The Studio CEO: Business Coaching For Yoga & Pilates Teachers & Studio Owners

Closing a 16 Year Old Studio To Thriving Online with Sandra Vanatko

• Jackie Murphy • Episode 65

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Sandra Vanatko opened the first yoga studio in Parker County, Texas 16 years ago and built something real from scratch. After COVID changed the landscape, Sandra did something most studio owners are afraid to even consider and then she actually acted on it.

In this episode, Jackie and Sandra walk through the full arc, from pioneering yoga in a skeptical market, raising private rates that were too low, grieving the loss of a 16-year business, and launching an online membership that hit 100 founding members in 36 hours.

If you've been running your studio for years and something feels off, this one is for you.

Timestamped Outline:

[01:56] Sandra's background
[11:23] How Sandra moves through resistance in business using somatic awareness
[19:36] How Sandra's offerings evolved from classical yoga to somatic and trauma-informed work
[27:47] Building the online business while still running the studio
[33:21] The founding membership launch
[35:51] Grieving a 16-year business
[38:38] Sandra's top piece of advice for studio owners navigating big transitions

Key Takeaways:

✔️ Meeting your market where they are isn't selling out—it's smart marketing. The door has to open before the deeper work can begin.
✔️ Make the love list. Write down everything you love doing and everything you don't. The decision often becomes obvious.
✔️ Grief is part of the pivot. Sandra spent six months in the process before she got excited about what came next. Skipping it stalls you later.
✔️ Your community will follow you. 100 founding members in 36 hours, built on 16 years of real trust, not a fancy funnel.

Quotes:

"I wrote down everything I love doing, and I wrote down everything I didn't enjoy doing anymore. When I saw the list, it became clear." — Sandra

"Grieving informed the new chapter. If you skip over it, you're skipping an essential piece." — Sandra Vanatko


"Get paid support in place, because your friends are holding your heart—and you don't want to burn them out." — Sandra


FAQ Section:

How do I know when it's time to close my studio or make a major pivot? If you're dreading the space you built or the math no longer makes sense. Sandra's sign was driving an hour to teach four people in person while eight joined online. The data often knows before you do.
Is it too late to hire a business coach if I've been open for 10+ years? Not at all. Sandra was 14 years in before working with Jackie. The work wasn't starting over—it was raising rates, cleaning up operations, and building structure around what was already working.
How do I raise my private rates without losing clients? Get clear on what you're actually offering. Sandra wasn't teaching yoga privates—she was offering somatic body work and trauma-informed coaching. Naming that value made raising rates a natural next step.
How do I handle the grief of closing a long-running studio? Let yourself feel it fully. Sandra spent April through September in the process before she got excited about what came next. Skipping the grief doesn't speed things up—it just stalls the breakthrough.

Work with Jackie Murphy


Welcome To Studio CEO

Opening A Studio In Texas

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to the Studio CEO, the only podcast that empowers yoga and Pilates teachers and studio owners to step confidently into their role as CEO. If you are ready to chill with passion, take your business seriously, and scale to lose height, lose health and burning out, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Jackie Murphy, an award-winning certified business coach with over 12 years of experience inside the yoga industry. I have seen firsthand what it takes to build a profitable and scalable business. Join me as we dive into strategy, insight, and real-world advice that will help you grow your business, build a thriving student, and create a business that serves you as much as you serve your students. It's time to embrace your inner CEO and make more money without working more. This is just the beginning. All right, everyone, welcome back to the Studio CEO podcast. Today we have an interview, a client interview with us. And I know that you guys love these episodes because you get to hear different journeys and different experiences in the yoga and Pilates industry. So today I know that this one will be very special and you guys will want to listen to this again and again. So welcome, Sandra, to the Studio CEO podcast. Why don't you give us a brief introduction and then we'll dive in? Sure.

