Light Up Your Business
Welcome to the Light Up Your Business podcast, where we dive deep into the strategies, stories, and insights that drive growth, change, success and innovation for small business owners.
Each episode dives into the struggles behind the scenes—from burnout and financial pressure to self-doubt and juggling personal life. Whether you’re just starting out or scaling up, this podcast offers candid conversations, practical advice, and encouragement to help you stay grounded, find balance, and keep going. Because building a business shouldn’t mean losing yourself in the process.
Light Up Your Business
Creating a Thriving Yoga Studio: Insights from Zen Den's Success in Fruita
Unlock the secrets of starting and sustaining a successful yoga studio in a small town with our special guest, Chelsea McDonald, owner of Zen Den in Fruita, Colorado. In this enlightening episode of "Light Up Your Business," Chelsea takes us through her inspiring journey from Wisconsin to Colorado, sharing how she transitioned into the world of yoga and community building. Discover the unique challenges she faced in establishing her studio and the rewarding benefits yoga offers, especially for entrepreneurs often sidelining their physical well-being. Chelsea passionately dispels the myth that yoga is exclusive to the young and flexible—it's a practice for everyone, regardless of age or ability.
Explore a rich tapestry of yoga styles with us as Chelsea and I discuss everything from restorative yoga to Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Hatha, and Yin. Learn how these different types of yoga can cater to various life stages and personal needs, including managing menopause. We also share our own stories of overcoming the initial intimidation of starting yoga, reinforcing that everyone begins as a novice. As a yoga instructor with 20 years of practice and six years of teaching under my belt, I provide insights into the transformative power of yoga and how it has positively impacted my life.
Beyond the mat, Chelsea and I dive into the trials and triumphs of running a small business. From tackling burnout and financial constraints to navigating business growth and community engagement, we offer practical advice for maintaining motivation and well-being. Hear personal anecdotes about balancing a full-time job with entrepreneurship, the importance of delegating tasks, and why celebrating small milestones is crucial. Join us for a heartfelt discussion filled with gratitude for our listeners and learn how to create a thriving business while nurturing personal well-being. Don't forget to stay connected by liking, sharing, and subscribing to ensure you never miss an episode!
To Learn More about The Zen Den Yoga click here: https://www.thezendenfruita.com/
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Welcome to the Light Up your Business podcast, the show where we dive deep into the world of small businesses. I'm your host, tammy Hershberger, and each episode will bring you inspiring stories, expert insights and practical tips to help your small business thrive. Whether you're an entrepreneur just starting out or a seasoned business owner, this podcast is your go-to source for success in the small business world. Let's get started to source for success in the small business world. Let's get started. Hi everyone, we want to welcome you back to another episode of Light Up your Business. Today I have Chelsea McDonald. She is the owner of Zenden. How are you doing today, chelsea? I'm doing really well, thank, you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you are welcome. So, to start off the bat, I always like to find out about my guests. Who are you? What's your background? Do you want to kind of share that with me?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, absolutely I'm happy to. I do. I have the Zen Den in Fruita, colorado, and that has been a really really big, important piece of my life. It's also been a very challenging piece of my life, so I'm excited to be here to talk about all the things that are going really well with bringing a sense of community to the town of Fruita and I didn't come by way of Fruita.
Speaker 2:I grew up in Wisconsin and I moved to Dillon, colorado, when I was 20. So that was almost 12 years ago now, and so I was there for a decade before I moved to the Western Slope three years ago, and the Zen Den is just about a year and a half old now. So it was kind of a whole lot of transition and a lot of move and a lot of changes that brought me here, and I've been really happy to have the opportunity to bring the studies of yoga to smaller communities, as Dillon, colorado, is a smaller community as well. And then, finding myself on the Western slope, I am really excited to be here and to be the only small studio in a small town, so it's been really fun. Lots of changes have somehow landed me here. I moved my parents here back in 2020, and that's how I landed my feet here too so the Zen Den?
Speaker 1:you started that um yourself correct, like it was not going when you got here.
Speaker 2:That's correct, okay there were other studios that had been in Fruita um, but to my knowledge the last studio um was Thrive Yoga and it closed in 2020.
Speaker 1:Okay with COVID okay, so you have to bear with me now. I brought you on because I Kellen works for me. She's amazing, she's a friend of mine and she's always bragging up yoga. I've done it twice myself. One was like a half accident of like. It was supposed to be like a beginner's or like therapeutic I think they call it or something, and it was not. The lady was sick, brought a lady and I was strapped up with so much stuff. I was like I don't know what this is. And then the second time I went back and it was amazing. So I'm pretty novice on it. So that's why I want you here to teach me, teach my listeners about it, um, and kind of just go from there sure, I think that, um, you just stated a lot of the experiences that other people have.
Speaker 2:Um, it seems that the idea of yoga, oh, I need to be flexible, or oh gosh, I'm 55 and I've never tried, so why bother now?
Speaker 2:But really, the physical asana, the physical movements of yoga, they're meant to benefit the longevity of the physical body.
Speaker 2:And by doing so and moving the physical body in ways that we can lengthen and strengthen the spine and lengthen and strengthen the small muscle groups of the body, then we get into the benefits that it brings to the mind as we do these and they become more familiar. These movements, they aren't so, we don't feel like they're so strange or so different or so difficult and we begin to do them more. Then there opens this space for the mind to stop that constant chatter and I think that we live in such a busy, we live such busy lives. We live in such a quick, fast paced society and fast paced business world and fast paced lives and busy lives, and we don't often have those moments of just clarity. And so I think that, as we find ourselves challenging ourselves by entering a room for a yoga class or finding one online or on the TV and you think, hmm, this is different, or this is difficult, or this is challenging, and then it becomes more second nature the longer we do anything in life, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think, there's many benefits to why yoga yeah, I mean at 41, I was like my body is in bad shape, I mean for watching the stretching. These other people are just moving like it's no problem, and I was like this is really hard for me. I can tell my hips are out of whack and and so I think it is good for entrepreneurs like myself. I work all the time. I don't have children and that's all I do is work, and so I really do neglect my body sometimes, with not always eating the best stuff or whatever, and then not always exercising like I should. And then, as I'm getting older, I do want you to kind of talk about that for people in their 40s, 50s, menopause, like the movement, and I read a lot about losing muscle and you know I'm noticing I'm not as strong as I once was.
Speaker 2:With any age, right yeah, with any next age.
Speaker 1:I just think of these beautiful little 20-year-old yoga bodies. But I'm like, really for women like me, who are entrepreneurs, who want to stay in shape and get more flexible, can you speak to that?
Speaker 2:Of course. Yeah, there's no wrong age to start practicing, right, and we think of these 20-something bodies and we think of all the photos that we've seen on the internet and what makes a yoga photo or what makes yoga beautiful. And what makes yoga beautiful is how you experience it, to be in your own world. Right, like there is no wrong age to step on the mat for the first time, and there is no time to ever feel that these practices are out of reach. Just being able to be in a room as you enter the room and think, oh, they're not all 20-somethings.
Speaker 2:Much of our student base is 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and I think that it's a really important piece to remember. Oh, we're never too old I don't like the word old. We're never too old to start anything like the word old. Yeah, we're never too old to start anything, but definitely not the practices of yoga, because it's not just can you touch your toes? Can you, um, stand on your hands? That's not what it is really meant to do. Yes, those postures of, of stretching and elongating, give the physical body emphasis and time and care. Right, because we spend a lot. So much of our culture spends a lot of time hunched over the computer or working at a desk or not giving the front of the body any love or space, and so I think that there's no wrong, there's no wrong time and no one's too old and so can I go into and I promise you we'll get into the order of questions here.
