The Speech Source
Mary Brezik and Kim Dillon are two pediatric speech-language pathologists with over 25 years of combined experience. As speech therapists, we are often the first professionals to assess young children once they are referred by their pediatrician. Either they are not talking well or they are not eating well. We get to know our patients, their families, and how they are developing. We have a front row seat during the first critical and formative years of development for those who receive our services. Because of this, we have developed relationships with other professionals, observed what parent questions and concerns often arise, and see a need to share the resources and information we have compiled over the years. Join us as we dig into topics that show all of the overlapping aspects of child development and intervention. We invite you to be a part of our collaborative platform as we discuss, learn and grow for the betterment of our kids!
The Speech Source
S3E11: Mindfulness in Kids with Nanda Yoga Owner Kate Murphy
In this episode of The Speech Source Podcast, hosts Kim and Mary talk with Kate Murphy, the founder of Nanda Yoga in Fort Worth, Texas.
Kate shares her incredible journey, beginning with her early involvement with movement as a gymnast, dancer, and cheerleader, and her discovery of yoga in college. After earning her children’s yoga certification in 2007, she dreamed of creating a space combining her love for children and movement. While living and traveling in Europe and experiencing several jobs that shaped this dream, she eventually landed a job working as a child life specialist in pediatric hospitals. Here she witnessed the vital role of mental and emotional well-being in children’s lives.
Kate’s path to opening Nanda Yoga Studio in 2020 was filled with challenges and triumphs, including navigating the global pandemic only 3 weeks after her studio's launch. Through perseverance, adaptability, and community support, she transformed her vision into a reality. Nanda Yoga is a unique space dedicated exclusively to children aged six weeks to 12 years, offering yoga classes, sensory gym activities, and enriching play opportunities.
Kate talks about the intentional design of her studio, inspired by her experiences working with children in medical and educational settings. The studio includes thoughtfully curated sensory play areas and a mural that sparks imagination and focus during yoga practice. The goal is to create a safe and nurturing environment where children can develop physical, emotional, and social skills.
Beyond the studio, Nanda Yoga extends its reach into schools, libraries, and community centers, providing accessible yoga programs to over 500 children weekly. Kate emphasizes the importance of equipping kids with mindfulness tools, coping mechanisms, and a love for movemen.
Kate also shares about her personal growth as a neurodivergent entrepreneur and the lessons learned from her supportive family. She encourages listeners to embrace their passions, persevere through challenges, and take bold steps toward their dreams. For her, Nanda Yoga is not just a business—it’s a legacy of connection, creativity, and holistic wellness for future generations.
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I think that it's a strength to keep going, even in the darkest hours, because there's always a light ahead. You just have to slow down and kind of recalibrate and see where the light's coming from and maybe you change your path a little bit, and that's okay. Everyone's journey doesn't have to be this perfectly groomed adventure. If it was, it really wouldn't be an adventure. Being 40 and being ADHD. I think that my neurodivergence has helped me more than anything. I don't think that it's been something that has been a challenge, but when I was a kid it was so challenging. It was really hard for me to navigate life and I always felt like my brain was on fire and I didn't know what to do with all my ideas and all my big feelings and my love for life. But I think that has really been something that I've been able to harness and really use.
Kim:Welcome to season three of the Speech Source Podcast with your hosts Kim and Mary. This season, our title is Changing the Game.
Mary :We are highlighting small business owners and entrepreneurs who have unwritten all the rules to starting a business and use their talents and their creativity to be able to build a business that is a lifestyle designed just for them and is making incredible impact in our community of Fort Worth, Texas.
Kim:So don't forget to subscribe to this season so you don't miss an episode.
Mary :Today we have a very exciting guest with us. Her name is Kate Murphy. She is the owner of Nanda Yoga Studio here in Fort Worth, and we are so thrilled to have her on today. She has a history as a child life specialist working at pediatric hospitals, and she has been able to transition her career working with children out of the hospitals and into a private yoga studio and has created exactly what she wanted to be able to give to kids. So we're so excited to hear from Kate. Kate is also a wife and mother of two boys in elementary school, and so she is a great person to talk to about balance and life and family and doing all the things. So welcome Kate.
Kate:Thank you so much for having me.
Mary :Let's talk about how you got started, so tell us about where you went to school and then how that transitioned into being a child life specialist.
Kate:So I went to the University of Texas in Austin. I graduated in 2007 with a degree in early childhood education and a minor in youth and community studies in Italian Very useful here in Texas. During school, I taught children's gymnastics and that was something that was always very passionate. I was a gymnast growing up and a cheerleader and a dancer, and so I did that and I got into yoga. When I was in college my sophomore year in college I was introduced to yoga and I just I absolutely fell in love with it, and I always wanted to blend my passion of movement and working with children. And when I fell in love with yoga, I thought this is it, this is what I want to do. I meant to do this, and so in 2007, I went to New York and I got my first children's yoga certification through Karma Kids Yoga, and then I immediately came back to Austin. I started teaching.
Kate:What happened after college is then I moved to Europe for a few years and I worked as an au pair and I ran a hostel and was a chef on a boat, and then I came back and then I started my work at Cook Children's as a child life specialist. So I did my internship there in 2010. And then I was hired on after that and I worked there until 2022 in both oncology and hematology for the first nine years, and I finished out my time there working nights in the ER so that I could open the yoga studio and run it by day. It was a very exciting time in life.
Mary :Oh, my goodness, I know so fascinating. This kind of doesn't surprise me too, because of the way you live life so fully, and you live life also just with having had so many experiences and adventures.
