Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 234. Heather Andersen, Founder of New York Pilates

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234. Heather Andersen, Founder of New York Pilates · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Changing your view of who you are, changing your identity,
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  Speaker 1: letting go of your attachment of who you think you're
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  Speaker 1: supposed to be, what you've decided for yourself, and transforming
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  Speaker 1: the direction of your life can be very intimidating. That
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  Speaker 1: also is the moment when everything is open to you,
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  Speaker 1: because you could really start in any new direction.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, Emily A body here. You are listening to
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  Speaker 2: episode two hundred and thirty four of Hurdle, a wellness
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  Speaker 2: focus podcast where I connect with everyone from your favorite
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  Speaker 2: athletes to top experts and industry CEOs about their highest highs,
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  Speaker 2: toughest moments, and everything in between. We all go through
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  Speaker 2: hurdles in life, and my goal through these discussions is
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  Speaker 2: to empower you to better navigate yours and move with
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  Speaker 2: intention so that you can stride towards your own big
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  Speaker 2: potential and of course, have some fun along the way.
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  Speaker 2: For today's episode, I am chatting with Heather Anderson. She
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: is the founder of New York Pilates, a New York
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  Speaker 2: based pilate studio that I'd be remiss if I didn't
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  Speaker 2: say I got hooked on during my last cycle marathon training.
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  Speaker 2: For our chat, Heather talks to me about what life
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: was like before she founded New York Pilates in twenty thirteen.
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  Speaker 2: She was at one time a professional ballet dancer, although
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: she's a little hesitant to say that, and got to
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: a point where she was navigating a recurring ankle injury
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  Speaker 2: that led her to reformer based exercising and that is
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: truly when she found her calling. Fast forward a few
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: years in twenty thirteen, Anderson launched New York Pilates and
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  Speaker 2: basically overnight the studio already was set out. She talks
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: today about so many lessons she had starting a business
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  Speaker 2: in New York City with literally no background in business,
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  Speaker 2: what it was like to rent spaces, hire people, do
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  Speaker 2: the best she could with what she had when she
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  Speaker 2: didn't have the funds to do things like buy proper machines.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, so many really interesting insights here from what
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: she claims to be the accidental entrepreneur. Heather also opens
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  Speaker 2: up about what it was like for her and her
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  Speaker 2: partner Brian navigating the COVID pandemic and how they were
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: able to keep things afloat despite really difficult times here
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  Speaker 2: in New York City. Fitness studios were closed for over
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  Speaker 2: a year and as Heather says, it was something they
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  Speaker 2: could have never prepared for. If there's one thing that's
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  Speaker 2: a through line in this conversation, it's that opportunity is
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  Speaker 2: truly everywhere, and you've got to trust your gut. Heather
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: also offers up some really great takeaways when it comes
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  Speaker 2: to communicating effectively with your partner and what she calls
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  Speaker 2: skilling up a muscle that she had to flex for
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: sure during the pandemic. Loved being able to sit down
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: in the studio and record this with Heather, and like
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I said, I have a newfound appreciation for New York pilates.
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  Speaker 2: I've never been the pilates type until I walked into
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  Speaker 2: this studio, and I found it to be a really
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  Speaker 2: great way to supplement a lot of my marathon training
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  Speaker 2: the last go around. So a little reminder for me
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: is that you can always choose to try something new
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: and you may even be lucky enough to love it.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Make sure you're following along with Hurdle over on social
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: It's at Hurdle Podcast, I am over at Emily a Body,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: and also link in the show notes for the goal
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  Speaker 2: setting workshop we are hosting at the beginning of twenty
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  Speaker 2: twenty three. Would love to see you there. And with that,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: let's get to it. Let's get it to a hurdling. Today,
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  Speaker 2: I am sitting down with Heather Anderson. She's the founder
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  Speaker 2: of New York Pilates.
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  Speaker 1: How are you doing. I'm good. I'm so happy to
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  Speaker 1: be here, Emily.
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  Speaker 2: I'm so happy to be here too with you. I'm
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: gonna be let's just like start this right off the
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  Speaker 2: bat by getting into it. I never liked pilates until
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: I took New York Pilates.
