Amazing Bookstores | Cathy Fiebach | Ep 04

Meet Cathy Fiebach: Building Community Through Independent Bookselling
In this episode of The Carol Beringer Method: Amazing Movement, host Carol Beringer welcomes Cathy Fiebach, owner of Main Point Books in Wayne, Pennsylvania. With 11 years of independent bookstore ownership experience, Cathy shares how a spontaneous purchase of bookshelves after Borders closed launched her entrepreneurial journey. Join Carol and Cathy as they explore how running a bookstore connects to overall wellness, the importance of community spaces, and how Cathy's commitment to Pilates has supported her physical health for over 15 years. They discuss Cathy's involvement with Book Smiles—a program bringing books to children who need them—and how Main Point Books serves as a "third space" where people can develop communities around shared interests. Whether you're a book lover or seeking inspiration to pursue your passion, this conversation offers valuable insights about business ownership, community building, and balanced living.

About Cathy Fiebach:
Cathy is the owner of Main Point Books in Wayne, Pennsylvania, an independent bookstore with a mission to offer "a little bit of everything that everybody would like to read." Her bookstore serves as a community hub, hosting author events and supporting literacy initiatives while providing a welcoming space for readers of all ages.

Connect with Cathy:
Visit Main Point Books:
116 North Wayne Ave
Wayne, PA 19087
Phone(484) 580-6978

Website: https://mainpointbooks.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MainPointBooks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mainpointbooks/

**CHAPTERS: **
00:00 Introduction to Amazing Movement Podcast 
00:27 Meet Cathy Fiebach, Owner of Main Point Books 
01:14 The Origin Story of Main Point Books 
01:51 Carol and Cathy's Pilates Connection 
03:04 Community Projects and Book Smiles Initiative 
05:11 Local Authors and Community Connections 
06:47 Small World Connections at Book Events 
07:52 Wellness and Movement Discussion 
08:25 Personal Definition of Wellness 
12:05 The New Year's Resolution that Lasted 15+ Years 
14:16 Daily Check-in Practices 
17:07 Expanding Time for Reading and New Skills 
20:38 Dinner with Someone Special 
21:24 The Importance of Family Stories

About Carol Beringer:
With 25+ years of experience, Carol combines expertise in brain-based functional movement, Pilates, and yoga to help clients achieve improved posture, pain relief, and lifelong wellness. Her compassionate approach has transformed lives of individuals aged 6 to 96.

Connect with Carol:
Website: https://carolberinger.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pilatesandmore110/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CarolBeringerMethod
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-amazing-movement-podcast/id1801483560

Subscribe for weekly episodes to continue building your movement repertoire!

#FunctionalMovement #PilatesInstructor #IndependentBookstore #CommunityBuilding #AmazingMovement #MainPointBooks

Transcript

00:00 - Carol Beringer (Host)
Welcome to my weekly podcast. I'm building a community of women embracing wellness and joy as a lifestyle. Join me as I explore diverse self-care practices and interview amazing women. My mission is to live as well as we can for as long as we can. Let's embark on this vibrant journey together. I have a guest here today, Kathy Feebach, and I'm going to turn it over to her to introduce herself. 

00:27 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
Hi, as Carol said, my name is Kathy Feebach. I'm the owner of Main Point Books, which is in Wayne, pennsylvania, only a few feet from where we're recording, so that's kind of exciting. We're an independent bookstore. I've been in business for 11 years eight years in Wayne and three years before that in Bryn Mawr and my hope is to have a little bit of everything that everybody would like to read, so a good shelf of fiction, nonfiction, history, and we expanded our kids section last year so we now have a whole floor of kids books, which is really exciting. 

01:02 - Carol Beringer (Host)
So we now have a whole floor of kids' books, which is really exciting, and being an independent bookstore is a rare business to find these days. So how did you get? 

01:14 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
started. So, as you said, it's kind of rare. And when borders closed I was devastated and so was everybody around me and my. I went shopping with my middle school son, who always liked a good deal, and he saw that all of the bookshelves were like ten dollars a bookshelf and he's like mom, go buy the bookshelves and and then you can open your own bookstore. And I, who never make a decision like spur of the moment, bought like 10, 10 bookshelves which I couldn't fit into my garage. And then I started paying storage and I kind of had to figure it out. 