Kate:You can just tell Thank you, and it was. I truly believe that every adventure brings you to where you need to be, All the successes and all the failures. That's how your world is shaped and that's how your views and that's how your dreams, I feel like, are impacted. And so I feel that all the work that I was able to do before I started my big girl job at the hospital and then it allowed me to dream about what I always wanted to do was to open up a kid's yoga studio, and I knew that from the moment that I was getting my certification in New York. I told the teacher what do you want to do with your certification? I said I'm going to open a kid's yoga studio and she was, like sounds amazing, Keep me posted, Let me see how it goes and then flash forward what 13 years. Then I finally did it in 2020.
Kim:That was my question Whenever you were a child life specialist and working in the hospital, if that was still the end goal for you and so it sounds like it was but during that time when you were working with kids, were you able, in those moments, to see was that shaping what you were wanting to have this studio be or look like those years in the hospital?
Kate:I definitely think so. I think that my experiences in the hospital really fully led me to that ultimate conclusion that this was what I was meant to be and meant to do and bring to our community. Because there needed to be a space, a positive space, where kids could go that would emotionally and mentally and physically fill their cup. And we had so many wonderful opportunities for kids to engage in, like lots of extracurricular activities, right, like you have football and baseball and cheerleading and dance and karate and all these things. But, working with this population of oncology, they couldn't go to big classes with 15 to 20 kids in them. They couldn't be a part of that experience. And so I always thought, creating an intimate space for kids to be able to come and to move their bodies and to have these experiences, we didn't have anything like that in Fort Worth. In Fort Worth and I thought, especially after being like a frontline employee during those times working in the ER, I recognized that there was such a gap in the mental health capacity of what our community could provide and what we were providing, and there needed to be a space where we taught children coping skills or we taught them breathing techniques or we taught them the importance and the health benefits of moving our body and how it positively impacts your emotional and mental well-being. And so really, with all those experiences working in oncology and then transitioning to ER, I think it just further solidified that I knew I was on the right path and I knew I was going to get there and I was really grateful for the experiences that I was given at the hospital because I think it truly launched me into what Nanda has become.
Kate:I always had that seed. I always knew that it was what I wanted to do. But I think, like the way that I shaped the studio, the way that I create like the balance, the play studios, I think that was something that really came from the hospital. That was my first job, right as a child specialist. I was working at the feeding clinic and so they had an OT gym and I just thought what a beautiful space to just allow kids to come and be free and in a safe environment, and so that's why I designed the studio like that, to have those multiple play spaces and we can get into that later too. But I truly believe that all my work as an au pair working through college with kids I was a nanny in college. I think that it's all shaped who I am and what.
Mary :I was to be yeah, let's get into the space of NANDA. So we obviously have the privilege of being able to be at NANDA and see your space and how beautiful it is. But I remember the first time I went there I was really struck by how purposely planned out the spaces were. And hearing about your background, now it all makes sense. But tell me about, okay, you had this vision coming from child life and you thought, okay, I need a sensory gym, I'm going to need a padded floor space that's going to be my studio for the actual classes, maybe a waiting area. But as you're thinking through these things in your head, how did that translate when, all of a sudden, you just go and start looking at commercial real estate in Fort Worth? How did you have to translate that to either a blank canvas or like how to even start, because that obviously didn't exist as you were looking?
Kate:So, yeah, you're right, I had been dreaming about this for so long that I knew exactly how I wanted it to be and how I wanted to be planned out. I had never been more sure of something than of that moment of designing the yoga studio and the play spaces, and so when we found our location now, it was an old accounting office Lots of compartments, little offices, hundreds of electrical outlets. It really was a raw space that hadn't been touched in a while, and I knew exactly how I wanted it to flow. I could just envision it and see it, and I was very fortunate to find a great contractor in between, like my, my family and I. My dad is very resourceful and crafty and my sister is a fabulous designer and so we all just sat down and went through it all and created it, I think, in less than an hour or so. I think that we had it all drawn out, exactly what I wanted it to be, and they'd also heard me talk about it for so many years, and so I'm sure they were just really excited for me to actually put them to paper and get out into the world.
Kate:I have two little boys and I had so many experiences with extracurricular activities and that also shaped on what I wanted to do. Because so often, like, you're rushed in, you do your activity and then you're rushed out because the next class comes in, and so your kids never really have that time to acclimate to the environment, they never have that time to dig in and explore, and so that's why I wanted the yoga studio to be. I wanted it to be this yes space where a child can come in and they can touch anything, they can move everything, nothing is breakable in there, and that really gives them the confidence to explore. And when we set up these play invitations for the kids, they're really like Montessori-based opportunities that we're providing there. We have a few vertical learning spaces, like board for more STEM type play. We have a felt board and then we have rugs that the kids can roll out and they can take their toys back to their space and create, and they have a table they can stand. So it's really just giving the children the opportunity to lead their own play that adults do not have to be involved in, because so often as adults we try to leave play. We try to create these play situations that we're in control, so it gives the kids back that control, that they can just move freely around and they can move anything and play with everything. And that's why I really wanted children to feel when I walked in. I wanted them to feel that this was a space that they were welcome.
Kate:This was a space that was created by my family for your family to enjoy, and so we encourage all of our kids to come in at least 15 minutes early so they can play and hang out and get acclimated to the play space and to our studio, and also it helps them to form that bond with their little yoga community that they create and then, when they're done, they can come out and they can play for 15 minutes afterwards.