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  Speaker 1: That makes me so happy. My immediate gesture is I
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  Speaker 1: just like put my two hands over my heart. It
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  Speaker 1: just makes me so happy because I love pilates so much,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm so happy to be able to give that
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  Speaker 1: thing that I love so much to other people and
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  Speaker 1: have them love it as much as I do.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was just thinking here as I sat down
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  Speaker 2: with you, like, if I've had anyone else that has
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  Speaker 2: a Pilates back on the show, I don't think that
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  Speaker 2: I have. I guess the closest that I have had
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  Speaker 2: was really early on, like one of the first ten
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  Speaker 2: episodes was Cadie Lincoln, and oh my god, she's like
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  Speaker 2: a legacy friend of mine. Now I have like such
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  Speaker 2: a soft spot because it was one of those things
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  Speaker 2: where the show was, like I said, first ten episodes
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  Speaker 2: like baby podcasts, and she was in New York doing media,
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  Speaker 2: and she gave me some of her time just because
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  Speaker 2: we had like an existing relationship, and in my head,
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  Speaker 2: I was like, you totally didn't need to do that,
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  Speaker 2: but like, that's like one of those really special moments
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  Speaker 2: that I'll always reflect on now and we've since worked
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  Speaker 2: together in different ways, and it's just like, what a
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  Speaker 2: kind thing to do. Back to this conversation, New York Plates,
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  Speaker 2: So why don't before we really like dive in and
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: get to know Heather, why don't you just give us
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  Speaker 2: like an overview of what New York Pilates is for
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  Speaker 2: those that may not know.
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  Speaker 1: So, New York Pilates is a reformer based plates studio
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  Speaker 1: in New York City and the Hamptons. We have four
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  Speaker 1: locations in New York City and three in the Hamptons.
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  Speaker 1: And it's a kick ass workout that is rooted in
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  Speaker 1: the technique of pilates, which gives you your alignment and
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  Speaker 1: your mindfulness, but is also a really great workout and
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  Speaker 1: it's my favorite thing period.
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  Speaker 2: So okay for someone who is like truly a Pilates newbie.
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  Speaker 2: Why is pilates something that is beneficial to incorporate into
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  Speaker 2: your routine.
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  Speaker 1: Pilates is such a great addition to any workout regimen
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  Speaker 1: if you're into biking or running or things that are
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  Speaker 1: a heavier lift, but it also can be a standalone
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  Speaker 1: fitness regimen by itself. It's very alignment based and the
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  Speaker 1: exercises are very targeted, and it is a strength training workout.
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  Speaker 1: It's resistance based with springs. And the reason that a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people will add it to another workout routine
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  Speaker 1: or why it's a great standalone as well, is because
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  Speaker 1: it has that strength training component. You can advance the
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  Speaker 1: exercises if you're stronger. It's extremely accessible and can be
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  Speaker 1: modified for people who are deconditioned or new to fitness,
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  Speaker 1: and so it really can span a wide range, and
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  Speaker 1: people use it a lot of times for rehab, but
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  Speaker 1: we really use it as taking your what could be
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  Speaker 1: rehab exercises, adding load doing them on both sides. If
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: you ever went to physical therapy, you'll notice you might
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  Speaker 1: get really strong on one side and not on the other.
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  Speaker 1: So this is it's very even from side to side,
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  Speaker 1: and it's extremely.
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  Speaker 2: Targeted, right right. Yeah. I mean for me, the first
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: time I got into like any sort of a pilates routine,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I was going every Wednesday during my last marathon training cycle,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: and I just loved a it was like something for
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: me to do on Wednesday nights that didn't involve me
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: going to the bar, although like I would be remiss,
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  Speaker 2: so I didn't say that sometimes if I'd meet a
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: friend at your pilates that we wouldn't go get a
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: glass of wine after. But I loved that it was
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  Speaker 2: like another thing for me to do and that it
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: did just really feel like, Okay, this is like a
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: nice break that for forty five minutes, I'm going to
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: turn my mind off, someone else is going to tell
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  Speaker 2: me what to do. And as someone who in previous
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  Speaker 2: marathon training cycles had issues with core, I actually strained
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  Speaker 2: my so as a couple of years ago, this felt
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  Speaker 2: like I was really like giving my body a gift.
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  Speaker 1: I love that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's so good as cross training for that
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  Speaker 1: exact reason, because most people's, especially more cardio based fitness regimens,
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  Speaker 1: don't really include core work, and one of the biggest
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  Speaker 1: benefits of pilates is that it stabilizes, it strengthens your core.
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  Speaker 1: And the reason that's important is it helps to stabilize
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  Speaker 1: your fine your SI joints that's in your pulvis, and
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: to support your back, and those are the places that
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  Speaker 1: people will get injured most commonly because of either overuse
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  Speaker 1: or imbalance, and this kind of core work. By just
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  Speaker 1: stabilizing everything, getting you really strong through your core, then
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  Speaker 1: you don't end up with those instabilities that lead to
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  Speaker 1: just being out of balance that then leads to an injury.