Speaker 1:But this interests me so much, so in the mind part of it because I am one of those people who I can't shut my mind off, like I don't sleep well because everything's hitting me at night and you had brought up that that helps with that. So can you? For people like me who need the you know it's good for your mind and your mental health how does that kind of work?
Speaker 2:Yes, so not to dive too deep into the well, but in the Yoga Sutras, which speaks to how we tie together the understanding of yoga now and the teachings of yoga now and throughout time, we speak to the mind, chatter and understanding that fluctuations in the mind will happen. We will have that chatter, but how could we maintain the observer? How can you stay in the observer seat, even if it's just for the 10 minutes that you just sat in silence, instead of looking at the phone and looking at the computer and looking at anything? And, wow gosh, I keep making that same to-do list. What if you just noticed that you were making the to-do list instead of continued to make the list?
Speaker 2:right we always sit in that front seat of the chatter. And what if we just noticed that chatter?
Speaker 1:I mean that's a good way to look at it, because I sometimes think to myself like something is mentally wrong with me, that I can't shut it off. No, and I have tried. And then I sit there and I just think of stuff and I have to like, no, don't think about anything. And then something else pops in and is that literally what you do is just like no, I see I'm catching myself to start To catch yourself.
Speaker 2:It's not. No, don't think about that anymore. No, don't make those lists. That's, those will continue to happen, but it is a practice right. Yeah, so we don't just get to sit down one day and quiet the mind.
Speaker 1:So in time, if I keep doing it enough, it'll get better.
Speaker 2:Well time will tell. It's so different because I mean yes, of course, with everything, with practice of anything in life, does it become easier?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I have this quote that I continue to hear that comes into my mind Everything that's easy was once difficult oh, that's really good yeah and that applies to everything, including, like, noticing the, those fluctuations, that of the mind, noticing the chatter of the mind well, and I think too, can I ask you this question?
Speaker 1:so in your classes that you're having um, and this is part of your business stuff, but do you? There's different types of yoga, right? So I've only mostly experienced is it therapeutic or what's?
Speaker 2:that doesn't sound right. Relaxation there could be therapeutic yoga.
Speaker 1:There was one that was supposed to be very calming, like simple. Restorative. That's what it is Restorative, sorry Okay. So what other types of yoga is there?
Speaker 2:There are many types of yoga, and some have branched off into different areas and ideas as well, with different structures or under different people. However, there are many main varieties of yoga that many have heard of, and there's Ashtanga, there's Vinyasa, there's Hatha, there's Yin, there's restorative, and then some of those have branched off into other things Anusara, bigram, baptiste, and those are all infused from the eight limbs of yoga also. Okay, so they all derive from, if you could picture, a tree.
Speaker 2:They are all coming from the same root, but having different branches and each different style can benefit different times of our lives. Right, okay, I had heard you mentioned menopause as an example earlier, and that's a time in our life where, literally, the body is completely changing all of its cells. It's it's re, it's redeveloping in a different way, and that's a time that maybe we don't need as much heat, right, we don't need to create as much internal heat, so maybe we don't need a vinyasa or breath to movement style practice. Maybe, if that's been your favorite for a long time we move into hatha, where you have longer holds of each posture. Or maybe it's a time that you need more rest and that's when you move into hatha, where you have longer holds of each posture. Or maybe it's a time that you need more rest and that's when you move into that restorative style.
Speaker 2:Um, in all times, I think that therapeutic yoga, however you may find that to be gentle, you may find it through yin, you may find it through restorative I think that we're in such a fast-paced society and sometimes that is what we need, because we're going, going, going and so we need to keep going, and sometimes we're going, going, going and so we need to rest yeah, and finding what it is that benefits you and balances your life so if that is something like me, for example, came into your studio, it was like this long story short, this is what I'm suffering through.
Speaker 1:You could kind of give me a recommendation like I recommend this class or this type of yoga, or do you just start at the beginning of something and then you work your way up, or how does that work?
Speaker 2:could be either. Okay, could be either. If you were coming in and looking for a recommendation, yes, myself or any of our teachers would be happy to say I think that this is where you would find yourself feeling the most balanced. Okay, um, but maybe you were coming in and looking for a challenge and we can offer that guidance. Also, I think it's really interesting when people are starting off their yoga practices that they've tried one, one place and one person and one class and that was it not going to try again. And I always feel sad when I hear that because I think, oh goodness, not every teacher will be your favorite teacher and not every class will be your favorite class and not every studio will be your favorite studio, and so it's good to just kind of not have tried something once and tossed it away yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1:It is scary, especially if you're like me. You're not super outgoing, you're a little older on the spectrum and you're like this is terrifying. We don't use that word, remember? Okay, I won't, we don't use that word. Uh, anyway. So you go in there and then it's like there's all these people and I'm in my mind thinking they all know exactly what they're doing. I remember, like happy baby, and I was like I don't, what is that? And so I'm looking around and I feel like I'm like interrupting because I'm trying to watch like what's a happy baby, you know, and so it's. But I do know the couple times I went it got better and then I was like, oh, this is see, I was in my head too much, so learning to get out of my head don't forget, everyone once wondered what it was yeah, true everyone once looked around and thought, hmm, what is happy baby so don't forget that everyone has been in that beginner mind or maintains that beginner mind.
Speaker 2:So yeah that's a beautiful thing, because that gets you out of your mind too. Oh, okay, I'm wondering what's? What are they saying when you're listening so intently on? Yeah, put my, put my hand where and my foot where. And what did they?
Speaker 1:say this is supposed to be happy. Yeah, no, I agree with you and I think it's good that you say that, because if there's anyone out there listening that you've tried it once and you didn't like the place, or the place made you uncomfortable or the class you didn't like, do try again because, like you said, don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
Speaker 2:I can't put enough emphasis on that. I can't put enough emphasis on that. Um have have having the opportunity to have so many teachers and so many classes throughout my life experience thus far. Gosh, of course they aren't all my favorite, but there's something to take and leave from everything, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, with everything. Yeah, so let's talk about your business a little bit. So how long have you been a yoga instructor?
Speaker 2:I have been sharing yoga for six years now, six years.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what exactly got you started in that?
Speaker 2:I've been practicing yoga for 20 years now, okay so since I was a younger preteen. So I think that there's a lot of emphasis around oh gosh, I wish I found it then, I wish I found it then. But every day that we get an opportunity to try something new, we should take that regardless of our age in this life experience. But I started practicing yoga when I was a preteen and I'll never forget my first experience. The teacher had put us in a visual meditation and melted us to butter and I don't know if there was a piece of just having childlike imagination that made that very real and accessible for my mind. Like, oh yeah, I melted into butter and then I come back into being butter and then I come back into the room and I was hooked from there. I was hooked from there. I looked for more moments where that chatter of the mind was in the backseat, and as we age, we only have more and more chatter. So finding those moments that we can disconnect from that become more and more crucial in how we're showing up for ourselves, because we're just constantly busy, right, yeah? So, yeah, I started practicing a long time ago and I had wanted.