Kate:So then when you put them back into the car, we are balanced and we're feeling good about going home. We've gotten lots of little wiggles out and now you can go home and start your afternoon routine, your post-school routine. And so we have the two play spaces. One is a flex space and that's more for social gathering snacks and then for loose parts. Parts play more like your fine motor skills, and then you transition to our sensory gym and that's more for your gross motor skills and for your proprioceptive and vestibular input. We have aerial swings and we have the rock wall and we have all sorts of big things that they can build with and crash and bump type situations so they can jump off, and we have crash mats and so it's really a choose your own adventure space, and I think that's something that kids love about it. They love the yoga space because they can go and they can be seen and heard and they can create their own play opportunities.
Mary :You also customized quite a bit of the studio. Not only did you finish it out yourself, but you have custom floors and you also have custom murals. I know you've shared this story with Kim and I how you designed or gave direction to the artist that did the murals but I would love for you to share with our audience what you've shared with us about how you envisioned both the floors and the walls to be so purposeful for your kiddos.
Kate:So all of our flooring is a two inch padded flooring and it comes from right here in Fort Worth called Dolomer, and it's a great company, and they make all sorts of athletic padded floors, whether it's for wrestling or cheerleading or workout gyms, and so when I discovered them, I knew that that was something that we needed in our space, because we offer yoga for age six weeks to 12 years at the yoga studio, and so, recognizing that we have toddling friends, we have friends who are just getting their footing together, and so I wanted it to make it a safe environment for them, and so I decided on those flooring that goes all the way through the yoga studio, through the play spaces, so it creates that comfortable experience for the kids. And then when you get back into our big yoga studio, which is where we teach all of our classes as well as our aerial yoga classes, I wanted the flooring to be padded as well, and we have our beautiful mural there, which, from a muralist here in Fort Worth named Katie Marie, and she is so talented and she really took my thoughts and kind of desires and just transformed it into this beautiful picture. I wanted it to be this oasis, like an oasis of play. So when you're looking at it, I want it to be functional, but I also wanted it to be beautiful. So lots of times we're in yoga and we're talking about balancing postures, we talk about finding our drishti, finding that one point on the wall or something like that that you can focus on and it's really hard to focus on a white wall. You really can't find a lot to focus on a white wall and so in creating this mural, I wanted it to be something that the kids could pick out certain things on it, like maybe like the leaf, or maybe like the leopard spot or the monkey's nose or something like that, so that they could look at it and they could focus on it, which would help them with their balancing postures.
Kate:But also I want it to be something that we can bring into our yoga classes and a lot of our kids' yoga classes. We weave stories into them and we go on these grand adventures, and so the wall is so often something that we pull in a lot because the kids can create it, they can imagine it, and when they create their own adventures, they use the wall as like a launching point for their stories. It's great, too, because we do a lot of work with the wall, because the wall is a tool as well that we use in yoga, and so it's really helpful. We can say, okay, go find a tree and put your hand on a tree, or go find, go find an animal, put your foot on an animal, those kinds of things. So it's really great and directional as well. So when you're standing back from it, it's this beautiful kind of oasis that has water flowing, it has big green fauna, it has various animals tucked in along the way and all the clouds are different shapes of animals and it's a really purposeful and very sweet mural.
Kate:And the fun thing is, and Katie came in and she drew it all with pencil and then she did color by numbers, and so we covered the yoga studio.
Kate:We had all these paint cans, it's like 15 of my girlfriends. I came, my dad catered food and we had wine and we sat there until midnight painting and then the next day Katie came in and she did all the details, and so it's fun because my friends got to be a part of it, and it's so meaningful to me because every time I look at it I think about, you know, like the wonderful moments that we had to, you know, in creating it, and I think about how much the kids just love it. You know it never gets old. You know it never gets old for them. They're always like discovering something new in the mural, and I really wanted a mural in the yoga studio just because I think it brings so much life to the walls. And we teach kids, and kids love bright colors, they love bringing in art to the studio, and at the studio we also teach process art and sensory play in all of our classes, and so I think it's just something that weaves it all together.
Kim:This series has been so fun for us because when we focused on Fort Worth and one of the common themes with all of our guests has been the collaboration with other businesses in Fort Worth and so, just like you said, the muralist, katie, was also one of our guests and you were able to bring her in as part of your business and your friends and to paint, and your dad, your family, to help you design. It sounds like you really had a vision for your business, but do you feel like having Fort Worth play such a big part in your business was something that surprised you, or do you feel like you have sought that out, just those collaboration pieces and shaping your business with the community and everything that's happening around us and in Fort Worth?
Kate:Fort Worth has always been a big part of my life.
Kate:I grew up here, I went to Trinity Valley, my great grandparents are from here, I have a long lineage here in Fort Worth and I am so proud to be a Fort Worthian. I love the community, I love the small big town feel of it. Engaging with our community and collaborating is always one of our pillars Collaboration and just in the past we've been open almost five years. I've collaborated with over 70 local other businesses here in Fort Worth and I think that's something that's really important to me, because we're all small businesses, we're all doing our best to get our names out there, we're all doing our best to find that community, and I think that using a yoga studio is such a great way to create that community, not only in a small business sense, but also for the families that go to our yoga studio, because then they get to be introduced to more Fort Worth based businesses that they might not have ever discovered and or known about, and so I think that the yoga studio gave me a beautiful platform to create those community based interactions.
Mary :Tell us a little bit more about your business model, because I know that we've talked about how you have a space and then you finished it out, you created it beautifully and then started having classes in that space. But then you also do quite a bit in the community of Fort Worth that it is not just in those walls. You do a lot of enrichments and schools and outreach and different programs. Tell us a little bit more about what you're doing in the community with Nanda.