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  Speaker 2: Right right, Yeah, And I think that that was something
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  Speaker 2: else that I found really interesting through my time, like
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  Speaker 2: doing more plates, was that a lot of those imbalances
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  Speaker 2: were more exposed than in some of the other modalities
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  Speaker 2: that I was doing regularly. So I may have had
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: a hunch that my right side was weaker than my
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: left side, which is comical because I'm right handed, But
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  Speaker 2: it wasn't until I would go to pilates and try
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  Speaker 2: to do the same movements on each side and realizing
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  Speaker 2: that I'm getting fatigued on the right so much sooner
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  Speaker 2: that I realized them with that intel that I could
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  Speaker 2: come home and do supplemental exer size as supplemental strength
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  Speaker 2: training to help work on some of those discrepancies because
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  Speaker 2: I'm getting older. And let me tell you, I think
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  Speaker 2: I ran like eight or nine marathons and never had
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: an injury, But these last two or three, I am
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: like God, we are not a spring chicken anymore. We
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: are not a spring chicken. But okay, So now that
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: we have some intel on NYP, let's talk a little
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  Speaker 2: bit about the road to get here. Now, you did
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  Speaker 2: not from a young age of aspirations to found a
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  Speaker 2: pilates studio. You did have aspirations, however, to be a dancer.
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  Speaker 2: So talk to us a little bit about how you
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  Speaker 2: first got into dance and where you were.
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  Speaker 1: So I grew up in Oklahoma City, and I grew
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: up dancing there. At the time was Ballet Oklahoma and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: now it's Oklahoma City Ballet, and I was a very
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: serious little baby ballerina. And the way that pilates comes
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  Speaker 1: into this is that we did pilates as cross training.
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  Speaker 1: So from kind of a young age, I did pilates
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: as cross training, and I didn't necessarily realize that this
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  Speaker 1: was an unusual circumstance. I don't think I really identified
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: that until I was maybe in my early twenties, maybe
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: like twenty one, and I was like, yeah, of course,
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  Speaker 1: I'm doing pilates and my friends were like, what are
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: you talking about. I don't even know what that is, right,
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  Speaker 1: So that definitely was my intro. And I remember as
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  Speaker 1: a dancer, I used to work the front desk at
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  Speaker 1: Steps on Broadway so I could take, you know, three
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: dollars ballet classes, and I remember I was doing my
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: plates training at the same time and standing at the
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: desk and watching people in the room, and as I
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: was doing my plates training the way that it changed
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: my vision for being able to see people's alignment and
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: identify my own alignment. And I remember watching people in
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: the room taking class and being like, oh my god,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: everything one is doing everything wrong. Like for the first
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: time I could see, you know, where people's neutral pelvis was,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: where how their spine should be aligned, and all those things.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: And I found it so transformative. I just absolutely fell
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: in love with it. And I think over the years
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: sharing that with people who are in other who have
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: other fitness passions besides dance, of course, and with people
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: who just use it in their everyday life. For instance,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: when you start your pilate's practice. Something that might happen
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: to you is you'll be walking down the street and
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: you'll be like, WHOA, I'm walking with my pelvis tucked under,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: or I'm walking with my back really arched, or i
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: haven't engaged my abs literally ever walking down the street
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: holding a heavy bag, or I'm a hunched over to
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: one side. And it helps you to really build self
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: awareness for where your body is in space, which helps
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: you have much healthier routines and habits and then to
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: strengthen those and to what you were saying earlier about
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: how you feel the difference between one side and the other.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: One of the things that does that really well with
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: pilates is a unilateral exercise, which means you do an
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: exercise with just one arm or just one leg, so
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: you do it on one side and then you do
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: it on the other side, so that you're really able
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: to target and strengthen the muscles on just that side.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Because so many of the exercises we do in life
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: you do with both arms or with both legs, and
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: so the stronger side will compensate and you never identify
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: that you have a little bit of an imbalance.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Right right, Okay, so when you talk about being a
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: ballet dancer, like how excellent of a ballet dancer were we?
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I would consider myself to be a serious, pre professional.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, what does that look like?