Speaker 2:After seven years of practice. I wanted to take the 200 hour training where you begin the opportunity to teach, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to teach or which direction I would head with that. And shortly after that I decided to move to Colorado and not take the training. And a few more years passed and it was just kind of this flame that had been ignited that I really wanted to deepen the studies. I didn't know why, because I didn't know why the classes could make me feel like this. So I was kind of just searching out that feeling, searching out that clarity, searching out those moments that just there's relief and ease and clarity. And I did take my first $200 in 2018. And I've been teaching since then and then we opened the Zen Den on January 1st of 2023.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what was that process like for you as a female, as an entrepreneur, because you had not owned a business before that right Correct, it is a scary step. I would believe you'd agree with me on that. I think it's still scary, yeah okay, so can you tell me a little bit about that with that experience for anyone that? I mean, there's a bunch of people that listen to have businesses, but there's people looking to start their business, and so I think it's good for people to hear stories like yours.
Speaker 2:So sure, um, I don't know, I'm not sure that I was ever really wanting to or looking to start a business, and I definitely didn't think it was going to be surrounding the techniques and modalities of yoga, uh, something that seems so hip in the West, right, that's something that we've made it into, something so concerned with the, the look, and that's not. That's so far from the depths of it, but I was actually. We had just moved down here to Junction from Dillon and I was called by the owner of the studio I used to teach with and she asked if I would like to purchase that studio, and so I uprooted our lives and brought us back there and a little bit of time had showed me that that wasn't the right opportunity or time and we ended up back down here and I went looking for a yoga therapy office and I saw this great big space that hadn't been spoken for and I thought I know that there was once community here in Fruita and there was once a yoga studio and there was once a place to practice and it's not here anymore. So I know that there's got to be like-minded people who want somewhere to go and to practice, and so it just kind of fell right into my hands, and all that needed to happen was for it to be built, and I will say that it's.
Speaker 2:It's challenging and it's a little bit scary. I moved from a community that I knew so well into something that was so fresh and new for me, and it can be done, though, if your heart's in the right place. I'll say that a million more times. It always brings tears to my eyes, but if your heart is in the right place for whatever it is that you're seeking out, it can be done. There is a way to do it. So sometimes it looks really challenging. We just moved into a new building, into a new space.
Speaker 1:Fortunately it's on Aspen Ave and we're really excited about that Great part of town.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really a charming space and that was just an unexpected timing and unexpected to be building again. I'm very lucky my partner is a handyman.
Speaker 1:So that works, for me that is handy, and so that just happened.
Speaker 2:But whenever you feel really called to do something, I think it's very important to wonder why, to wonder what you're going to do with that information, and to wonder both how you will integrate it into the life that you're living now and how can it benefit yourself and others. Are you doing this for the right reasons?
Speaker 1:Whatever it is, Can I ask you on the mental side of it? Because I know for myself every time I started another business or sometimes I had multiple businesses going at the same time it was so mentally exhausting and then I let fear get in there and then I was like I somehow for me I just push and I just force my way through it. But like a lot of people I talk to, fear holds them back so much. And so can you kind of talk about that like as a new business owner? How did you push through that? What did you do? What worked for you? I mean, did the yoga really help you? Just kind of like center yourself there or what is it Cause the yoga does?
Speaker 2:really help. I, that one, that particular question, with this business in mind, truly I, I needed community. I needed community. It's unlike other businesses in the fact that I needed somewhere to go where I felt support, where I where I felt loved, where I felt cared for. And if I didn't know where that was anymore, then I wanted to build it.
Speaker 1:So you have that built, so you have an entrepreneur mindset of like if it's not here, I'm building it, I'm going to create it.
Speaker 2:And you went. I guess, yeah, I guess it was never. I didn't grow up dreaming about this, um, but I do know the benefits that it has brought into my world and I, I, I wish those so deeply for other people. You know the the journey in because we just avoid. It's a journey of avoidance and busyness and hustle and gosh. But just one moment of why do I? Why am I feeling that way? Why am I fearful? What is holding me back? And in lots of ways they're very real things, right, they're very. It can be financial, that you can't carry that mental load. It can be so many different reasons that hold you back and fear starts burning right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Just that little flame, and I think it's probably the loudest voice in our head. And then we kind of mentally put to, we meditate on it, basically, and then we blow it up bigger than it is and then a lot of people can't even push through. Unfortunately, I think that happens to a lot of people. They get stuck or they'll back up some in their career or their business. I've watched people blow it up big and then there's really great potential and then they get so comfortable and scared almost at the same time they start to back down because I think they start to lose faith in themselves.
Speaker 2:Or is their mental capacity low?
Speaker 1:And that could be it too. Are they just drained? They're drained. Have they gotten there? And then?
Speaker 2:drained themselves. Yeah, I think the burnout is very real.
Speaker 1:Oh, I can tell you burnout stories. Um, I talk to people all the time yeah, and myself. So so tell me, what is your plan to avoid the burnout?
Speaker 2:as you get going. You know I was just falling into a little bit of a well of burnout. Um, I have a lot of pieces going in, a lot of balls in the air at the moment and, uh, I'll let you know when I get that answer.
Speaker 1:They always say balance and I'm like I mean, mean, I understand there's probably some way to do that, but it's kind of bs to me, because I'm like you know how it is like one area of life is killing it and then something else seems to fall apart over here or something's on the back burner.
Speaker 2:yeah, something always has to kind of get shuffled, I think that there is a lot to say in how our whoever, whoever is running whichever, whatever business. How are you taking care of yourself?
Speaker 1:and so.
Speaker 2:I caught that I wasn't. I was preaching it, but I wasn't, I wasn't playing it, right I? How am I taking care of myself? You know, maybe I want a bath, maybe it's a massage, maybe it's a yoga class. There are so many things outside of. We always think, whatever the business you must have, that must be all that you ever do. It's plenty of what you do, but what are you doing to make it continue? What are you doing to continue showing up for others in a lot of ways, in whatever your offerings are?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You must be finding some pocket of self-care, whatever it looks like for you. I really am missing reading books right now. I am not reading enough books.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I think oh, maybe I should take more baths and read more books.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they don't have to be such big things, they don't have to be expensive things, they don't have to be. I'd really like to take a trip to Greece. Okay, well, that's not on the agenda right now, so you?
Speaker 1:know, sometimes those huge trips I've done them sometimes and I come back and I'm exhausted because we ran everywhere and then I'm like, well crap, I spent a lot of money. Now I have this pressure of like I gotta go to work and then I come home from these vacations and I'm like I need a vacation from the vacation you know.
Speaker 1:I do so I am with you on that. Like I think in our minds we're like we're gonna work super hard to go on this massive trip and then you've blown tons of money and you know memories are not trips. Memories they're the moments with your friends and family. Right, and it could be simple stuff. I think as a culture, we've grown it so much that, like we have to have bigger homes, we have to have bigger everything, and I got to have these huge trips instead of like sometimes just going to the lake and sticking my feet in there and talking with the grant you know, the kids or my friends, kids or whatever. It's like that's the best time yes and it was cheap.
Speaker 1:we're going fishing with my husband this weekend. I was like that was pretty damn cheap and I'm happy I was calm.
Speaker 2:And I loved it. I came home relaxed. Yes, there's so much to be said about the small moments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we forget about those in the big picture. And even in business I talk about that sometimes here as you grow this business of yours, you have these milestones. And then it was like at the bar it was like half a million dollars, million dollars a half. We'd hit these numbers and I was like great, what's next? And we hardly even celebrate. I'm like we busted our butt to get there, took us sometimes a couple years and then we forget like that's a huge accomplishment and then we just move on to the next thing and you almost get like I'm big on goals and I'm always going to hit the next goal and I don't even appreciate all the goals I've hit.