SPEAKER_02

Jackie, I'm really happy to be here with you. Um, my name is Sandra Vinacco, and I am based in Fort Worth, Texas. And um, I have been deeply immersed in yoga and meditation um and somatic work for almost 20 years. And um my journey as a business owner started um 16 years ago. I opened a small studio uh at the time in Weatherford, Weatherford, Texas, which is about 30 miles uh west, west of Fort Worth. And that's where I actually got started. And that was after um spending time for about a year in India, and then um under mentorship under my teacher in California for about three years, where he was like, Hey, it's time for you to open your own space. And that's how I came home to open something.

SPEAKER_01

Wow. Okay, let's just talk about Weatherford, Texas, which one of the comments that I get a lot is everything you're teaching is location dependent and where the studio is and what the population is like. When you think of Texas, you don't necessarily think of green juices, nervous system healing, and yoga. So talk to us about opening a studio 16 years ago in Texas and how the demographic influenced what you created.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, sure. So I was coming from living in San Diego, which was about green juice and yoga and all the things. And um I think when I came home, you know, when I came home, I was looking to open between where my dad was, which was in the woodlands, where one sister was Fort Worth and another sister in Weatherford, and everything opened up to open in Weatherford. I did not want to be there. I'd always lived in really um uh just more like a city I'd lived in, Austin and New York, uh Houston, San Diego. So Weatherford was um uh it was a clarity and a knowing and kind of one of those surrendering moments where you know that's what you're supposed to be doing. Um and I cried when I realized I was gonna be opening there. Yeah. I cried for a good 24 hours. I remember the moment when I realized I needed to be there. Uh, it was Christmas Eve, and my he's my brother-in-law now, but at the time he was my younger sister's boyfriend, and we were talking about where I should open, and he was like, Did you ever think about Weatherford? You may end up being busier than you ever imagined. And I felt just now I know what it is. It was somatically, I felt the contraction in my body, and I felt a lot of resistance, like, no, and I literally heard audibly shut up and listen. And I just like opened, opened up, and it was the first time I really heard it, and when I felt it, yeah. I remember going home Christmas Eve and crying and having this knowingness that that's where I needed to be. And then all of a sudden, when I said yes, all these things fell into place to make it very easy to open. Wow. So I moved back from San Diego. I was thrilled to be closer to family, but the journey ahead in the beginning was um challenging because I was the first true yoga studio in all of Parker County. So outside of Fort Worth, I was the first um yoga studio. There'd been yoga classes here and there, or like I remember there, I think there was like a shop like yoga and beads and this and that, but I think that ran like teacher trainings and traditional classes, and um I I had quite a bit of um pushback in the beginning. Uh, and I think it was fear, I think it was people not knowing what yoga is, it's right in the middle of the Bible belt, and it was something new. Yeah um so I felt like I was going back in time, probably 50 to 60 years, moving from San Diego in the freedom and the way I could share. And so very quickly, I we can always connect the dots going back, right? And um I I relied on my Texas AM um diploma. I I only went to Texas AM because it was the closest school after my mom passed away from breast cancer to stay close to family and check on my younger sister. I did not want to go there. It was too conservative for me. But all of a sudden, this degree in biology and chemistry from Texas AM, I literally put my diploma on the right next to the front door.

SPEAKER_01

So they know I'm a Texan.

