.

DURHAM, N.C. – A decade of training to become a gastroenterologist taught Lisa Jones the lessons now guiding her newfound career at the helm of just-launched healthy living digital news site, CurvyGirlHealth.

First, she’s learned that personal struggle can inspire passion.

Second, that passion in one person inspires passion in another and third, that passion in both inspires business.

Oh, and you don’t have to follow the rules if you can come up with your own way.

CurvyGirlHealth is a place where Jones, now a part-time physician at the Hospital at East Carolina University and the Durham VA Medical Center, can recount a 23-year struggle with health and weight that began at age 11. It’s where other women are encouraged to share their own struggles.

Jones emphasizes that the site is not about prescribing one way to be healthier. It’s about being honest about the struggle and letting women offer up what’s working or not working for them.

“I don’t think we’ll have a success story on the site, because I don’t think that exists,” she says. “People work their way through challenging problems and come out of it with perspective. But it’s a never-ending journey.”

The entire story can be read online at ExitEvent.