01:51 - Carol Beringer (Host)
I met Kathy because I have the Pilates studio and Kathy was doing Pilates with someone who had a home studio and, after the quarantine was not going, decided not to work as many hours, and so I got lucky enough that Kathy was introduced to me and we've been working together, you know, now for four years. 

02:11 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
I guess it is it's gone past. 

02:13 - Carol Beringer (Host)
Yes movement, you know, is important to everyone, to you know how do you get through your day. You sit, you stand, you walk and you drive. You know we all have challenges that come up, whether it's a body part or an accident or a fall, or just realize that you know we're sitting more at a computer during those months that our businesses were closed and having to find ways to move and moving being very healing. That you know. I was lucky enough that I met Kathy. Making a trip to a local bookstore is really a fun thing to do. You have events Authors come there and book signings, et cetera, and so you do do a lot of events and you're active in other. Are they community projects that bring books to different places? 

03:04 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
Are they community projects that bring books to different places. So at the moment we're working with a program called Book Smiles, which I'm going to think I'm going to do a fundraiser for them because I think they're so phenomenal. They're out of South Jersey. They're actually trying to buy a warehouse in Philadelphia proper, so their concept is sort of like fill abundance, where they're going to take books from people who don't want them and get them to people who do want them, specifically children's books. But the guy who started it is a high school teacher who just is enthusiastic and will look for a way to make things better at every opportunity. So he's found somebody who'll take all the adult books and basically swap them for kids books for him. So now he's collecting any books people don't want any longer and he's gotten a few million books into various different programs hands. 

03:57
So a lot of the programs that we'd supported in the past, like the WEPAC, the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children and One Book and things like that, he's actually providing books to all those organizations, any place that can actually hand a book to a kid who doesn't have one. 

04:11
So, yeah, anyway, that's the one that I'm probably most involved in now. But people are dropping off like cases of books, like daily, and it's really exciting. So, um, but yeah, we do a lot of programming and, um, as I said, we'd expanded our um children's space to have a whole floor, but we're using that as event space too, so we can seat about 65 people and, um, it's letting us bring in a lot more authors, um, you know, sort of bigger names and sort of more interesting subjects and, like, we are doing programming with Red Wine and Blue, which is about getting the vote out and in various different groups that sort of want to have, you know, a space that they can use. So really look at the store as like a third space where you can come and sort of develop a community of people who care about things you care about or meet new people. 

05:07 - Carol Beringer (Host)
And I know that you do have a lot of local authors as well that you represent. 

05:11 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
Yeah, I'm amazed at how many local authors there are. Like I was. The first day I opened, people started walking into the store and you know, like I was reading about them in like the New York Times, and it turned out that I lived down the street, which was really exciting. 

05:23 - Carol Beringer (Host)
Yes, I've attended a couple of events at Kathy's little space and it's so pleasant. You're surrounded by children's book, which energized you. I actually just bought a children's book for my 40-year-old son about a football player and he was thrilled with it. Okay, about a football player, and he was thrilled with it. Okay, and yeah. So you know it's just another way to connect too with other people that have similar interests, because you know we can order books online and it doesn't really benefit the author as much. You know it's distancing and you know we've lost this interconnectedness. And to attend a book signing and then I actually attended, um, your, um, it was my son, uh, has always followed the band fish, and so there was a book written about fish and the woman was coming to do the presentation and, um, it was a woman, wasn't? 

06:25 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
it yes. 

06:26 - Carol Beringer (Host)
And then I went it was just before Christmastime Bought the books for my son and all of his friends that were following Fish all these years, and when I gave it to the one fella, his wife said oh, I know her husband it's a very small world, so it just you know. 

06:47 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
So I thought, oh, he's gonna lose that book she's gonna read it, but it was just it's again all these small world connections that really make life more interesting so we've had some like fun moments where, like, um, you know, an author who has some tie to the community, probably hasn't lived here for a while, will come and do an event and, like their kindergarten teacher, will be in the audience. Or I don't know if you came for Jake Tapper, I did not. He came to do an event and two of his ex-girlfriends and one of their fathers showed up. 

07:18 - Carol Beringer (Host)
I know so like it was very funny, so what? 

07:21 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
was Jake's book. He has written a series of mysteries, so it wasn't a political book, it was, um, it was his mystery series. He writes like 10 minutes a day and somehow there turns out books, which is kind of I know. I feel like I did come to his I don't know, but yeah, so I know. 