Earning Trust With Science

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh. So even though I was from California doing yoga, they'd come in and they'd see my diploma. And I could feel there was immediate trust because it was from Texas AM. Wow. And I was like, okay, I got this. And I started to use my um degree in biology to really take a very scientific approach to yoga in the beginning. So I explained, and it was really cool because my teacher, Sashi Potatil, um, he also, he was from Kerala, India, and he he was trained in the Shivananda tradition, which Shivananda was this, um, he was a physician before he became yoga teacher. So he also took a very therapeutic approach to yoga. And so I was like, okay, I can do this, but I need to really shift how I teach. So I started to explain like what each exercise or pranayam technique or um movement, any any movement that we were doing, I gave the science behind it and it built it built trust. It started to build trust. And um and people started to feel safe to to to come in, to to practice, to experience. And then as they felt the benefits themselves, um they wanted more. And so then I was able to start to open up more and more to the the parts I'm incredibly passionate about, which are um, yeah, it's it's it's spirituality. I really use yoga as a platform to share spirituality, like really understanding our spiritual essence. Um, but it I couldn't, there's no way I could have started there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I think your your willingness to say, I'm gonna figure out how to speak to them in a way that doesn't essentially scare them off, that meets them where they are. Like that's good marketing. Some clients that I work with have a resistance to that because they want to start with the spiritual. They don't want to uh I'm using air quotes, you guys, like dumb it down to people who aren't there yet. But I'm always like, we got to open the doors, we gotta have them come in somehow so the journey can start. So you're just like intuitive knowing that like I need to pivot how I'm talking about this to match this market is so spot on.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah, they needed to feel safe, they needed to feel safe to trust, and they could they could trust science, they could trust the bachelor's degree in biology from Texas AM. Um, they were skeptical about yoga because yoga had never been west of Fort Worth, and there wasn't much yoga yet in Fort Worth 16 years ago.

Listening To Business Resistance

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You said something that I think is really interesting that I want to ask you about, healing your wisdom. You said when he told you, have you considered Weatherford? You felt so much resistance in your body, but you heard the intuitive yes. What would you say, or how do you handle resistance in your body in business now? A lot of people would feel that and say, that's a stop sign. That means it's a no-go. So, how was it the just the fact that you heard that you were able to move through that, or how do you move through resistance in business?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so I mean, it's fun that you asked that question because it's a lot of what I teach and why I think embodiment is so important. So the more we allow our practice to be embodied, the more we can actually track very subtle markers for resistance in our body. We don't even have to wait till the big ones come. Um, so I'm always like working on allowing my awareness to really descend into the felt sense of the body. For most people, their awareness is from the neck up, and I really work to stay connected to the feeling sense from the neck down so that I can pick up very, very um, they can be subtle markers, so they don't even have to come to the point where it's huge. I I prefer to listen now when it's like a feather versus a sledgehammer. I used to get a lot of sledgehammers, and and now I'm willing to listen sooner. Um, and and for business, it's it is so good because I I look at what we feel in the body, it what we know mentally is just from our learned experience of our own life, what we get to feel through our body, you're like the living embodiment of all your ancestors. So you're tapping into all of their experience, yeah, all of their wisdom, then is part of what that subtle to great contraction is in your body. There's something there, and um, it's worth investigating. So I would I always tell students, and this is my own process, I just get curious. I just get curious and I make space. Like yesterday, um, I felt some frustration, and I was moving too quick to really be able to understand what it was. So I slowed down and I just laid down and I did a meditation, and then I just laid there and let myself really hold hands with that frustration. And then it was like, oh, oh yeah, yeah. There it is. There's the the meaning behind that contraction that felt like frustration. And and then that allows me to either tend to that part, acknowledge that part, or if I need to make an adjustment so I don't keep being uh in a loop in that frustration where people get really stuck, right?

Getting Serious About Business Skills

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. It's so good. Slowing down, having awareness, getting curious, and then taking care of it, whatever that means, whatever that comes up with in the moment. Okay, so you've you've opened this studio. I think we were introduced by a client of mine, a referral, and then you came into uh the challenge, and I was like, I I was it two years ago? It it must have been.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, wow, it's two years, yes.