Kate:So recognizing. As being a yogi practitioner, I noticed very early on that a lot of times there could be a financial barrier to going to yoga, and I didn't want that to be the situation for our yoga studio. So we have our yoga studio, which we teach classes for ages six weeks to 12 years, and then, in addition to that, we're in 24 schools and local community spaces. So we have anywhere from small private schools to Fort Worth ISD schools, and we teach a little over 500 kids a week. And that was something that I think is so important was, no matter what you could or could not afford, I wanted you to be able to have access to yoga, because I think that was really important to make yoga accessible, and I think that's a really big barrier as to why a lot of people don't practice yoga, or maybe they don't think they can practice yoga, and so from really early on, I wanted to create this community engagement where we would bring yoga into the schools, and so, when I was working at the hospital, I started working in Fort Worth ISD in 2011. So I worked in the schools for 13 years now and we have grown steadily every year. It's just incredible how many people are interested and wanting to bring mindfulness and movement into their school because they know how impactful it is. And especially our world coming off of COVID and people actually started to take a look at the mental health and wellness of our kids and how it's declining quickly. And we can attribute that to many things, right, like the rise of technology, smartphones, all of these things that have created this damper on our children's development, and like mental health and wellbeing. And so more and more people are realizing that, hey, we need to figure something out to provide for our students, and so school is such a wonderful space for it because you have these students for seven to eight hours a day and you can fold in these like small moments of mindfulness and movement.
Kate:So we have schools that we go in during the day.
Kate:We have some preschools that we go in during the day and we're there for three hours and we teach their entire school and rotations. We have some that we go to and we provide extracurricular enrichment programming after school. We have some that we go to and we provide extracurricular enrichment programming after school. We have some that we provide quarterly sessions, the entire school we can go in and we can do like big presentations, we do story time, yoga, we're in local libraries, we do all the boys and girls clubs.
Kate:We work with ach, which is all children's home, and so we work with their shelters and then with all those like their family shelter, and so we really have some really dynamic offerings throughout the community. And I think that is so special that we can go into these schools and I think it's so special that people are wanting yoga to be a part of their children's daily curriculum, because I think that now more and more people are understanding the necessity of providing your children with an outlet that really is like a whole child's kind of look like take on it that we attend to the mental, physical and emotional well-being. So does that kind of answer your question?
Mary :Oh, yeah, no, that was so good, so fascinating. Okay, so, to be able to see 500 kids a week. Obviously you as one person cannot be able to provide this, so you would have to hire some contractors or employees. So how did you go about finding these people to provide the vision and bring it into the classroom for these kids?
Kate:So you say that one person couldn't do all those things. So there was a time in my life that I did teach 32 classes a week and work nights in the hospital Thursday night, and then I would wake up Friday morning.
Kate:I would come home around four or five and I would get into bed for a little bit and then I would wake up Friday morning. I would go teach from 8am to 2.30, because on Fridays we teach 350 kids, just on Fridays alone, and so then I would wake up Friday morning. I would go teach from 8am to 2.30, because on Fridays we teach 350 kids just on Fridays alone, and so then I would go teach and then I would go back for my 3P to 3A shift Friday nights. It was just, it was wild. So I started hiring people and I have the most incredible team. I have 11 women who work for me and they help me carry out this vision. They believe in what we're doing and they help me spread the love of what kids yoga is all throughout the community and so everyone has their classes. They get to sign up for the classes, like the schools and the spaces that they want. Some of it's based on proximity, some of it's based on hey, I really love working with this age group. Like preschool is like my favorite age. One of the teachers I have has been a preschool teacher for 28 years. She teaches all of our preschool classes because she loves it and it makes her super happy. That's her niche and that's what she's wonderful at. I have one woman she's a retired high school teacher. She loves teaching at ACH because those are mainly like more middle school and high school age children and that's her niche and she loves it. She's also a mindfulness coach and so she gets to flex her muscles in that regard, like in that space, and so it was a slow build because, backing up, we haven't really talked about this, but I opened the yoga studio in 2020 and I closed the yoga studio in 2020 because we opened in February 2020, and we were open for three weeks and then we closed down due to COVID in March 2020 and then we reopened in June of 2020 for summer camps and then we just did camps from June to October or September and we also pivoted our entire business model to be like small groups, so you come and have like your academic cohort that would come in and you could utilize the space for play and for interaction, but you could also do your tutoring and things there. And so it was just wild because I'd hired this whole team of people, covid hit and we couldn't have any classes or do anything. So I lost this entire team of people that I built together because I couldn't afford to give them work, because we weren't we didn't have any classes we had to cancel everything. And so, since 2020, it's been a really slow build up to 11 teachers, but it's been fantastic because now I've had some of these teachers who've been with me since 2021. It's really fun. We've created this family and they're all contract employees and, yeah, it's just the way that I hired them is being a part of the yoga world.
Kate:People are very anxious and excited to tell me oh, I heard that took their kids yoga certification. You should talk to them. They're great, they're wonderful, and so we set up interviews and sometimes they work out beautifully and sometimes it's just not a good fit. But I think, for the most part, people who are attracted to Nanda are the people who I'm looking for. They're passionate, they have great experience working with kids.
Kate:Like between the 11 of us, we have over a hundred years of working with kids, and I have very strict prerequisites for interviewing and for being a part of the team you have to have your children's yoga certifications. You have to have at least your 200, your 500 hours preferable. You've had to have classroom experience, working with kids in a classroom and having like classroom management. You have to have worked with kids for at least five years. I have a lot of prerequisites for working at the studio and I think that's something that makes our team really strong is that they have all this incredible experience Like one is a sound healing therapist, one is a mindfulness coach, one is a Reiki master and been a preschool teacher, and so it's just they bring all these fantastic experiences with them and that's what makes this robust team that we have and I could not do it without them. There's no way, because we have so many classes running. I think we teach like 49 classes a week.