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: And I'm laughing because Brian is going to be like, no,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Brian is my husband. Brian is going to listen to
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: this and be like a bit, you are fully a professional.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: But that I think that goes back to you know,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: how we're I'll speak for myself. I won't say we.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: I'll speak for myself, very very hard on myself, especially
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: coming out of a career like that where absolute perfection
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: is the only option, but I you know, I'll say
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: my claim to fame is I did the American Ballet
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Theater New York summer program when I was fifteen and
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: lived in the city when I was fifteen for six
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: weeks and did that program, which was very competitive to
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: get into, and you know, danced with some operas and
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: you know, little things here and there. I would say
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: that probably for myself, as I've thought about this over
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the years, one of my biggest challenges probably was one
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: being self critical, but two being just kind of a
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: wild card. I mean, I, for instance, I cut my
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: hair really short, and I have tattoos, and those are
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: things that you don't do if you were, like really
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: planning on being a serious ballet dancer. It's actually a
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: lot more flexible and less rigid than it was fifteen
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: twenty years ago, but very a rigid environment.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I also had an artistic director tell me that I
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: had to lose weight, and I was just like, fuck you.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I'm a feminist. I'm going to gain five pounds and
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I think that although I don't have any I don't
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: have any I'm not upset that that was my response. Yeah,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: that was not the right response for the environment, right.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: You know, it's so interesting as well, because do you
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: think that the things like getting tattoos and I mean
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: insert other acts of rebellion the weight gain that was
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: kind of you being like, maybe this isn't really like
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: what I truly want to invest in.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Totally one thousand percent. I love, love, love ballet, and
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I love the practice, and I took ballet class for years.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I actually didn't during the pandemic just because you couldn't.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: And also I'm now in Montoc more full time, but
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I take ballet bar online all the time, like I
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: did it two days ago. You know, I love it
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: so but I totally agree with what you're saying that
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: when I think about myself being in that kind of
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: a rigid environment, it's absolutely not the right fit. Yeah,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and I think I would have been very unhappy if
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: I had managed to be successful enough to be in
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: that environment.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: It's interesting, though, because it's that sentiment that if you
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: don't enjoy the journey, and then what's the point of
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: getting to the goals, And that your goals can shift
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: over time, right, because I'm sure there was a point
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: in your life that you were like, that's exactly what
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: I want. Yeah, that is why I'm working through to
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: get into this competitive program. At fifteen, when would you
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: say that you started to understand that the goals that
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: you had previously weren't your goals anymore.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I would say there were two times I had an
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: ankle injury when I was sixteen and was out of
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: dance for like six months.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: What kind of ankle injury was it?
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: I have a tear in a tiny tendon in the
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: ankle actually on both sides from point work. It was
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: an overuse injury and actually that thing where you feel
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: pain and you're like, I'm going to work through the pain, right,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: which is a terrible idea. So anyone is listening to
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: this and you have a weird injury and you're like, ooh,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that hurts. You probably shouldn't do it.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: You should stop. Not me still running on my plant
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: fashy itis foot, but continue.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Right, because that's how you get tendon itis that then
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: ends up as a tear, which is what happened to me.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: And so I had to take full eight time off
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: for like six months. And I think at that moment
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I was like, whoa, this isn't my identity. Who am I?
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Who am I going to be in the world? So
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: definitely that moment, and then I was dancing again after that.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: And I would say maybe at like twenty I started
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: doing gyrotonic training first, actually at nineteen, and then I
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: started my pilates certification when I was twenty one. But
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: during that whole time, I was just like, who am
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I going to be? Where am I going to go?
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: What am I interested in? And I think when you
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: have a very when you're very attached to an identity,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and I think this is common for anyone who has
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: very serious goals, especially when you're young, changing your view
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: of who you are, changing your identity, letting go of
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: your attachment of who you think you're supposed to be,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: what you've decided for yourself, and transforming the direction of
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: your life can be very intimidating, and it's a bit unmooring.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: You're not sure who you are, where you're going. You
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: feel like you're floating in space. But also is the
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: moment when everything is open to you because you could
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: really start in any new direction, right.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: And what an empowering perspective on that, right, Because it
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: can be truly difficult as you're getting at this place
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: where you are so wrapped up in being a let's say,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: like being an entrepreneur or being I mentioned running, or
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: being a ballet dancer, or being a mom or insert
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: other identifier, right, and it can be so challenging to
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: be like, well, if I'm not that thing anymore, then
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: what am I? Right? And so for you to say like, oh,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: but how empowering, like for you to see the opportunity there.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: That's really refreshing, because I think that that perspective is
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: more often the difficult one to take on in those circumstances.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think the thing that's most difficult about
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: that moment of transition is that you have so many
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: options open to you. You're not like set in any
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: one direction that it can I think the thing that
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: can be troubling actually is almost the decision fatigue of
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: having every option open, like you could live to really
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: do anything. What are you gonna do?