SPEAKER_01

Two years ago. Is it two or three? Two or three, right? I don't know. Yeah. Time flies. But I met you at the point where you had had this studio for I think 14, 15 years, and you were at the place where you knew something needed to change. Yeah, and our work began. So talk to me about like I get a lot of clients all the time or people considering working with me. They're like, Jackie, are you just for new studio owners? I've been open for 11 years, I've been open for 12 years. Like, what made you say now is the time to get support for the business side of things?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so I had done so many trainings to to keep uh learning to deepen my skill set. There was a point where I realized I'm I'm I'm really good at this now, and I've got a lot of experience. And then I realized what I had not invested in yet was how to be really good at business.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And to be really good at anything, we need to be curious and we need to take time to study it. And because for me, I felt like the business aspect was a little, it had a little shadow in it because I would shy away from it. I would just, it's working, and then I wouldn't look any further. It's like it's working, and I wouldn't look any further. And I and I just kept diving into other trainings. And so finally I was like, you know what? If I want to be really well-rounded, I need to also get some training around marketing, around being a business owner. I mean, I get a therapist in place and a bodyworker in place and a massage therapist. I get all of support in place, and I know all that support in place has um brought me to where I am today, but I had never put skillful support in place to coach me and train me in the business side. I was doing all of that flying by the seat of my pants. And yeah, and I have to say, to get to 15 years, you're doing something right. Yeah, yeah. You were but I knew it was hard. It was hard. So I knew um there had to be a way to make it easier.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And when we first started working together, it it wasn't like we were building something, we were more cleaning up what was already there. Like we went in, I remember a conversation about raising your private rates distinctly. And you were teaching, I wish I knew exactly, but you were teaching a lot of privates. And the rate was too low. And that was one of the first things we worked on, and then we really worked on the operation side of things too of do you have support in the business that's giving you exactly what you need to grow? And the cleanup can be like opening a junk drawer and being like, oh, this is what's in here, this is what we need to work on. What would you say was like the most uh influential part of that?

SPEAKER_02

Um first I want to say, I mean, it it's it's it was shadow work for me because we were we were opening all these places. I was unwilling to to look, and I needs needed somebody to help me look. I think the most influential thing was um you came you came in and you really helped me recognize what I was offering and the worth of that and kind of helped pull me up to to to actually honor that. Yeah. And that it was more than okay to to raise prices, and it was more than okay to restructure, and it was more than okay to clean things up, even if it might make people a little bit uncomfortable to to recreate more balance in the business. I needed I needed um I needed hand holding because I I was not strong enough to do it on my own, but with a little bit of like, I mean guidance when you would tell me I could I could do it, you know, I could do it. I I just needed someone to say that's okay if we do that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

It was huge for me.

From Yoga To Somatics

SPEAKER_01

To have the support, to say like I'm to have someone I'm with you on this decision. I think this is the move. And I remember specifically with like the value, like when you when I say you were teaching privates, you weren't teaching yoga, like a yoga private. It's so much more of what you're offering your clients. So let's kind of dive into that. Like you opened a yoga studio and then ended up offering somatic work and nervous system healing and trauma-informed work. How how did you get to that point? Was it all the trainings, or was it just the kind of pull of what you were interested in?

SPEAKER_02

Um honestly, it is the deepening of my own personal practice. Like I always tell everybody, I'm a I'm a student first, and then part of my path is teaching. So I was deeply curious, and I would go deeper into my own healing. And then from that, it never failed. As soon as I was working on something or had gone through something uh and had clarity, it's like life would bring people that needed that wisdom that I had just kind of like figured out myself. And it's like the typical archetype of like the wounded healer, and so then I would find different modalities that would uh deepen my understanding so it could translate into a better structured scaffolding to teach and share uh with others, yeah. Um, but even to this day, it's it's still always about deepening. And there was a there there was a point where um I got deeply interested in meditation, but it was happening on the yoga mat because I would get so curious about what was arising while I was in the shape of a post. You know, I would like catch the dialogue or the way I was, you know, speaking to myself, or or the tone, and and and so I got very curious to start sitting and really paying attention to to um what's actually arising here. And recognizing all the different many, many parts that are always coexisting, and learning to meet them and be with them and listen to what's actually underneath. And then it got really curious and was like, there's got to be a way I could do this for clients. So I kind of took my own meditation process and I started sitting with people in presence. And when I'm sitting in presence, I could often bridge what they couldn't feel somatically yet for themselves. I could typically feel it and point it out to them. And through conversations, I found that there was a modality, even it's it's it's a beautiful modality called Hakomi Somatic Body Work. It's a body-based psychotherapy program. So I mean it led me to that. But I mean, it started from, you know, like a very classical Shivananda style that was from my teacher that was from India to a more of a westernized approach, to for a while, kundalini yoga that took me to holotropic breath work. Yeah. Um, then that took me to shamanic arts and healing, then that took me to I've been a practitioner of the Tibetan lineage of Mahamudra since 2013. And then because that's a very body-based style of meditation and you you increase so much somatic awareness. That's what took me to Hakomi, which was the um body-based psychotherapy. Because at some point you need to have really good skill set and psychology to meet what's coming up spiritually, especially if you want to hold space for people in a trauma-informed way.