Speaker 1:I'm just too focused on the next thing always right it burns you out like it's tiring it does because we don't take the time to celebrate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, we've all heard you once wished that you, you know, would be where you are. But we forget that because, gosh, we want to be whatever the next goal is. Yeah, we want to get there and it's good to have goals, it is. But it's good to celebrate how far you have come, because sometimes those small milestones, those are the big moments. You look back and you you think, gosh, I made it over that hurdle, oh, and then I made it over 20 more. Yeah, you know. And so setting goals is great. Setting such big goals makes us feel small, right?
Speaker 1:And sometimes they seem so big that they do take quite a while to get there and it's very discouraging. Sometimes I've done it where I've set like five 10-year goals and they're massive and I'm like I'm never gonna get there and I forget about like wow, I hit a bunch of little ones but I didn't get in close. I mean, it just feels too far away and if I think in those cases you gotta back your goals down a little bit and get more closer to home, you know one of my trainings we did a 30 day, a 60 day and a 90 day goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what would you want to have happen? And I sometimes look back and I'm like that was more like a four year goal that I thought could happen in 90 days. But it's good to have those ones that are close to home, because it is nice to get over a hurdle sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it builds your self-esteem of like I did it. I can do it again. You know what? I mean, and so I think that's a great point that you're bringing up. And so then tell me, on your side of the business growing your business, starting your business what were the challenges?
Speaker 2:Funding. Okay, funding is a big challenge. Um, that's most people's overall, I mean. Yeah, it's usually what. Where does that fear start stemming? It starts stemming from a financial standpoint and of course we're we're a yoga studio, right. So I'm supposed to understand the ebb and the flow of things, and I do to some extent. That is definitely the biggest worry, the biggest fear that lives with inside. Like, I know I'm doing the right thing. It's got to be the right thing. I've made a lot of these other sacrifices for this to be the right thing, and so that is a challenge. Summertime is a challenge for us. It it really slows down, with everyone having vacations and the kids out of school and, um, just, I think people overall, just overall, all of us uh, fall a bit out of routine yeah, and once you stop that routine, it's so hard to start again.
Speaker 2:Then we yeah, then we want, oh, we're gonna get to that yeah thing that we left behind. And, um, it's typically our extracurriculars that get left behind, it's definitely not our work feeding ourselves or you know, taking care of, of what needs to happen. But yeah, that would be, that would be my biggest challenge and I think that it's with any, it's with any business owner, any small business owner. We're just doing the best we can to get by most of the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Time and money is the problem that every business owner has. So, if you don't mind me asking you don't have to go super deep in that but like for funding for your business, how did you find it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I took out a personal loan and I used all of my own savings. Okay, so I've now switched the personal loan to a small business loan. And those are transitions that couldn't happen right away because my business wasn't old enough.
Speaker 1:Did you do anything with the SBA or was it a separate business?
Speaker 2:Now I have done things with the SBA. I did that at about um I. I opened my business, my LLC, six months before we opened the brick and mortar and that gave us very little wiggle room. So once the the brick and mortar has been open a year, then I now have an SBA.
Speaker 1:Okay, that took over my personal, which has been really relieving for myself, actually, and SBA has some good loans to help businesses get started growing your business. I've looked into some of them myself, so do you have any? I always look back and I'm like you know, is there regrets at all doing it the way you did it, or because I feel like you have to just take it for what it is, cause that got you going right, cause you could have made 5,000 excuses and never started.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I mean, of course sometimes I'm like, Ooh, I wish it wasn't quite this hard. And you know we're a year and a half old. I thought maybe I would have made a little bit more headway by now by what I had heard, by what I had read. You know, I didn't go to school for business, so I don't really know what the next step is. A lot of the time I'm on Google, I'm trying to figure out how do I? What is an SBA loan? You know, how will I acquire these funds? What needs to happen in my world outside of my small business to keep the ball rolling? And so I had taken a really large break from doing many other things, and now I have a few more balls in the air trying to keep everything rolling. So I do think that thinking about funding, um, that you know I was taught by my Googling to spend three, the first three years, in some sort of like. How am I going to keep this ball rolling? Yeah, and then they say it gets easier, right?
Speaker 1:no, the more you grow, the more you have to make.
Speaker 2:I mean there's just more expense yeah, but I do think it do I have any regrets about things financially. Sometimes I wish I did things differently, but I don't know that I would say it was a regret well and truly.
Speaker 1:It's just education you've gotten now. I think, because I'm with you, sister, I did not go to school, I went to school for office administration and I didn't get an MBA, mba, any of that stuff like I just figured it out and like I've owned many businesses and I'm like I just get in there and I figure it out and I think I call that street knowledge. Like that making mistakes and having to face like how do I pay payroll to this month? I don't know how we're going to do it, and like that is the reality of like you get in there to figure it out yes, because you can go to college. And those professors, most of them never owned a business, they've never faced having to make payroll. They've never faced like an employee wants to quit again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah whatever it is there's. So, oh my gosh, my insurance on my property tax completely doubled to 10 grand. I'm like how did that happen?
Speaker 2:how does it happen?
Speaker 1:yeah, and so you have to just kind of learn by doing. I feel like, and that's how I learn, and so I love that women like you and me we just get out there and do it. You don't have to go to college for these things, you know we I didn't have any parents backing me up with money. I was like they had no money.
Speaker 2:I wish they don't even own businesses. No, so we have to go to college either, and so I didn't have a base of maybe go this direction. No, there's none of that. So I'm half the time flying by the seat of my pants or whatever that phrase is yeah but it, uh, it is a lot of trial and error. It is trial and error, and have I made mistakes? Yes, would I have done things differently, now that I see them hindsight's. 20, 20, yeah, always absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know, and it's always a cost to a mistake. You try to limit how much cost is going to cost you, but those are the things you're never going to forget.
Speaker 2:Well, I look back and I won't maybe make that same mistake again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the cheap mistakes I just keep doing over. I'm like oh, that didn't hurt so bad, but that one cost me kind of a lot. I won't do that again, yeah.
Speaker 2:Can I your name? That's always the hardest thing. I am not creative, so that's interesting. Um, if you don't mind? No, not at all.
Speaker 2:The the root name is actually embrace yoga therapy and that's where I was headed when I was planning to find a small yoga therapy office and see only students and clients one-on-one, and then it was going to evolve into this larger space and into the full, full service studio and I thought embrace yoga and therapeutics. Embrace, because I think about the change in the transition and how life you know, embracing that. Okay, no, just doesn't have it, doesn't have its ring to it. And my husband and I walked around every lake, probably in Grand Junction with our little dog at the time, and we just kind of kicked back names and I thought, you know, I just want people to remember it and I want it to feel like home because I practice yoga, because it feels like home, and so we were tossing it around and he said that one to me and I was like that's it you just keep it simple yep, keep it simple and make it feel like home.
Speaker 2:So it's stuck, yeah, it's stuck, and it's stuck right in time. That's great. So, yeah, things always work out somehow. Somehow he must have known, he must have been thinking about it, because he came up with it like in the nick of time yeah, my husband's always come up with our business names, because I'm not good at that, um at all.
Speaker 1:I just it's stressful to me. I have no idea. So what about? Does your husband work in the company at all with you? Does he help you at all? My?
Speaker 2:husband is a wonderful builder.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's how my husband is.
Speaker 2:So when we need something to happen, he can physically make that happen for me and that's been really fun because I get to play designer. I also get to play painter and floor layer, but with his guidance. So no, he is not a teacher, he does not run payroll. He does not touch the business funding. He doesn't touch any of the back office, so he's very happy separate.
Speaker 1:He is very happy separate. A lot of marriages work great like that.
Speaker 2:He has his own business and so he helps me with what I request help with and can use help with, and he comes to class sometimes.