07:37 - Carol Beringer (Host)
I guess people see on your website that this author is going to be there and they knew him from the past. That's great I it's so rewarding to know that you've made an impression somewhere along the way, especially to an old girlfriend's parents or family that they would want to show up and see you again. 

07:52
That's really yeah, that's pretty special. So Kathy does come and do Pilates in my studio, and so we're going to ask a couple of questions here from my deck, that kind of bring life and movement and moving forward and pursuing your passions all together, hopefully in a fun way Okay. So what is your personal definition of wellness and how has it evolved over a lifetime? 

08:25 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
and how has it evolved over a lifetime? I think that it has a lot to do with mental health as well as physical health. In my own head and maybe that's become even more apparent to me as I've gotten older that it's sort of like doing things that work for myself and sort of admitting what those are. So making time to exercise, to do Pilates, to go for walks, but also going out for dinner with friends and opening a bookstore actually was that kind of decision for me. It was something I really could be passionate about and enjoy doing. So I think it all sort of comes together For me. It's like it's got to be a lot of different facets of my life to be and maybe took maturity to actually sort of say that out loud and admit it. Yeah. 

09:21 - Carol Beringer (Host)
So you know to have a balance so that you know, because if you're not well in your body or moving well in your body, you don't feel well. 

09:30
And then if you know and a lot of it is about posture and having body confidence that if your body's better together, so is your head better together, and then you need physical strength to move books and do the things that you do as part of your business. And also part of your business fills another one of those blue zone blessings of having social interaction, and I mean Kathy is such a resource for me because my business is also in Wayne, pennsylvania, and so that we talk about business events and actually this studio is new to the area. 

10:06
And so you know, networking with your fellow business people just boosts you, your business and introduces you to more businesses and more opportunities. So yeah, I've come to Kathy's events and they've been lovely, and bought books that I probably wouldn't have bought before. I have all readers in my family. I have a funny story my son, who got married last year, when he met his wife five years ago, he met her in August. I'm Christmas shopping and I love to give presents. 

10:41
The people in the studio who know me and know how special my son is to me and knew that he had a girlfriend, said are you buying her a Christmas present? And I said, well, luckily she's an avid reader. So I was buying her two books and I told them what they were and they were about very empowered, independent women. And they go you're buying those books for your son's girlfriend, know, girlfriend. And I'm like if I haven't raised a son that once doesn't, you know, can't handle an independent, strong woman partner, then I have failed. So, yeah, and we tell that story a lot because it's pretty funny, and he agreed, and and she is a very wonderful, powerful. And then they moved nearby recently and I was there for dinner on friday night and of course she wanted to share a book with me, but I'd already read it, so but well then, she knows what you like, though that's right. 

11:31 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
So yeah, she's paying attention too, right? 

11:33 - Carol Beringer (Host)
so yeah, we um, you know it brought us together in a way that you know is special. So it it is. It is nice to have all, like you said, a lot of different things feeding your balance. Um. So in um, in your quest for resilience, which we all have, do you have a regular check-in to make resolutions, to boost you and to simultaneously let go of what's not working for you? So do I give a daily check-in. 

12:05 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
I don't you don't. Maybe I should. 

12:09
No, shooting no, but I mean it's funny, I never really thought about that. It's funny when you do say resolutions. I don't know if I ever told you why I started doing it, but the Pilates was my one New Year's resolution that I stuck with. Wow, like I, I was like I need to do, like I need to do something, like my body doesn't feel right and I was having a lot of knee issues and I'd gone to like physical therapy and they were like the only thing that we really think could help consistently is if you do Pilates. 

12:42 - Carol Beringer (Host)
Wow. 

12:43 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
So you know, I had young kids and I was like, but I started doing it, like you know, january 2nd and it's I don't know at least 15 years now that I stuck with it and and every time I've kind of tried to like give it up, my body has told me it's a big mistake. 

13:02 - Carol Beringer (Host)
Well, that's really good news for Pilates and functional movement which yoga is functional movement and Alexander and Feldenkrais, and you know you need to find the one that sings to you and it is just. You know how do I get through my day? And not everybody's an athlete and a lot of people are terrified or intimidated to go to a gym, and gyms are noisy and they're electronic, and so it is a very peaceful environment and so it is really. A lot of people will say it's one thing that they've stuck with, and it's a very pleasant environment and it also de-stresses you. So when you feel better in your body and you're less stressful, it benefits everything. 