When A Physical Studio Stops Fitting

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. That's it's beautiful. And it's it's beautiful because you made time to develop as a student continuously while running a successful studio. And that can be the thing that falls off very quickly for people that they lose their own practice or they lose their own um education, their own self-study of what they want to create and give. One of the things, Paul, we were working together, you travel a ton. And I feel like during our time, you would be, did you go to China? You went to China. You just got back from Puerto Rico.

SPEAKER_02

Was it China? Am I right? Um, I I went to, I mean, Africa, Patagonia. I'm going to Mongolia and China this year, actually. You're probably reading in this field for the future.

SPEAKER_01

The China's coming. Um, but you love to travel. And so there was a point in time where I don't know if that's what spurred this conversation, but there was a kind of a knowing that the physical space was not meant to be any longer. So talk to us about that moment because I think that can be really scary for people of I've done this thing for 16 years and now it's time for new. How did you know?

SPEAKER_02

Oh gosh. Yeah, I've been, Jackie, I've been thinking about, I've been writing out the steps like that I went through to like um to make big changes. And I'm gonna create a course for people that want to make big life changes because I see there's a scaffolding to it too. Yeah. Like, but so for so for me, things changed after COVID. You know, we took everything online, so we were able to to to care for people through COVID online, and then when we could reopen in person, but the the landscape of the communities shifted, and a lot of people they never returned to classes the same way. They might drop in, but the convenience of the online um was so easy that we never recovered in the same way. I mean, we we expanded, but it was split. We we grew, but now the community was split because some of our students never came back. And, you know, I remember I would come in and all of a sudden it flip-flopped. I used to have like a classroom full and a couple people online, and then all of a sudden there's a few people in person and a ton online. And I and I think when I made a move in about it, it's a year ago that I was driving in almost an hour to teach. And I remember one day I sat down to teach and I had eight people online and four in person. I was like, something needs to shift. This this feels obs it's feels obsolete. Like the the space was incredible for teacher trainings, meditation trainings, events, but people were trickling in for classes because they had that online factor. You know, there'd still be a lot of people in class, but it would be split.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. So you made that change. I love that you're creating that course. That's gonna be really cool because you made the change so beautifully. One of the last things that we worked together on was the launch plan, essentially, marketing and sales to birth your new offer into the world. And why don't we start with just like what the new offer is so people know what we're talking about, but then we'll go into like the success of you transitioning from physical to online almost seamlessly from my perspective.