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah? And for you though, to lean into the two
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: different modalities you mentioned before, we keep going. Why don't
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: you tell them what the gyrotonic train is?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: So gyrotonic is a movement modality that I would say
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: is like relatively adjacent to pilates. It's very popular in
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the dance community. If you've ever taken like maybe an
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: acro yoga class, so something that is like very flexible,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: It like moves you into like very large ranges of motion.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: But then it's on a machine. Got it so that
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: it's adjacent to plates because it's on a machine. It's
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: fun for someone who wants to do something kind of weird.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: But when I noticed as an industry, and when as
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: I started teaching it, when I was trying to teach
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: this to people who were let's say, not dancers, it
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: was really hard for them to kind of like feel
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: where the exercise is supposed to be. So later down
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the road, I identified that as it's very challenging to
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: find where your stability is. So that's your core work,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: that's your center, that's like how you find yourself grounded.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: And then the exercises, because they're in such large ranges
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: of motion, it's hard to like feel the weight, if
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. Yeah, So something that's great about pilates
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: is that the exercises are there. A lot of them
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: are closed chain, which means you're only moving across one
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: joint at a time, which allows you to really find
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: stability and move that work into a single muscle group.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: So they're very directed, right versus transferring the load over
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: multiple joints, And then it's hard to stabilize and figure
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: out where you're supposed to quote like feel it.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: In your kind of transition into teaching both of those modalities,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: I feel as though when you were a little bit
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: like iffy about your identity, it's kind of like you
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: were shifting into something that was in a similar vein, right, absolutely,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: and so how did you find that did you feel
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: a little bit of comfort in that transition?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Then I think I've really gravitated to the technicality of it,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: right and the precision, and those are things that I
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: loved about ballet, and that's something I really love about
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: pilates is alignment, precision, good technique, and then beyond that,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I think the joy of sharing that with someone who
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: hasn't had a modality to learn that skill through right.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: You can use it as you use this technique to
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: teach people's skills that they can use both in this
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: exercise but also in life in general, to be more precise,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: to be able to feel themselves. There's this word I
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: love called appropriate reception, which is your ability to feel
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: your own body. And it's that idea of feeling your
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: own body, understanding where you are. You don't need a
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: mirror or the ground or like something external to help
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: you find your alignment. You can feel it within your
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: own body and then from there get really strong in excellent,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: beautiful alignment. And I just love that. I love what
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: it does for my own body and how I've seen
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: that transform myself and my injuries, and how it helps
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: people transform their own injuries and get really strong, and
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: it's very special.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and bigger than body, right, I mean, we're talking
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: about that level of intuition as well, that kind of
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: crosses the mind body connection.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, it becomes very mindful because I mean basically, what
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: makes something a mindful activity is requiring your full attention
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and also that sort of inward gaze. And that's something
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I love about this practice is it requires your full attention,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: you know, and you're looking internally feeling from the inside.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Are my hips level, are my ribs closed? Am I
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: using my abs or my shoulders down right? All of
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: those things and when you combine them, it becomes a
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: very mindful activity, which gives you all the benefits of meditating,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: for instance. And I also love that it sort of
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: has intrinsically anything that is mindful intrinsically has a spiritualism
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: to it, but without any kind of like external ideas
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: about there's no religion, right, It's just like it is
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: spiritual because you have full attention to yourself and you're
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: connected to your breath and yeah, I think those things
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: all in combination, and then being able to give that
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: to other people and walk them down that road I
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: think is really special.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: So on that note, being able to give it to
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: other people, I'm sure when you started teaching. Were you
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: thinking I'm going to make a career of them us
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: or where were you at at that point.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I think initially I was so excited by you know,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: coming from a long, a long history already of movement.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: By the time I was, you know, twenty twenty one,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I had been moving into basically professional capacity since I
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: was like, you know, twelve, So being able to apply
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: these concepts was really eye opening for me, and I
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: think really transformative. And I was just so excited to
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: figure out how to communicate that to someone who I'm
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: thinking specifically about this one student that I used to teach,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: where she had been extremely deconditioned and had been on
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: a personal transformation journey. And I was of course engaged
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: in this journey and like a very physical capacity. But
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: it was really beautiful to watch me trying to teach
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: her how to engage her abs for instance, mind blowing
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: new concept in life for this person who was like
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: over thirty. But also how that in that physical journey
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: mirrored the internal work that she was doing and transforming
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: her life in so many other ways, right.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Like it was bigger for her, The happiness was way
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: bigger than you know, just losing weight totally.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: And I think that that is the case for so
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: many people who go on a journey like this, Like
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: when you start addressing your physical body, that has a
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: massive effect on your mental state and your mind.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, yeah, definitely. So you start teaching and
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: you think, like, Okay, I'm just really getting a lot
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: of personal benefit out of this, Like you're just feeling
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: really fulfilled in that. When does teaching transfer into what
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: else can I do with this?