Speaker 1:Okay, but his role is not heavy in the zenden yeah, I was just curious because I had a couple on here that owns a human bean and the husband. The plan was, when they opened both of them, that they were going to have him run it and she's the stay-at-home mom, which she's been doing for years and we know how important that is. And then, once they got going, they realized she's the better one in business and so they flipped roles and he now stays home with the kids pretty amazing homeschools, and it's so cool these stories.
Speaker 2:It's trial and error really.
Speaker 1:You just never know and you know, me and my husband work together in pretty much every business I've owned and it's it's not always easy, because you see them every second of every day and so sometimes, like you go home and you got to remember business is not here right now. This is now home time right and then we got to leave work behind, and and then we're like well, what do we talk about?
Speaker 2:we're working on that too, are you? We're working on that too? Yeah, and I just led a retreat in Central America and I found all this time and I thought I'm gonna take some of these, these new habits back home.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna talk about business before I made up a time and I've left that in Costa Rica, so maybe I can get back to that yeah mentality, because it's hard to leave behind what you think about so frequently and so so many days yeah, you know, yeah, and then you know once, eventually I don't know if you want children or not, but like I look at these people who have kids and I'm like then you have to come home and be mommy and daddy and like holy crap, and then you have your relationship to figure out, and then businesses and playing a lot of balls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a lot. Lots of balls in the air, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:So will you tell me, as the business owner, as a yoga instructor, what does your typical day look like?
Speaker 2:oh, that depends on the day of the week, okay, okay, depends on the month of the year. Do you teach?
Speaker 1:most every day, or do you have? More instructors to help with that.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have 10 other teachers and they're all absolutely phenomenal individuals and I'm deeply inspired by all of them, so they take a lot of the weight off of me. In the summers, I'm very busy. I work full-time as a server as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:And so I do that. I'm doing that this year mostly so that I can fall in again in the fall and only be at the studio. So it will depend on the day. I'm hoping to bring back the coffee and community classes on Saturdays, so then my day looks like picking up coffee and snacks and playing the role of the teacher. And now in the new space, I'm hoping to have more open boutique hours. So that will start in October and it's really just a time of transition that I spent a lot of time wondering. How will I do all of this, how will I work full time and run a business that I love so much?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That I could not imagine my life without, and it just takes. This is just a hurdle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a good book I recommend for you. I usually give them to you guys. I'm completely out right now but it's, uh, dan Sullivan, who, not how, and the reason. I say that it's not going to be a spiritual, enlightening book, but it's a book to remind you guys that, like, as you're building these businesses, you cannot do everything. I know, as a new business you have to because there's no money to hire anyone. But as you start to grow a little bit, there's so much that you have to do.
Speaker 1:You have to stop working in the business and work on the business and, like, sometimes it's whether it's building the website. I mean, maybe in the beginning you start with that and then eventually, as you grow and you need a better one, you've got to hire that out because, like, I'll spend days and I can't get anywhere, it looks crap and it's just better to pay a couple grand. Let someone do a nice, beautiful website and call it done, you know, or designing a logo or bookkeeping, if you, I mean, I know tons of business owners who suck at bookkeeping and they come to me I'm a bookkeeper and I'm like, let me fix it. And then I, you know, it takes me a couple hundred bucks a month and it's all done, it's off their plate, the invoicing, the money's in and they're just happy. You know, and things like that. And if you are not a good bookkeeper, find a good accountant because you don't want to do your own taxes, like you want to get the tax breaks.
Speaker 1:You want to make sure you're doing things legit and legal, and so things like that, like there's so much you can hire out once you have a little money.
Speaker 2:Those are some of the biggest hurdles too, I think. Yeah, the bookkeeping and the accounting and it just depends on what you're really good at. But yeah, the website and the logo and do the things get ordered, do they get into the and what you know? What program do you like to use and what works for you, and how far back?
Speaker 1:have you gone and is everything right? And there are so many pieces who not how, yeah, who not how by Dan Sullivan? Can you tell me something out of all of those things we just talked about, cause we wear many hats? I find that most creative people hate the really detailed, like bookkeeping and accounting and whatever. Do you have something in your business that you just hate doing? Hmm?
Speaker 2:It would have to be the bookkeeping. Yeah, for as much as I am a numbers person, also, I don't like the bookkeeping.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really boring to most people.
Speaker 2:It's okay, it just is the one that keeps getting. I'll do I'm going to get to that at the end of the month. Then I'm just going to do month to month, yeah, okay, well, at the end of the month I'm also running payroll Okay, well. Then at the end of the month I'm also ordering new, new clothing for the boutique Okay, well. Then all of a sudden it gets like shoveled in and I'm jam packed with work at the very end and very beginning. So it just happens quick. Yeah, I don't love. I don't love that piece, because that's the piece I feel I do the worst at.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's typically what we avoid is the things we don't want to do. We procrastinate it and I just have to always say because this is what I do, but, like you, live and die by your numbers and your business, and the reason you keep it up to date is because weekly, monthly, you want to look at your numbers. Am I losing money? Is there a skew line that is not make, it's not selling or I'm not making enough money on this. Do I need to raise prices? I have a meeting today with one of my business people that I coach and do their bookkeeping and they're losing money and they didn't know that until they looked at the numbers and like wow, we've lost kind of a lot that you can change.
Speaker 2:Is it a factor of that? You can change and that you can better, or is this something that's just not working?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if the business isn't working and you cannot make changes, then you need to close it and stop siphoning money. But a lot of times it is just a change you need to make. You know, get your insurance cheaper and we just money comes in and we think we're making money and then it goes back out really fast. You're like wow, look, we were we were doing really well.
Speaker 1:I mean I know companies that do like a million and a half and they have no money. And I'm like where's the money, you know? And it goes out because you just see, got to get this, got to get that, and we, we deal with fires all the time and there's like I got to get, have to eat the shed, meaning eventually I have to resell it. But I have to hold on to it for a little while until I can resell that shed or whatever. And then you've got to start looking at if I buy more of your shirts, can you get the cost down on those? Yes, Lumber, I've got to buy truckloads to get huge discounts.
Speaker 2:And always looking for another source.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or the style changes. I can't even imagine with clothing how that works, but so you know. So that's bookkeeping. I'm always curious with each business because that's typically what I hear. But I'm not alone in not liking that part. Yeah, no, most people don't, and if they're at all creative.
Speaker 1:I'm not creative and I love that part, like sticking in a room with numbers and books and bookkeeping. I'm freaking happy, but most people I'm not a customer service. I like people. I don't really have the temperament for it and so that's my husband's job. I'm like we don't get very many unhappy people, but when they are I'm like John, take them, this is your job. Yeah, I think he's annoying. You take him and you know we want to make our customers absolutely happy.
Speaker 2:We're only human.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just not my temperament, it's not what I'm do it. I don't love it, so it's just what. We all have our own thing.
Speaker 2:We all have our own thing, that's right.
Speaker 1:OK, Managing your team of instructors. What is that like for you? Are you a good leader?
Speaker 2:I hope so, I hope so. You can ask Ellen, yeah, yeah, I trust them a lot and I give them a lot of freedom.
Speaker 1:I think that's the word trust, because I hear people come in here and they're so controlling. They don't trust their team and your team can only do what you let them do, and then like that's why people burn out too, because they don't let anybody do anything and it's like if you're the only one that can do it there's a problem, because if something happens to your business is done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth in that. I think it's. I think that it is very difficult to. This again is a challenging answer because it's so different than anything else. I have some teachers coming in for three or four hours a week, classes of four to eight hours a week, and I have some coming in for one hour a week, and so how much am I? Am I really wanting them to do or asking them to do? But I'm wanting them to come in and share their gift and share what they have to offer, and I don't request much else of them. I do think that you have to trust your team, so I don't. I'm not often there with them, and I think that that's how they can grow their own student base and grow what feels good for them and what works for them.