Designing A $39 Online Membership

SPEAKER_02

I'm sure it wasn't seamless, but thanks. I mean the the in between was hard because I felt like I was running two full-time jobs, you know, because I had to build the whole background of the online while still running the physical space. Um, but what I what I did, and this is what I would tell anybody wanting to make a transition, or if they're feeling stuck or they're feeling exhausted or burnt out, is I just made a list. I was just really honest. And I wrote down everything I loved doing, and I wrote down everything I didn't enjoy doing anymore. And I when I saw the list, I loved doing trainings, I loved doing retreats, I loved being one-on-one with people, I love teaching. And then I looked at this list, I don't love managing, you know. I I don't like being a business manager, and I was like, I everything went back to like being the student and the teacher. I like sharing, teaching, creating content. So I was like, and it became clear, I was like, we need to get rid of this. So how do I get rid of this? Well, it's it's to let go of managing a big space, a big team, um, having the responsibilities of a brick mortar. And and then what was really fun, it was like, wow, over here, I'm gonna be able to just get as creative as I want to again.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And so I really started thinking about what do people love and what would be helpful, what do I know would be helpful? Um, and so what I did is I created an online membership that um it's it's$39 a month. And each month I go in and I create um whatever I have time for, but so far it's it's because it's fun. It's like I I don't want to, and I think you gave me this guidance, like don't be rigid, like three new practices or four new practices. Like, so if I've got time, I might upload six new practices for them. If I don't have time, it might be four. Uh, but what it includes typically, it's like um a practice that's nervous system support. Um there'll be a meditation in there. There might be just a pranayam practice because I have so many uh that I learned over the years that are such a good skill set to have. So I love teaching pranayam. Um, so it's typically got nervous system support, uh, a sit-down pranayam practice meditation, a yoga class that's got it's a trauma-informed and more body-based mindful practice. And then I typically do two lives a month. So they've got four classes they can do anytime, and then two lives that we meet, which is really fun because we reconnect that way. And then I stick around after and I do a little QA with them. Um, and then the platform, we chat on the platform, which has been really fun, and people stay connected on there. And then I'm continuing to do my retreats, and I am looking at um different options for my meditation training um and my yoga teacher training, but I am really like paying attention to not just busying myself as much as I was before, just because I'm used to that pace. Yeah. I'm purposely kind of like pulling back on the reins, if if you will, right now, because I have a ton of ideas. I'm like, just let this be enough. Like this, just as it is, is enough. Yeah. Um, and I feel really happy because you know, I'll have people come to retreats and sometimes they're young people, and to practice with us afterwards, you know, to get an unlimited pass. It wasn't affordable. And it brings me tremendous joy to be able to say, like, I've got a really awesome offering for$39.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. And and you can be anywhere, right? Like you can come on a retreat.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Yeah, you can be anywhere, and I can be anywhere. Yeah. So they can be anywhere, I can be anywhere. But it it's like it brings me back to my roots. It was never about um making money, it was about being for me, it was about being a student, about sharing, and it's it's fun to make, it's fun to be like rewarded for your work. Um, and so it feels it feels good and it's a win-win. It feels affordable for people. And then I what was I never and I never went into this with this idea. I never wanted to go online, but with COVID, I have probably over 500 recorded classes. And so I uploaded an archive of classes that people have had a lot of fun. There's over 300 classes in there from 2020 that people can to go in and kind of see the evolution of my own practice the last five years and find what they want if they want something outside of the practices that are loaded for that month.

Launch Results And Community Growth

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's really the way to build a successful business is to do exactly what you just did. What do I love doing? And what format or container best supports me doing that? And thinking outside of it doesn't just have to be a studio, it could be an online thing. So you had a we planned like a three-month transition, like letting people know at the end of December, really going into January, telling them about what was coming, and then wrapping up um and fully transitioning by February. You had a hundred people join the day you opened it or your founding membership sold. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_02

I it means it's gonna make me cry. Um, I didn't know if 30 people, 50, like I had no idea. And I I just I had even like shifted all my financials, you know, so that I could make a jump and like start from scratch if I need to. Um and I think in the first 24 hours, no, I think it was 36 hours we got to over a hundred, and I think within 48 hours we were almost at like 150 people.

SPEAKER_00

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

And I just was just crying. Yeah. Just I I could I I've never felt so um met and and I felt so grateful uh to be met. And I was like, wow, I get to share this online play a space with so many amazing people, and it's it's I I feel I just feel so much gratitude.