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: I had been teaching for about eight years when we
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: opened the first New York pilates, and I would say
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: that maybe after five or six years, there were let
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: me say that at the time time you could basically
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: only take private sessions for pilates because that's how the
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: industry was set up. There weren't At the studio that
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I worked at, for instance, there were four reformers and
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: we had like three classes a week, so it was
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: very inaccessible from a price point standpoint. And also just booking,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: like the way that you booked it was like complicated
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and cumbersome and there was just like a lot of friction.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: And I looked at that and I also, as I
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, I always joke about this that none of
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: my friends at my age at the time, I was
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: maybe twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven at that age,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: none of my friends really knew what pilates was. And
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I would go out, be out with someone having a
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: drink and they'd be like, Oh, how's yoga and they'd
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: be like, Yoga's great, thanks for asking, Yeah, but people
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: they were just like, wasn't the awareness of what it was.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: So those kind of two things in combination, and in
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: my mind I was like, I really, I personally just
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: want to go take a pilates class, and that wasn't
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: really an option. So I was like, I think, listen,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I really want this. I think that other people will
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: also want this. And that was kind of the root
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: idea of starting New York Pilot's in the first place.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: It was to take this beautiful work away from being
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: a private one on one and put it into a
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: classroom so a lot more people could do it. It was
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: a lot more like cost effective, a lot more accessible,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: both from an ease of booking standpoint, and just you know,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: paying for private sessions is not affordable five days a
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: week for most people. So that was the initial concept.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: And then there's one other layer I always talk about
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: that was part of what made me really want to
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: open a studio, which is that the overall vibe of
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: plots was very clinical. It was very physical therapy, and
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: as an athlete, I was like, I want to get
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: my ass kicked, like I want to do something hard. Yeah,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I want this to be hard, and I want it
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: to be fun. So that really taking what was very
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: like clinical physical therapy approach, turning that into same concepts
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: but a workout, and then the final piece is it
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: just like wasn't that cool?
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: And meeting me and Brian, my husband was a DJ
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: and had a branding agency, and we were like, I
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: don't understand this thing. I think it's so special and
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: so inspiring and I think it's very cool, but the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: way it's being delivered is really not cool. So how
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: do we how do we change that? How do we
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: bring it to a target of a younger audience, not
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: necessarily younger, but a target of a younger audience. Play
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: great music, we added the lights, and make it an
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: awesome workout. So those that combination of things, It was
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: really taking this work that I loved and turning it
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: into really boutique Fitness. This was pre boutique Fitness Boom,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: so it was a bit lucky on the timing, and
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't even have that name for it. I didn't
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: know that name existed at the time that we opened
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the first location, or maybe it had just been coined
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: about that time. But all of those things put together
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: is why I wanted to do it. It wasn't necessarily
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: that I desperately needed to open a business. I think
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: that if something like this had already existed, I would
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: have been very happy to just go work there. But
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I feel like I saw the vision of what I
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: thought should exist, and I was like this, I need
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: to make this happen.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's so funny. And it's funny because we
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: talked about Stadie at the top of this, and she
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: describes that feeling as transferring into warrior states. So it's like,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you have this gut feeling you
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: know what you should be doing, and you're quote unquote working,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: but that work doesn't always feel like work because it's
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: so aligned with your passion and your purpose that you're
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: just kind of off to the races, right, And so
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: I love that for you, and it's funny to hear
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: someone say that they kind of stumbled into entrepreneurship for
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: lack of a better designation, right, because you were so
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: sure that this needed to exist that you thought to yourself, well,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: I guess I'm just going to figure everything else out
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: along the way. What would you say during that initial
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: setup phase, like way before you opened the doors, so
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: to speak, was the most difficult part.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'll say, first and foremost, I don't have
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: a business background, and even when I started initially concepting it,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I you're gonna die.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: I'm ready, I'm ready.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to die. I literally didn't have a credit
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: score because I had always paid for everything in cash.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: I had no credit.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Oh you're one of those.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I was one of those. And so when I started
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: even like concepting this, I was like, oh god, I
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: mean I have to sort a lot of stuff out.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: So I started building. The very first thing I did
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: about two years before we actually opened, is I had
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: this idea kind of percolating in my mind, and I
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: started building my credit so I even had any credit,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: and I started concepting how it would work, how it
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: would pull together the initial money. And you know, it
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: was a couple of years of just like kind of
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: honestly brainstorming, concepting, writing notes, and then about the time
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: that I was like, I'm doing this, this is happening
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: right now. I remember telling Brian I was like, I'm
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: looking for spaces, and I think that he he was like, oh,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: she's looking for spaces. And then when I turned up
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: and had signed a lease, he was like, what is