Speaker 2:And also, my favorite time that I ever spent prior to opening the Zen Den was my time alone in the old studio that I taught at. It was my favorite. I grew up dancing and so I think that this is similar to it, brings the same peace in my mind as dancing used to, and I love turning music on and having my own practice, whether it's dancing or whether it's practicing yoga, physical yoga postures, and I want them to have that opportunity too. So I think that a lot of freedom is a beautiful thing. Yeah, overall it works out. Sometimes the energy is off and things need to change, but I think that's with anything in life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, just facing it when it arises. People I know, business owners that I deal with and they they let things go way too long and then it turns into a total mess and I'm like if you would have dealt with this sooner, it would not be this mess.
Speaker 2:It's hard to be human. It is, and you want to avoid it.
Speaker 1:It's like it'll get better. It doesn't you know.
Speaker 2:I have, yeah, I have been lucky that things that weren't meant to be have have um found their way out.
Speaker 1:Isn't that the truth? I mean, I've known some people who don't have so much luck, but I'm like the people that didn't work for me, and not so much in my current business, the barnyard, but in other businesses they would always leave or something would happen. I'm like thank you, lord, because I did not. I hate firing. That is like my least favorite thing to do. I always feel terrible, and so I've never had to do it much because I really don't like speaking to things that don't work yeah um, when they're, they're things that must work for the business to function for the safety of the business.
Speaker 2:But um, yeah, I don't. It's not my favorite piece, if you ask me a piece.
Speaker 1:I don't like that, yeah having just difficult conversations it is hard. Yeah, what about? There's an advertising question on here? But really what I care more about is like how do you find your clients? And I'm not saying like tell your competitors your stuff, but like where do most yoga clients come from?
Speaker 2:That's a fantastic question Let me know when you find me, you don't know either.
Speaker 2:No, I'm teasing, Um. When I first opened, I had the idea that spending a little more on marketing, spending a little more on ads and in print, was going to be how people would find out we were here. I really wanted to go for it. We're new in town and we're the only one on that side of the valley and I thought I have that going for us. And I came to find that I only heard people found us in the multiple print, in the print, yeah, a handful of times. And so I thought, well, that was a lot of money that I could use differently. So now I'm just picking and choosing a lot more selectively where I am putting ads in print and I'm still navigating that. I'm still navigating that.
Speaker 1:Can I ask you a business question? We call it ROI, so your return on investment. Do you monitor that and what is your system for monitoring that? So, for example, in the window cleaning business I owned, we did door hangers, we did advertising on magazines, we did Google ads, we did Google local services, all these things. And we would always, for us we'd be like, how did you hear about us? How did you hear about us on every call? And then I would track that. And then I would track okay, did they sell the job? And then how much you know revenue came off that job, and so I don't know in your case how that would work exactly, but that way I could see, like I spent seven thousand, I brought in 15, that's almost a two, that is a more than two times ROI, that's good. Or if I spent 10 and I made nothing off, that we're never doing that again.
Speaker 2:It didn't work yeah, um, I don't have a tracking system for the roi. Mostly in my first year I was in the studio very, very, very frequently, yeah, and that's when most of my print, add-in print went out and I would just hear, okay, just here, not not that I necessarily had asked um, but I think that just mostly in conversation that I hear with students that are newer to me now the change of location has brought new faces and I have a few new ideas for things in the mail or things in print again, but just in a different format.
Speaker 1:So not like EDVM. Are you thinking like postcard type?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We used to do some of that in the window clinic. It worked pretty decent.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking birthday things and we do have I have they're $12 class cards that I put around town and my teachers put around town and I have some new ones coming in right now for the new location. Which those? When those come back, I think okay, well, I know, I put. However, many out and I see that I have this money back, so it's a good.
Speaker 1:You have some handle on it. I think it's good. I mean it could always be more specific, but I think it's good to watch that because you need to know where you're, because it is money's hard to get, otherwise you're pouring money out, you're just throwing it away to the wind and hoping it works Okay.
Speaker 1:And then, as far as I had a question on that, oh, I was gonna ask um, male, female is. Do you have a demographic, like certain age group that you typically tend to have come to your classes, or is it just all over? It's a little bit all over.
Speaker 2:It's a little bit all over um.
Speaker 1:Our primary student base is women between 40 and 65 okay, so you do have a base, because most companies have some kind of you know customer avatar, like what they're really put and when you're doing you want to search for that. Like I don't want to advertise at the shed business, I don't want 20 year olds. They don't even own a house, they don't want to shed. You know I need people to have marriages. They have too much crap and their garages are full and I'm going.
Speaker 2:I'm only a year or two of watching that that ebb and flow, and I think that we change class styles and times sometimes and that brings in a different wave of of of more or different students, and so I think I'm just still learning that we're still kind of playing with the schedule in ways of that was a real bust and this really worked, so do you ever go to your customers and ask them, like, what they thought or what they're.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we would do random surveys. The people that we knew like we're good customers, we wouldn't ask the first timer because they don't want to be annoyed with that. But if we had customers that came every six months for a window cleaning or whatever like, is there anything that you think we should offer? Is there anything we're doing that you find annoying? And sometimes our email started to annoy them so we back off on those. Or or do you have ideas? Or we do referrals if you bring someone and you get, you know, 10 off your next cleaning or whatever it was like. Do you have any anything like that that you've ever done?
Speaker 2:people will let me know what they think um I don't i't necessarily request, but they will let me know I can't um, I can't please everyone with the schedule. I can't please everyone with the schedule, so I just try things, and then I often hear requests for things. If I hear like service offerings yes, then I will try that.
Speaker 2:Um, sometimes it's great, it's amazing, and that's a time that I didn't think that I hadn't already put on on the plate to offer. And other times I try it and that's just not. Yeah, I heard it a lot, but it didn't come to fruition and it's trial and error.
Speaker 1:I cannot possibly try all of the things, and I certainly don't want you to think I'm telling you like you have to play it because you will not.
Speaker 2:No, it's good Most of the time. Our student base, that that attends frequently, will let me know what they would like to see more of, or see less of.
Speaker 1:Okay, um, as far as community you talked about, you wanted to build a community. Do you do things to engage the local community? Fruit is a cool little town. I used to live there. It's a fun place fruit is a charming yeah, charming, I love it. So what's your? Do you have anything that you do do? Do community classes, or I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to some new things in the fall, so I hope that we keep our eyes peeled for lots of things. Last year we got to be involved with the food bank donations and with the Toys for Tots. Okay, we donated last year to a nonprofit that I was closely involved with that installs water filtration systems in Central America, so we donated all year for that. We did have the coffee and community offering every Saturday of last year and I'm hoping to. I have a different twist on things, but I'm hoping to do things just a little differently, but still bring in some offerings. My new landlord said I must be there for trick or treat on the Christmas parade, parade so.
Speaker 2:I am very excited about that. I thought that that was really fun, so I know that some of my teachers are excited to dress up and be involved in trick-or-treat and in a lot of ways that we can get involved in the community.
Speaker 1:I look forward to and just getting people in that maybe didn't realize you were there. Yes, you know, because people are really. They wear blinders, they don't know what's going on around them, and so sometimes I've been to places and I'm like I didn't know this was here.