13:51 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
So yay for that answer. I'm glad I asked it and I guess the other thing is that I have. I am pretty aware when I start to feel like things are not the way I want to be, want them to be or kind of get like upset or like life, you know, when you start to feel, feel, you know I'm not going to say depressed, but down like things, you know, days are not as bright as um, and I'm pretty good at sort of saying what. 

14:12
What's not working and what might work like what am I going to try next? 

14:16 - Carol Beringer (Host)
yeah, so you have an awareness that you know a lot of people don't. But yeah, and that's good, because that's probably one of my next questions, like, do you have a daily? Like it's like, um, you know, I, I check in with when I wake up in the morning, I like say I'm gonna just be the best person I can be today, and at the end of the day I check in again and sometimes I was and sometimes I wasn't. But then I think, well, you know, how could I handle that better? And we all have those. 

14:41 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
I mean so are you really sitting that? Like, are you really thinking about like what, like how you, who you want to be today, or like what you want to have? Like how do you, how do I? Are you checking it? 

14:54 - Carol Beringer (Host)
How am I checking in? So you know, there are things that happen during a day that you know could be at the gas station, and or an exchange that you have with someone, or or someone surprises you with an exchange that you didn't expect and you just have to think did I initiate that or was that maybe something that was happening with them? And usually we find out that someone's going through something and maybe they just needed to and it might not be it. Just that kind of thing. 

15:27
I think I'm such a people person that I think it's more like did I get through my day being my best self with everyone? Because you know it's what I do, is interact with people all day, even about did I give? Did I do I think I had my best day as a teacher? Did I do the right things for the client? Or even at the end of a session, like if I make my notes on the session, like oh you know, they asked that at the beginning of the session and I didn't fulfill that wish, like I have to be more cognizant. So just those things. But really I feel like I've gotten better and better as I checked in on myself for years. There's less negatives and much more positive, which then helps me feel like a better person. So I am a better person because when you do better, yeah, okay, how tough Does that? Was the answer. Well, that is. 

16:14 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
That's interesting, because I think I'm better or worse at thinking like at the end of like, about things that went wrong or like things that I wish had gone better. 

16:23 - Carol Beringer (Host)
And like. 

16:24 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
I know that a lot of people sort of say, well, I'm going to like also congratulate myself on things that went right today or, like you know, sort of focus on the positive versus the negative, yeah. But I guess I don't do that. I tend to think more about like what? 

16:38 - Carol Beringer (Host)
what was lacking or what could you have done, or you didn't check this off your list. 

16:42 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
Yeah. 

16:42 - Carol Beringer (Host)
So I mean for the most part. Usually my list is so extensive that like, I'm like. 

16:46 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
So I mean, for the most part, usually my list is so extensive that I'm like wow, I got all that done. Yeah, like good for me. 

16:50 - Carol Beringer (Host)
Yeah, so you know, and I think I am an exceptional optimist. Yeah, I get that. I'm accused of that often. 

16:58 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
That's a good thing. Yeah, yeah, so yeah sometimes I think that's my own little illness. 

17:07 - Carol Beringer (Host)
It serves you well. So if you could expand time, how would you spend it, and would you like it to be an additional hour in a day or an additional day in a week? 

17:19 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
Could I have like both. 

17:20 - Carol Beringer (Host)
Yeah. 

17:21 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
I would love to have more time. I wish I needed less sleep, because I would love to have more hours in my day. There are so many things that I would like to do. So you know, part of the reason I opened a bookstore is because I love to read and I thought somehow there would be an excuse to read more, and it has totally not worked that way. Like I actually I probably I don't read less, but I certainly don't I still feel guilty. I still feel like I'm reading the wrong book because there's something else I have to be reading. So I would love more time in the day to read. But there's also all these things I would like to start doing. I think we talked about it before. I'd love to learn Spanish. I'd like to learn how to sew. Like there's a lot of things like I avoided when I was younger that now I'm like why do I not have that skill? Yeah, so I, yeah, I would like a lot more. 