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: wrong with you? What are you talking about? You did
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: that like now, and I was like, yeah, I told you,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: I'm doing it right now. And he you know, it
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: was one of those we're business partners. He's half of
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: New York Blotts, and I'm very grateful because we probably
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have made it this far if he was not
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: half of New York Blotties. It was that initial communication
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: where learning with your business partner how you communicate with
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: each other, how you make sure that the message was
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: delivered when you think you're saying something, to make sure
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: that they heard the thing that you think you're saying.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I think that was a very important first lesson. Yeah,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I had apparently not been clear at my level of seriousness,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: and like the timeline.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, you signed a lease. Also, I feel like
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: we have to say that, or we have to address
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: this because people are probably listening to me, like, how
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: did you do that when you talked about building your
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: credit score? What did that even involve for you? Were
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: you just like literally starting to use credit for the
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: first time.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, My initial foray into credit is that I
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: got a two hundred dollars prepaid credit card because I
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: literally had a credit score of zero. I didn't exist.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, yeah, I mean last year, I or two
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: years ago. Now I've been in this apartment for a
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: year and a half, and I feel like the only
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: time you need like really excellent credit is to your
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: point when you're like trying to sign a lease or
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: by property. I mean, there are clearly other examples, but
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: relevant to being in New York City, those are two
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: big ones. And of course, for the first time in years,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: I learn that I have a credit card I forgot
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I had that had an automatic payment on it, and
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: my credit score two months before I'm going to finally
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: be looking for a new apartment, like takes a nose dive.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: And because I missed paying this credit card for one
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: month one month, and my credit score went down like
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: something near one hundred points. It was still like great,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: but it wasn't like outstanding like it was before. And
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: that is just like such a silly, arbitrary thing we
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: have in our society. It's like gatekeeping people from going
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: after the things that they're really excited about. I digress.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: You sign a lease which is massive, so massive? How
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: long from signing lease to like this place is ready
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: to go?
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: I would say, I think I signed that first lease
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: in maybe April or May, and we were open for
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: our initial privates and classes in September.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, it was a quick and dirty build.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Brian helped me so much with building out this space,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: sourcing contractors, designing the space, and the initial concept had
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: been Reformer classes, but it actually couldn't afford all of
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: the equipment, and so for our first year we had
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: MATT classes and privates because that's what I could afford.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: And then after a year of operating, I was able
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: to buy the rest of the equipment and we started
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Reformer classes in twenty fourteen.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Twenty fourteen. You know, I love that though. I love
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: that little story because that's a really good example of like,
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: if you want it bad enough, you're going to figure
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: out right, so you knew like where you wanted to go,
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: which was having the Reformers, but that wasn't an option yet,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: So like, what's your plan B. I remember one of
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: the first people I had on the show he said
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: something that has always stuck with me, which is, if
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: you don't have a plan B, then you don't have
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: a plan. So when you signed that lease, it was like,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: I know what I want, but in order to get
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: to what I want, I'm going to have to do
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: this first. And that's the thing that I think a
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: lot of people struggle with and is also a barrier
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: to the reason why a lot of people don't start
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: is because they're not ready truly to go after the
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: ultimate goal, or they're not ready truly to be okay
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: with shifting the plan to help them get to ultimately
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: where they want to be, but they can't get there
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: right now totally.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I also think for so many people who are starting
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: something new or starting a business, it's really great to
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: be incremental. So start with just one part and see
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: how it lands. You want to make sure that people
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: like it before you go to the next phase it.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Give yourself a situation where you can do some testing,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: get some user feedback, because I feel like so many
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: people spend they raise money, they spend millions of dollars
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: on an idea, and when that finally hits the market,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: they didn't actually know that that's what people wanted yet.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: And I see people do that, and I think that
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: if you can be more incremental and make sure you
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: test an experiment and because your plan or your ultimate
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: plan may end up being different than what you originally
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: thought because you just see what people want. I was
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: very lucky that people did want reformer classes, but it
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: did take a lot of testing and talking to people
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: and getting reviews from students to finalize our format. And
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: you know, we kept we still tweak all the time.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: We take student feedback and we go to the teachers
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: and we're like, hey, we want a little bit more
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: of this, or a little bit less of that, or
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: how do we address this need that we're hearing. So
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: you constantly are tweaking and adjusting. And I think, you know,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: if I had gone if I had gone in with
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: a completed format and starting classes and that didn't hit
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: you have to be ready to respond to the environment,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: respond to what people actually want. And I think that
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: was a great thing about growing sort of organically. The
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: way that we did is that gave us time and
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: space to experiment and test and hear from people what