Speaker 2:It's very fun just being around the half a block to find how many people are saying I'm so excited there's yoga and Buddha, and I just think, me too, me too.
Speaker 1:Me too. It's like where have you been?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, where have I been? You know, I sometimes think, oh gosh, I must have missed, dropped the ball somewhere marketing, or there's something I can be doing better. I think we'll beat ourselves up if we always think there's something we can do better, but there is always something that we can learn from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, one more thing on this, then we'll move on. Um, as far as the people, there's so many people moving in this Valley. I talked to realtors a lot and there's a lot of Californians moving in and something like these are all people that they don't live here or their front range and they're coming here and I'm like, yeah, we've been here 32 years but that doesn't mean these people have heard of us, because they're all brand new. So, always keeping your mind open that, like, people probably don't know you're there if you don't tell them.
Speaker 2:I like that reminder, as this valley is growing very quickly, very quickly, yeah okay, let's go in your services and offerings quick.
Speaker 1:so can you tell us exactly what you offer, what services, what classes?
Speaker 2:Sure, maybe it's too many to list.
Speaker 2:It's a few too many to list right now in this moment, but I would be happy to say two things. There are classes seven days a week. We're running about 20 class offerings a week right now and there will be more in August and additionally more in September. We'll be trying a few new things with the schedule, a few additional morning offerings come October. So we have a bunch of different times that are coming about. If our schedule may have not worked for you before or you just didn't know that we were there, the full schedule is offered at thezendenfrutacom under the schedule tab and it pulls up the full month so you can see what's going on. The first Saturday of every month we are so lucky to have Elizabeth Payson, who is an incredible sound. She's incredible with her sound offerings and she's just an incredible person. So that's the first Saturday of every month.
Speaker 2:She offers a sound sojourn at 6 pm, and then we have Cora Jewel, one of our amazing instructors, who does a guided meditation on the third Sunday of each month, and we might bring the book club back. I hope so. There are just some fun things that are outside of just traditional yoga, physical asana or posture movement classes.
Speaker 1:And is there any special programs or events that are coming up workshops, retreats that you have in mind?
Speaker 2:Aside from those two, we are also headed to Peru in January on retreat. So that's exciting. That's the hiking and yoga retreat. So, with the idea in mind that the elevation is quite high, we're very excited. We're headed outside of Cusco on January 25th until the 31st.
Speaker 1:How many people are going with or how many spots do you have open?
Speaker 2:I am hoping to bring 10. And then there's another teacher, cora Jewel, and myself.
Speaker 1:Okay, and do you have any spots filled or you just opening that up?
Speaker 2:I opened it up about a month ago. I have a handful of spots full and a handful of spots open.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so to get information, just go to the website, come into thezendenfrutacom.
Speaker 2:okay, yes, or you can come in and talk to us about it anytime, okay, and then we have a 200 hour teacher training. It'll be the first offering that we have, starting in February of 2025 oh cool.
Speaker 1:So you do offer that we will. Okay, that's exciting, we will.
Speaker 2:It's very exciting we just announced that, so that's exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, on your business growth, it sounds like you're trying to put more offerings out now. This is a big topic and I know you're a goal setter and all that, but can you give me a little snippet of what you're trying to do with, what you hope to do with your business In the realm of things? Do you have like I mean you're small, like me still sometimes, but it's like, do you want to have these things all over the country? Do you just want to open another location? Are you happy with one bigger space?
Speaker 2:I think that one of my really good friends and my fellow teachers reminded me that everything must have a solid foundation and right now I am very excited to bring more attention to the space we do have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause it sounds like you have a. Is it double the size you have? I wasn't, no, no, no. Smaller space. No, it's actually smaller. We have a smaller space, better location, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, yeah, but it's wonderful, it's cozy. It actually smaller. We have a smaller space, better location, yeah, okay, gotcha, yeah, but it's wonderful, it's cozy, it's cozy, it's a lot different than our last location. But I went all in and that was not sustainable. That was not sustainable. Fruto is only a town of 6,000, and we sometimes have to be a little bit more realistic with what we're offering and what we can afford. Yeah, I think that business owners get really overzealous, myself included, and I thought look at this beautiful space. I know what we can build physically with it and I know what is good, what is going to come, it's going to be good and it's going to be just as good in the space that we have.
Speaker 1:So and sometimes you put the cart before the horse and it's like I know I can get there, but it's gonna take me some time to build that. And yeah, I mean even our little building, the building we have now. We own this, but the building before in Fruita we were there. Well, the businessmen are 32, I think. It was next door in a smaller spot for like 10 years, then like 12 at the next spot, but the building was half the size. We had no bathroom.
Speaker 1:I had a tiny shed office and I would sometimes have five customers I'm trying to sell all the same time and I'd kick everybody out of my office because that's where they ate their lunch. I was like take your lunch and get out, sorry. And then we had people over a fridge and my desk and on the porch and it was awful. But we made that work for I want to say like four years, and then this building came up and it was so scary to buy it. But you know there's a long story with that. We made it happen and you know we've outgrown this building already and it's it's a process and I think we think we're not real or we're not this. You know company, if we don't have this big building and and it's so so much stress that you don't have to have to start with. You know, you can't build a skyscraper on a port-a-potty foundation.
Speaker 1:And if you have cracks in your foundation, your business won't make it so.
Speaker 2:Well, and sometimes I think I'm reminded. You know, the new location is so amazing and my new landlords are so amazing and the location is just. It's great and I'm so excited about it and a lot of our student base has been really, really supportive and I don't think that I'm open or vulnerable about how difficult this change is for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know like we have to do things that also make sense. I'm married, I have family to take care of. You know, I have other things that are happening outside of this and I think that it's very easy to think business, business, business. Well, life is happening also and it also has demands.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I appreciate you saying that and being honest about that, because it is true. I mean, that's what I try to do in my podcast is like we have grown but our expenses have tripled. I mean like our profit margins actually have gone in the toilet because we have so much expense now. And so I think it's good to be honest with entrepreneurs. I mean, other people are like us. They're experiencing that there's growing pains. And then the people starting out like please do it smart, don't go big the first time. You don't have to be huge to get going.
Speaker 2:You really don't you. I felt like I was treading water and someone just handed me a paddle and it's like an amazing feeling, but it's also I'm tired. You know, I'm really tired of gosh. It's payroll again. Gosh. It's rent again Gosh. It's payroll, again Gosh, it's rent again.
Speaker 2:But what I'm doing is good, the mission's good, like I'm in the right idea. You know, if I had only one thing to say. Like being your own boss, you think you get to choose your schedule. Like, throw that, throw that out the window because you live for something for other people.
Speaker 1:Now, yeah, you know you are doing things with the betterment of other people in mind all the time and you work non-stop because you don't just like I tell people you you know, as an employee you go home at five o'clock. I'm sometimes I mean, I'm being more boundary specific we need to be more.
Speaker 1:I used to work till eight, nine o'clock every single night because I had so much to do yeah, and then we go home, we think about it because they go home and they think, oh, payroll's Friday. I'm like, oh my god, friday I have to figure out the money. And you know I've got like rent due at the same time and all the insurance is due too. You know there's so much truth in this, yeah, and so you have to just remember that, like you can't do it all, you have to have those boundaries you got to have. And then that's what happens to me. I almost lost my freaking mind because I was so stressed out with two businesses. I started. A brand new business was running this business. I didn't have the full support of my other business partner. It was a freaking mess.