18:11 - Carol Beringer (Host)
You're actually preempting my next question yeah, so if you could magically have a new skill, what would it be? But you just answered that. And so it's interesting because when I wrote the list of like options, like if people got stuck, or even like as I was thinking of options for myself and I I love having those lists to look forward to and, um, and sometimes I let myself off the hook like, well, is that really important? No, it's not, okay Gone, but one of the things that I listed was like crocheting or needle point or different things that don't usually come to mind when people think of you know, doing better. They think of like, oh, I've got to get. You know, I've got to go to the gym and New Year's resolutions, like you said, going to Pilates. I can't tell you how many times people come in and they'll say, well, this was you know, my New Year's resolution was to go to the gym twice a week and do Pilates once a week, and so I said so how much of you did you do of that last year? And they'll go none and I go. Well, why don't you, you know, do gym one day, pilates one day? Because if you didn't do it at all last year, why do you think you can do all of that this year or it's just funny, like you know that people do beat up on themselves mentally more but that you can congratulate yourself that you made a New Year's resolution that, 15 years later, has stayed with you and I love. 

19:33
I told this story and it might be a repeat during the interviews. I didn't know whether I told it on or off camera, to tell you the truth, but my birthday is New Year's Eve and so growing up it was everybody's holiday, so it wasn't really special for me, which was okay with me, because what I realized about New Year's Eve being your birthday is that the whole world celebrates New Year's Eve, no matter what race, religion, country or the state your country is. In that what New Year's does for everyone is it's a day that you think you're hopeful for the next year and I I just like that's the best birthday present you could ever get, that you know that there's, there's and there's fireworks, and there's fireworks, what? 

20:19
could be better than that. So the very last question. So you would, you would learn to sew. 

20:26 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
I think I, if I only get one, I would love to be like, fluent in spanish without actually having to study it. I know, I know, yes, I know, and if you could magically do it, that's what was it. If you could magically learn a skill? 

20:38 - Carol Beringer (Host)
yes, because I have a list. Okay, so the last one. The last question is um, if you could have dinner with someone, dead or alive, who would it be? 

20:54 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
oh, it's not exciting, but I, I would love to have my grandparents back that's beautiful, yeah I mean, I you know as, and I was lucky, I had them for a long time, but, um, there's so many questions I'd ask them now that I didn't ask them, you know, when they were here. So I think that would be really special. That would be very cool, yeah, yeah. 

21:15 - Carol Beringer (Host)
And you know what, everyone that I've asked that question to has mentioned a family member that's passed that they would like to have time back with them, not Tolstoy. 

21:24 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
Huh, it's not Tolstoy. 

21:28 - Carol Beringer (Host)
No time back with them. It's not Tolstoy, it's not Tolstoy, no, no. But you know, and and most of them said the same thing this is not exciting and that you know people would pick a celebrity or something, but it's, you know, this is, that's real and it's personal. One thing that I did that I'm really grateful for, because I didn't have the best relationship with my mom growing up, but I spent a lot of time with her after my dad passed and she was on her own, and one rainy Sunday I just I she. 

21:50
There was a question I had about an aunt who was supposed to get married during the Second World War and I knew there was a lot of story behind how it didn't happen, that she got stood up, basically, and so I said there's always been this talk about Aunt Jewel and this major, that they all lived in Atlantic City and during the Second World War R&R happened in New York City for the East Coast, for the European soldiers. They came to the East Coast, to New York, atlantic City and Miami I think were places that they went, where they had to keep in shape, but they were given the freedom to, and they were places that had entertainment and the hotels, I think were actually paid for by the government for them to come and stay in nice hotels and enjoy themselves. And so my aunt met somebody who said he was going to marry her and he was married to somebody else. 

22:40
That's a fun story but I never knew the details of it. So this one rainy afternoon I just said to my mom and she just went home with stories about the whole wartime and all of them and what happened and people that came and went and you know different people that they met and so it is like you know. So if you do have you know a parent or someone older that you want to know their story, yeah, try and ask it because you know, but you know that it's really special. 

23:09 - Cathy Fiebach (Guest)
I'm actually going to visit my dad this weekend, so I will take that to heart. 

23:12 - Carol Beringer (Host)
Yeah, all right, so well. I'd like to thank you for joining me and giving me your time out of your busy business life, and thank you all in the audience for coming to hear us, and we'll see you next time.