Kim:Wow. So, aside from then, just your teachers that are helping you run the physical classes, how are you keeping track of just all of the accounts you have and different settings and times and schedules and payroll? Do you have a virtual assistant, a real assistant? How are you doing all of this? Not that a virtual assistant is not a real assistant. Who's helping you?
Kate:I did everything for years. I cleaned everything, I scheduled everyone, I did payroll, I balanced our books. I ran our social media, did our website. I was not only the face of Nandu Yoga, but I was the operations behind it, people were like, oh, I sent an email and no one in the office has gotten back to me yet.
Kate:I'm like there's only one person in the office and it's me, and you said it at midnight. I know that it's silly to sleep, but I've got to sleep at some point. So really I work on non-dead all hours of the night. Before I set up my schedule differently this year, I set myself up for success this year, I told myself that when I turned 40, I was going to be like the year of Kate and I was going to figure out a good schedule. I was going to figure out good balance, and I finally have, because for years I taught so many classes during the day and after school that when it came time to work on Nanda and to do all those things, I would be up until two or three o'clock in the morning, because that was a time that I needed to get things finished and to check emails. And so this past I guess this past year one of our teachers came to me and said can I please be your manager? I feel that you just need some love and I feel like you need someone, and I said yes, you can definitely be my manager. Let's do it, because I feel like I was just always drowning, like I just I was just always bobbing. I would come up just enough for air and be like, oh, this feels really good, and then I'd be drugged down again. And I have a manager and she works about 10 hours a week and we do everything from like social media planning to creating classes or emails or just like things that I need to have help with. That would just alleviate some of my time a little bit so I can work on the business and not just always in the business.
Kate:Because for the past four years that I've had Nanda, I've always been working in the business because I've been teaching so many classes and doing all of those things. And it's a constant hustle when you own it. When you own your own business, it's constantly trying to connect with people, constantly trying to maintain customer outreach and all of these things, while still balancing being a mom and being a wife and having friends and being present for your family and all of those things that kind of pull you in different directions and it's been a massive learning curve. Like I. I have learned a lot about business. I was not a business major. I was not a business mind. I was never that great with those things, but it's been a really exciting adventure because I've learned so much about business and I've learned so much how to have a healthy business, and so it's been a great experience. I'm glad that I wore all those hats because it also showed me what I didn't want to do anymore, like balancing my books.
Kate:When I became financially confident in the business. It was my first like big hire that I did was I hired an accountant, and it was very liberating. It was very exciting not to have to balance my books and do those kinds of things. But that's really the only thing I outsource.
Kate:Like I still manage all of our social media, I still run payroll and you know, do all the curriculum building and go out there and find new schools for us to be at, and it's like you're on that hamster wheel just always turning, and the minute that one thing gets figured out, there's something else that we want to do or there's something else that pops up, and so I think it's just managing expectations.
Kate:I always felt that if someone texted me or emailed me, I had to do it right then and there, and now you can wait a few hours to reply to someone because you also are working and doing other things, and so it's just been a road of discovery and it hasn't been pretty, it's been messy, but it's been really exciting because I felt like I needed to drown a little bit so I could really appreciate and see what I needed help with and find those areas and find the perfect person. And my manager is incredibly organized. She keeps me in check and she keeps me organized and moving forward and I'm very grateful for her and for what she brings to our team.
Kim:But I highly encourage having someone to help you along, to help hold your hand a little bit do you have a favorite organizational system or platform or something you use that is really helpful in keeping everything organized or letting you see what you what you do need to do and accomplish? Or is that all happening in your brain?
Kate:It is all rapid fire in my brain. I tell my husband all the time I'm like my brain is a very scary place to be. So many things fire me at all times. So I have so many notebooks like so many spiral notebooks full of ideas and agendas and things like that, my notes on my phone. I think I checked the other day I have like 938 notes on my phone and those are like those 3 amam, like epiphanies, and I'm like oh my gosh, I got to do this. I we need to create this class at the studio, we need to do this. Or, oh my gosh, I need to remember to buy toilet paper tomorrow for the yoga studio. That's like what? Like my phone is Cause it's right by my bed and I can just do it half asleep. And sometimes I wake up and I'm like those aren't even words. What was I thinking about? So I really have to sit there and think of what was I thinking about four o'clock in the morning. It was something special. It was important enough for me to get up and to make a note of it, but I have no idea what I was typing.
Kate:And we love Google Drive. We keep all of our stuff on Google Drive. Like all of our curriculum the teacher's schedules, payroll forms, like all of those kind of things on Google Drive, so everyone can have access to them and there's not just like one gatekeeper. It creates this sense of accountability and responsibility amongst the teachers that they're in charge of doing their payroll, they're in charge of calculating what they're owed and and submitting it to us, and so I think that Google Drive has been really incredible but really like we're pretty pretty easy and chill run space. We do QuickBooks for payroll and those kinds of things, and that makes things so nice because it just takes care of your payroll taxes and it takes care of like 1099s and all those kinds of things that we don't have to worry about. So there are I think there's lots of really wonderful platforms and organizational hacks, but we just keep it simple.
Kate:We do Slack. I love Slack. Like that's how we keep all of our communications organized. I noticed as our team started growing that doing emails and doing text messages and stuff like that it just it was really hard for us to keep track of. And so we love Slack because it helps to keep all these channels organized, because we have four teachers who work in one space, so the messages I'm seeing them don't really apply to the rest of the group, so it's nice that we segregate them.