Grief As A Business Strategy

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, it's incredible. It's it's really cool to see you clearly have a talent of building community, and you did that in the studio. And I'm assuming that the exact same thing will happen with the practice, but there will be a a lot a thriving community that loves learning from what you're offering, which is very cool. It's awesome. It's and it wasn't you did the hard thing too, right? Like it's not easy to say goodbye to the thing that you've been doing for 16 years, and most people would uh hesitate at at getting at putting that aside to make the jump. So that was also you choosing the scary option.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and that's like that's the part I would love to help coach others now through that because I I grieved for months, and I let myself grieve for months because I this was my baby. Like I had poured into this for 16 years, and and I recognized as part of my identity, you know, there were many facets to it. So, and I realized I had to grieve fully and had to go through my own grieving process before I could hold the space for others because I knew others were gonna grieve once I announced, so I wanted to make sure I was ready to hold that and not do it all at once. There's no way I could have held that. And so I from you know, from the point, I mean, the first time I recognized in the body that this was what needed to happen, the first thing that came up was resistance and looking away. And so I had to resource myself enough to actually look at that as a possibility. And as I kind of started staying with it, there was so much pain and sadness that came up around the letting go. Yeah. And that went on probably from April through September. And then all of a sudden I knew something was shifting because I started getting excited about possibilities. And and and I teach this in meditation, I teach this in my classes is is that grieving informed the new chapter. If you skip over it, you're skipping an essential piece that could actually inform your next chapter. And that's why I let myself like be in that process for as long as it needed to be.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There really was a shift in September. Like you saying, I I'm like tracking that timeline. April to September was do I, don't I, I don't know, should I? And then it was like go, like you committed and it was let's plan it out, let's get it figured out. Yeah, it's very cool. Okay, well, for the sake of time, let's um have you well we'll do this first. Any like piece of wisdom or advice you have so much from your career in this industry that you would give to another studio owner or online uh membership owner, what what would be the nugget you'd want to leave?

SPEAKER_02

Um connect with others doing the exact same thing or similar because they're in the ring with you and they're the people you want to take advice from, and they're the ones you can take constructive criticism or feedback from. Uh, but I had to really let go of people that have no clue what my role is that were trying to give me um advice and and feedback. And I had a couple women that were also studio owners and that had also made big shifts. And I was like, and it you could just I could just feel the difference when they were that's who I needed to talk to, that's who I needed to speak with. And in addition to that, get paid support in place, like it just helps. Some of the best advice I ever got when I was going through a really painful emotional period was a mentor of mine said, Sandra, I'm gonna give you some advice, don't take it personal. And she said, I want you to get paid support in place because your friends right now are helping to hold you through this challenging season. Don't put more on them. Yeah, they're gonna, you're gonna burn your friends out. So, like put paid support in place to hold you through this challenging time. And to make any type of huge transition, you're gonna need your friends in place, and you you want paid support in place because that paid support is the experts, and then your friends are like the heart that can kind of hold your soft, vulnerable heart going through a big transition.

Where To Find Sandra

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes, that's such a good quote piece of advice from the person that gave you that. Okay, so tell us where we can find you, where they can connect with you. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02

I'd love to chat with anybody that, oh my gosh, if oh, I feel like if I can be helpful in any way, um, I'm at sandravinatko.com. It's s-a-n-d-r-a-v-a-n-a-t-k-o.com. And I'm also on Facebook and Instagram, and that's where they can connect with like um my retreats or the membership. I offer mentoring, somatic body work, and um meditation, all of it. It's all there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we'll we'll link it in the show notes too, so they can click below and find your website. But I would say, especially if you're a teacher wanting to add meditation, have an experience of what a really solid retreat looks like. I would definitely connect with you. Thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it. You're welcome. You're welcome. It's really nice to see you and chat and be with you for all. Agreed. All right, you guys. I will talk to y'all in the next episode.