Speaker 2:Well, and where's your self-care? There wasn't any. You know, I spoke to this earlier and I'm finding that I'm, I I'm in this well of like. Oh shoot, how did I forget that you can't do it all? You just cannot do it all. I wish someone had told me, you know, they told me you'll do great at that, you'll do great at that. And then they told me, like it's really hard, and I don't think that I understood the really hard, is it?
Speaker 1:worth it and it's sometimes lonely. Yeah, oh yeah, I mean you have a spouse that has a business, so they understand. But it's really hard because unless you have a lot of entrepreneurs around you and a network, nobody else knows what you're talking about. When you say I go home and think about all these things, you know they don't. They're with their families now. You know, or like I don't know, something a roof needs put on the. I need a roof and I'm like that's $75,000. I have no idea where that's coming from. Or you know all these things and they're just thinking the next paycheck. And I'm not downplaying, because employees have their issues, you know.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. There's always life happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's always life happening. It's just oftentimes wherever the business owner is. We want to forget that they have life happening too.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I think there's a lot of reminder in that, like there's so much humanness that is happening when we make decisions yeah, yeah, and so it's really about compassion on both sides employees and you know, remembering they have stuff, and then I have stuff and I noticed with my employees they're really good to me because they'll come up to me or they'll send me scriptures or and they're like, or they'll say to my husband, like I noticed Tammy's kind of down what's wrong, and I'm like that's cool that they even noticed that, because usually I'm really cheering, I talk to them how are you guys? And because they care. Yeah, and that's what I love about having good employees, because it becomes your family.
Speaker 2:I mean 100% corporates.
Speaker 1:It's 500 700 people. They don't have no idea who you are, but in small business like ours, they are our family. I will watch out for these guys. I will do everything I can to protect them, especially when I don't have kids. So they are my family.
Speaker 2:Yes, I will do everything that I can to support my, my teacher base, my student base, to support, to support, and I do feel that in return and that's a beautiful gift.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what's the most rewarding thing about owning your own business, Other than we've talked about the stresses? What's the most rewarding? Why are we doing this?
Speaker 2:I can't speak to that sense of community enough. I think that life is just getting the best of many of our mental health and I suffer from severe anxiety, and so, like, the counterpart to that is you had mentioned loneliness- you know it's the inability to express what it is that I need or what I feel.
Speaker 2:So I know these teachings, right. Well, I know these teachings and that sometimes leaves me in a different headspace, which is beautiful and wonderful, but then that loneliness will creep right in. You move again, it'll creep right in. You're not doing enough. That there it creeps in.
Speaker 2:And having the sense of community and the support that I have felt as I open and I think, oh gosh, here I am showing up, the way that I have to show up right now, because it is difficult or it is exciting, or it is challenging and testing me, or it's delighting me, and all the ways that I show up, I still feel the support. It's challenging to watch people come and go as life ebbs and flows. I miss a lot of students that I once had and there's a boundary line between who do I text and call and wonder where they are, and putting pressure on someone. That's never the intention. So you make these bonds and so many have stuck for the last year and a half and I know that so many of my students in my community and my teachers have my best interest in mind and I have never, you know, laid in such a comfortable bed, and so I feel very, very fortunate for that. I feel like I needed home, away from home, and so it's here, which is really a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:Well, I want you to know I just met you but like I am a business owner with you, girl, if you ever need me, I'm right here Because I have been through so much stuff in business and as women you know we are hard on ourselves and we struggle and I have depression, I have anxiety, I have all that stuff I've dealt with and like it's a struggle because you have to remember like I'm doing this for a purpose. But then sometimes it's like exhausting to get out of bed. I'm like I don't know how I'm gonna do it today, but then I get up, I get here and my employees check on me and they make sure you're good, and then the day happens and I'm like I have coaching clients and I'm seeing progress with them and I'm like this is why I do it every day a hundred percent of the time.
Speaker 2:It's better when I go yeah a hundred percent of the time yeah, you just lay in bed.
Speaker 1:I mean you think it's going to be great and you just more damn depressed, or whatever you decided to do instead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it is. It is for myself, it's, it's so good when I go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I you find the most resistance sometimes, whether it's to an event with my friends or to church or to work and like and that's. I'm like I just can't do it. And then I get there and I'm like, wow, that's really good, I enjoyed this. Yeah, it was like why didn't I want to come here? I needed this, you know.
Speaker 2:So every I'm right.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, can you tell me we're almost done? Do you have any advice to anyone? That's like a little you, that's like I dream of being a yoga instructor. I want my own studio. I want my own business, do you?
Speaker 2:have any advice for them? That's a fantastic question. In a lot of ways, I think that it's so good to dream and I think it's good to be realistic too. I think that when I first opened, I was a little unrealistic and that leaves me a little bit scrambling. Not that it can't be done. Okay, you dream big and you went for it Great. But if you don't dream as big, you can still go for it. You can still go for it. You can still go for it. You don't need the brand new building, you don't need the biggest place, you don't need the most expensive X, y or Z. It can still be done, but I would.
Speaker 2:My best advice my mother ever gave me is write the pros and cons list. Would I do? Would I create this business a hundred times over? Would I do? Would I create this business a hundred times over? Yes, for every challenge that I am living through right now, yes, but write that pros and cons list and make sure that your head space is in the right place, your heart space is in the right place and financially you can sustain this, because the dreamer in me wasn't sitting there with the finances and now the realist in me has to sit there with the finances and know that, okay, my heart's in the right place, and so I still believe in this dream and this dream is worth it, and it had to look a little bit different.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:And it has to make some big changes. And, um, I think that my biggest advice for for anyone who's listening and wants to start their own business or has this great idea and they just love something so much they they really want to do this take care of yourself, make sure your head and heart are in the right place and go for it. Go for it. You want to do something. You should do it life is so short life is so short, but take care of yourself first yeah, because you can't.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's like what's the thing on a plane where you have to put the mask on yourself first before you help your kid, because if you're not there he can't, you know. And if I always say, if you have a family, you know I've said this 5,000 times but, like they literally say, your business becomes your mistress and you spend so much time with it. And if you're neglecting your wife, that are growing fast and you're missing out on life, and business is important but it's not your whole life.
Speaker 2:I think it's really easy to forget.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's really easy to get caught up.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:Even when it's something you love so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, Chelsea, I think it was amazing having you on. Thank you, let's do a shout out one more time to your business.
Speaker 2:Tell us every single thing. You, we find you perfect. Yes, uh, it is the zenden fruta yoga studio. We're at 128 east aspen ave in fruta, colorado. The website is wwwthezendenfrutacom. You can find class styles, the pricing, the retreat, the events, the schedule, the teachers, anything you might to know. You can contact me and let me know that you loved that I give you a boost of go open your own business. I think that that about covers everything about the business. You can reach out at 970-389-6943 or email at thezendenfruta at gmailcom, and I'm really happy that we got to talk today, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you very much. You helped people. I mean, that's what this is for to help business owners that are struggling or don't realize what they need to take care of themselves or they need to back up or they're wanting to start the business. I mean, always remember chase your dreams, do it, do it right and take care of yourself first, because it's most important. We thank you all for coming and listening to us.
Speaker 2:If you want to like, share, subscribe, do all that stuff.
Speaker 1:We appreciate all my listeners and I will catch you next time, thank you. Thank you so much and remember in the world of business, every success story begins with a passionate dream and ends with a strategic billion dollar handshake. Stay ambitious, stay innovative and keep making those deals that reshape tomorrow. Thank you all for tuning in and until next time, remember. Proverbs 3.3 says let love and faithfulness never leave you. Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. That way you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. And remember if you like what you heard today, click the follow button so you never miss an episode.