Kate:Okay, this is our chat platform for this, this group and this, and so people are just really getting the information that they truly need and we're not doing these like blanket text messages and stuff like that, Because I think nowadays, with so many notifications on your phone, I think that we just don't want to be a part of that. So the information that we send out to you is purposeful, is necessary and please take a look at it, and I think that when people see it Slack like on their phone, they are more apt to open it really quick, even if, like, they're headed somewhere or leaving a class, because it might be like a sub need or like something like that. I think that's been a great platform. That's been really beneficial for us and keeping everyone on track and everyone abreast of what we need to do.
Mary :So, yeah, that's helpful. So you've traveled around the world and lived around the world. Is Nanda modeled after anything that you ever saw or an example of something that existed, or was it totally a compilation of all of your own experiences?
Kate:Oh no, that's just my brainchild. Nanda is 100% my brainchild and I think that's what makes it so exciting is it's completely original. There's not a lot of kids yoga studios in the United States and they did some research, like last year, I think there's like over 42,000 adult studios in the US. Like last year, I think there's like over 42,000 adult studios in the US, but when it comes to kids yoga studios, we're very rare find, and I think that the yoga studio that I've created is even more special because we only teach kids. There's a lot of studios who have like kid classes but they still teach adults. Like we are strictly child focused and I think that's what really sets us apart and what makes our yoga studio so special is because it's carefully curated for that age demographic that we attend to for the six weeks to 12 years. We have everything you know thought of to create this safe and welcoming space for kids, and so that was it was always my dream and I feel that with, like, my background in education I studied Montessori, I studied Steiner, I studied all of these amazing leaders in education and really like free thinking educational approach and I wanted to model it after those teaching philosophies, and so I think that's there's everything I've done everywhere.
Kate:I've been everyone that I've taught, all the places where I've taught. Right when I came home from my yoga certification, I started working at an art studio in Austin and I taught kids yoga and we taught kids cooking classes, we taught process art, we taught sensory play. So I really got introduced to all of these things that you can bring into yoga. You're working with kids and so you can integrate so many offerings into the teaching of yoga. That really makes it this exciting and well-rounded learning experience, this integrated learning experience. And so I think that, just from every everything that I did, I think that Nanda little pieces of it, like a puzzle, just came into focus and then, once it was all said and done, you just step back and you reflect on all these incredible experience that you had over your life and recognize that it is all purposeful, it is all meant to be, and the way that it shapes you and the way that it shapes what your passion and what your dreams are.
Kim:And the idea of it within the kids is so great as far as just teaching them early on some of these skills that are actually hard for me as an adult. I'm a very type A person. It's very hard for me to recognize the importance of spending a lot of time on the emotional piece and allowing my body and space and all of the awareness. That's hard as an adult. And so I think when you can teach that to kids at a young age, that's something that's going to they're going to carry throughout their lives and even within the schools. I'm so glad that the schools are especially this public schools too bringing y'all in Cause. I've been on several just site-based committees where that social, emotional piece within the schools that they're needing to pull in is really hard for them to find within certain curriculums. So I'm glad that they're really reaching out and having you come into the schools, because that's a really big piece of a kid's day that needs to be just as important as all of their academic areas.
Kate:Yeah, and I think that when we go into schools, our school programming is really to increase, like social, emotional learning opportunities, and we create this trauma-sensitive environment that encourages and engages children to have more of a growth mindset. We introduce them to yoga poses and breathing techniques and storytelling and musics and song and all these things that engage the whole child. So we want to provide the students with tools and confidence that they need to thrive both inside and outside of school and I think that's what's really impactful. These schools are recognizing that we need this another layer because during COVID you think about your kids go to school seven hours a day. They're with their peers, they're having those social connections, they're with their teachers, they, you know, school was our first line of defense.
Kate:School goes way beyond education and what it provides for our students on a daily basis and for our kids, and I think that now that we can couple it with providing yoga in schools, I think it just makes it this really impactful situation because then they can play these things out in real life situation. Right, like you know, when we're teaching a class we say, oh, times we ever feel like nervous or do we ever feel unsure, maybe like about a test or about we're meeting a new friend in our class, those kind of things. And then we say, oh, it'll really help us if we've come back to our. Breath is so powerful, it's our superpower and it can help us to calm down. We're feeling nervous or excited. We've been running around a lot. The playground can help our bodies to calm down and to cool down. It's like bringing in those real life situations through their school environment and helping them play it through. I think it's amazing at what we can do, and I love when kids are like oh, miss Kate, I had tests either day and I did flower breath and it was so great.
Kate:Or I was at my soccer game. I never played soccer before and I wasn't feeling very good about it. My stomach hurt and I did a big breath and my body feels so much better. Or I taught my grandma how to do this and that Like it's just. It's really sweet that they're taking what they're learning in school and they're bringing it into their lives, because that's what yoga is it learning in school and they're bringing it into their lives because that's what yoga is. It's a way of life, it's a way of living, it's a way of being.
Kate:It goes far beyond just physical postures. It teaches children to be kind and to be loving and to be compassionate and to be mindful and to recognize that there's something more to life than just what's going on right here. And I think that with kids yoga people would always back in the day people were like, oh, you're going to open a kid's yoga studio. They're like, kate, you're crazy. And I'm like, why do you think I'm crazy? The kids aren't going to sit still and that's just. It's not going to fly in Fort Worth. I was like, why not? Why Fort Worth has wonderful families with wonderful children in them and that also they want to learn coping skills and techniques and they want their children to go on and thrive and do great things in the world. So yoga is a great launching point for that. I always tell people that it provides a safe and nurturing environment and children are able to explore their bodies and minds and develop important skills that benefit for a lifetime.
Kate:Yoga is something that grows with you. At 90, I don't see myself kicking a soccer ball around or playing catch or doing parallettes in the hallway, but I can see myself finding a place of meditation. I can see myself doing chair yoga because it grows with you and it moves with you. And the great thing about yoga is you don't need anything with you to do it. You don't even need a mat, you don't need a ball, you don't need a field. It's something that you can do anywhere, at any time. You can do it on a plane, you can do it in your office chair, you can do it in your desk, and I think that setting kids up for success at an early age and teach them that what they're learning in yoga is translatable to everyday life, I think is giving them those tools that they need to succeed.
Mary :What I also love about yoga is that yoga is such a spiritual practice but it really transcends any sort of religion at all. It's not about this religion that can be so polarizing, or it can be so such a hot topic or not allowed in public schools whatsoever, and so it's a way to really teach those qualities, like you said, of those character traits of kindness and mindfulness and all the things, without it having to come down to a certain adhering to a certain belief system, which is really nice.
Kate:Totally. And I think that when you give children the confidence and the space and when they step on their mat and they feel seen and they feel heard and they feel loved, what they can accomplish is unlimited. It shows them that the sky's the limit, that they can do these great things. And I think that yoga is really, at the end of the day, to me it's about connection connecting to the people around me, connecting to the world, the environment around me, connecting to my community, because that's what it provides. It provides a really wonderful community of people that attracts, attracts like-hearted people who want the best for themselves, want the best for their friends, want the best for the world. I think kids yoga is just a really special and wonderful activity for kids to be engaged in.
Kate:Like, when I was little, I was diagnosed with ADHD. When I was in third grade, I went to a small private school. I was the only girl in the entire school who had ADHD and was taking meds every day, and my mom was a school teacher. She'd been a school teacher for 40 years and she was so creative with providing me with these positive outlets for my energy and for my like, my big emotions, and she was well beyond her time. You know of what she provided me with.
Kate:But when I was going through my yoga trainings and everything else I've done to build Nanda, I just I can't help but wonder what my life would have been like if I would have had a space like Nanda, if I would have been able to go to a space like Nanda and to learn yoga and to practice yoga, instead of finding it when I was 19 years old, if I found it when I was nine, what would that would have shaped my life and how that would have shaped me as an adult and how that would have shaped me as a college student.
Kate:And I'm so glad that I found yoga when I did. But I just I think it's incredible that I have six week babies who are coming in with their grownups and who are moving their bodies at such a young age and we have toddlers who will sit and sing songs and do down dog and it's just precious and it's so wonderful that they're learning this at such a young age and that they're learning to calm their bodies and that they're learning the language to use when we're feeling overwhelmed or stressed or anxious and it's managing those big emotions. And I know grownups who have a hard time managing their big emotions. So when we can teach children how to manage that at a younger age, I think that as they grow they're more aware of their emotions and they're more aware of their boundaries and what makes them feel confident in life and what they struggle with. I think that allows them to take a step back and to really recognize those, those emotions.
Mary :Because you're right with some kids who are extremely active. A lot of times the things that are recommended to you are high impact or high energy activities. Okay well, go play soccer, go run laps, go get your energy out, go jump on the trampoline. But you're really saying hold on, wait a minute. We don't need to just distract or continue on that hamster wheel, but we need to get to the bottom of like, how do you sit with your body, how do you sit with your own feelings, your own emotions, and what do you do with that when everything becomes still?
Kate:I think that in our world, in our current climate, that we're in busyness is a badge of honor, right, it's. Oh, I'm busy, we're so busy. We got this going on and that going on. I got work and we have this and kids here busy all the time, and so I think that they think that we need to be busy all the time. I need to be going to school, I need to be doing this after school sports. They see people just constantly running around, and so I think when you're introducing yoga, you're not only teaching children to slow down, but you're teaching them that it's okay to slow down.
Kate:It's okay to say no to something. No is a full sentence and it does not need any explanation. We feel all the time that, even like when someone's like hey, do you want to go to happy hour, I'm like oh golly, no, I can't. I'm so sorry, but I got this going on and this going on. We always feel compelled to say to explain ourselves why we're saying no, but it's okay to say. To explain ourselves why we're saying no, but it's okay to say no. You don't need a reason to say no. No is no.
Kate:You know what? I can't go on a play date today, my body's feeling really tired, like being able to recognize that in themselves. So they're not writing themselves ragged, they're not doing all these things because it's not a healthy way of life to always be running around. You miss so many different things and you're not really fully present when you're running around. So, teaching children how to be present, how to be mindful, how to slow down, and if you give them the tools to explore that, then they will take advantage of it. Just the other day, like my son, my youngest was having a really tough time and he just went in and just started building logos, just very quietly and mindfully, because that's what he needed to calm his body down. He needed to focus on something. It's like when you hear a kid hum. My most favorite thing is to listen to a kid hum because I know in that moment they feel safe and they feel content and there's not a lot of background chatter going on in their brain because they're so present in what they're doing.
Kim:That's interesting. I honestly haven't ever thought about humming that way. I like that thought a lot.
Kate:Like notice, like when you hum, what are you doing? I'm usually in a really safe space, I feel very calm, and sometimes I'm doing something that I love like maybe I'm gardening and all of a sudden my husband's like, oh, you're humming. I'm like oh, actually I did not know I was humming. I wasn't even paying attention. I was just so enthralled in what I was doing that I didn't even know that I was humming.
Mary :I can see you being a hummer, Kate.
Kim:I love that I had no idea that when you opened your yoga studio, it was literally the month before the world shut down, and so anyone will tell you when you go into business that you have to have a mindset of being flexible and being able to shift and all of these things, and that was told to us and I feel like that has been very true. I can't imagine a bigger shift than having to figure that out. But you're so excited to have gotten where you were and then the world literally shut down and we had no clue what was going to be happening over the next couple of years. But you've shifted and you've adapted. Do you look far ahead now as a business owner? Have you thought about a legacy that you're wanting to leave for your family or within the studio? What are your thoughts and ideas on that?
Kate:Yeah, I would love to franchise Nanda. That's been a dream of mine for a long time. I've always had this dream of Nanda and then, when my youngest was born in 2018, we were in the NICU and I remember I called my husband and I said now's the time. He's like what? What are you talking about? Are you okay? Have you slept? And I'm like, no, I have not slept, but I also I want you to know, now's the time for me to open the yoga studio. And he was like, okay, let's maybe focus on getting our baby healthy and getting him home, and then let's talk about the yoga studio. I'm like, oh, need this for our boys. I need this for kids in the community. I'm looking at him in this little stylet and I have great visions of him growing up in my yoga studio, and so that's forward a little bit.
Kate:I applied to be a part of the Fort Worth business plan competition and I got accepted and I was top 10 and I won pitch night and in that was this grand plan to franchise, because I wanted it to be in other places, because there's no other kids yoga studio in the areas. I want to grow Nanda, so I can create this model that can be placed somewhere else and that can cater to their community as well. We are opening a yoga school, and so we're going to start certifying kids yoga teachers, and so that's something that we want to grow into and ultimately we'll grow into the pediatric wellness facility, and that's our next few phases of life and stages of growth, for at least like the next five years, is what we have going on. That's exciting.
Mary :You have a lot on the horizon. I know you have so many plans, even though we're not going to dive into them today or are you ready to share them, but you have vision after vision in the future, so I am so excited to see all of your visions come to fruition here in Fort Worth and beyond. I want to end with one last question for you, Kate, and that is looking back. If you could tell yourself your young Kate words of wisdom or advice or a piece of encouragement, what would you say to your young self when you were trying to start this back in the day?
Kate:I love this question because I think about this often. I think if I were to travel back in time and tell young Kate I was going to open a kid's yoga studio, I think I would say that, yep, that tracks. That sounds about something that I would do. I think I would tell her to always persevere. I think I would tell her to keep going, even when times were extremely hard and challenging and overwhelming, because I had a lot of people who told me that this wasn't going to work. I had a lot of people who told me that it was silly, maybe I should just have an adult yoga studio and like teach some kids classes on the side, or that I shouldn't open the yoga studio at all and I should just be like a mobile yoga studio. And I thought, no, I want a space where I can host events, where we can have birthday parties, where we can have drum circles, where we can have afterschool classes. I wanted it to be a community that attracted like-hearted individuals and families, a gathering space. That's what I wanted Nanda to be. And so I think that telling the younger version of myself just to keep on swimming, just to keep on going because who could have ever forecasted that I was going to open a business in the world's worst time to open a business and I thought that there was times that I was just going to abandon ship and say, hey, I tried and it didn't work and go on to the next thing, but I stuck with it and I believed in it and I'm so passionate about it. And there's on to the next thing. But I stuck with it and I believed in it and I'm so passionate about it.
Kate:And there's not a day that goes by that I'm not grateful for my strength. I'm not grateful for my family for lifting me up in a really challenging time, because it was hard, but I think I've proved over and over to myself that I can do hard things, traveled all over the world by myself. I've gotten into some hairy situations by my own because of those things, but I have always been resourceful. I've always been very loyal and dedicated and passionate and when I believe in something, I put my whole heart behind it. And I have a big heart and I have lots of love to give and lots of knowledge that I want to impart, and I think that it's a strength to keep going, even in the darkest hours, because there's always a light ahead. You just have to slow down and kind of recalibrate and see where the light's coming from and maybe you change your path a little bit and that's okay. Everyone's journey doesn't have to be this perfectly groomed adventure. If it was, it really wouldn't be an adventure. My visions, my big dreamer, the love I have for life will one day come to fruition and unveil and create something really beautiful.
Kate:I feel that, being a child and still being 40 and being ADHD, I think that my neurodivergence has helped me more than anything. I don't think that it's been something that has been a challenge, but when I was a kid it was so challenging. It was really hard for me to navigate life and I always felt like my brain was on fire and I didn't know what to do with all my ideas and all my big feelings and my love for life. But I think that has really been something that I've been able to harness and really use. And I think that I tell myself to always be so grateful for the supportive family that I have, because without what my mom and dad did for me when I was young and for giving me these really creative and positive outlets, I don't think that I would be here today in the same space.
Kate:I don't know if I would have had the confidence to believe in myself, but everything they did gave me the confidence that I could do great things in the world, and that's you always need those people who believe in you, even when you have the craziest ideas, like opening a kid's yoga studio. Those people who constantly give you that, that home that you feel grounded in, but also encourage you to have wings, to expand and to fly and to experience new things in life and to adventure and to be independent. So anyone else who's starting a business, I give you the same advice Be courageous, be bold, even if it's scary. Take the first step and you can always pivot. You can always find something that feels right, because sometimes you're going down a path you think this wasn't it, so you verge off a little bit and you eventually get to where you're supposed to be.
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