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: they wanted and really build the technique that we use
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: now from a combination of what I see people need
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: in their bodies with what people want to feel, with
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: what I see in terms of the results for people.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Taking a break from today's episode to talk to you
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  Speaker 2: which is important to make sure that we address is
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: like you did the training to have this expertise to
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: know how to, like, let's say, keep your person safe.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: So there becomes the necessity to blend your expertise and
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: like your certifications and your background with listening to consumer feedback,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: and how can we mesh that together in a way
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: that is responsible.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, absolutely, because so much of what people know
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: about fitness is they want to feel it. And I
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: use quotation marks always when I say that, you guys
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: can't see that I'm saying feel it with quotation marks.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: But it's that idea of sensation because it's hard for
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: people to it's hard for people to understand that something
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: is happening if they can't feel it. And one of
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the things that's a bit complicated about that is the
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: more advanced you are, the more appropriateception you have, the
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: more ability you have to feel your body. So our
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: most deconditioned person has the least connection between that muscle
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: and their brain right their nervous system. Your ability to
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: actually feel that muscle is diminished when you're deconditioned, and
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: the stronger you get, you have more of an ability
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: to actually feel it. So how do you make sure
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: you're keeping someone who's deconditioned and the big very beginning
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: of their journey both safe but also satisfied by the
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: experience and having quote felt something. And that's something we've
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: spent a lot of time experimenting with, playing with testing,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: and I think when you hit the nail on the
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: head of that for people not it's so exciting because
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: not only do they have an engaged experience where they're like, yes,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: I want to come back and do that, but you,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: as an instructor start to see their progress and that
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: is so cool.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you're you're that's me, right, And I
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: think first, so many years I tried pilates, Like I
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: would dabble in it, and I would go and as a
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: like I won't even say recover because it still exists
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: in my life, Like a cardio junkie. I would go
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: to plats and be like, Okay, that was cool, but
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: like you walk out and your hair is still fine,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: usually more often than not, and like you can go
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: to drinks and you're like, shit, I didn't, like I
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: didn't get what I needed out of that without the
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: awareness that you could get what you need. But you
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: just need to kind of work on that word that
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: we keep going back to here, that awareness right as
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: you move forward.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I think that is especially for people who
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: come from like exactly like you're saying, cardio junkie or
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: fitness that tears your body down, right, it's there's so
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: much sensation that when you don't feel that, you're like, well,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: did anything happen? But actually a lot happened. It was
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: just you know, a lot of it is your deeper muscles,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: those muscles closer to the bone also have less nerve innervation,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: so you actually feel them less, but that doesn't mean
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: that they're less must right, So those those kinds of things.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: And listen, I love breaking a sweat also, So there's
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: nothing wrong with breaking a sweat, absolutely totally, but you
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to break a sweat in order to
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: have a lot of benefit from a workout, particularly if
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: it's a strength training workout.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Was there ever a time in those initial years where
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: you questioned if this was going to work at all?
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Oh? My god, yes, I would say it. Maybe the
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: sixth month mark. I was like, I made a major mistake.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: This is a problem, Like how do I get out?
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Right? What did you do?
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Well? I that wasn't really an option. So it just
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: wasn't an option. So I was like, Okay, the only
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: way out is through?
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what a lesson? Right, Like, the only way
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: through truly is through. When you were like navigating the
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: anxiety that came with the only way through is through mentality.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: How did you how did you? How did you navigate
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: that time period?
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Well, there are there are so many things. There's so
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: many things I think for any small business that is bootstrapped,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: and I feel like people don't talk about this a
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: lot because most businesses, and this is a reasonable thing
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: to do, so no shade, start with a lot more capital.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: And which, by the way, you should definitely start your
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: business with capital. If you're listening to this, I did
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: this thing. It was not that great of an idea.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: You should start with capital, but it is possible to
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: do it without if you're completely bootstrapped and you don't
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: have a nut to start with, you're managing or cash
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: flow is the most important thing for being able to
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: stay aflow as a business. And there is a lot
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: of focus on high profit margin, but the most important
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: thing to your business operating is cash flow because you
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: need that cash to pay your rent and to pay
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: your employees. And I think that definitely the most terrifying
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: thing is when you start to take on staff and
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: making sure that you can cover those people's payroll because
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: you were responsible for them being able to pay their rent.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: And that is that was a heavy weight for me.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I don't think it was emotionally prepared for how responsible
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I was for other people and their livelihood, and that
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: was a heavy weight. But definitely making sure you have
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: that cash flow, even if your profit margin is lower,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: is so important.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and especially when you're kind of bootstrapping it.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine how that must have weighed on you,
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: worrying about how you were going to pay your employees.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Very serious, Yeah, I mean, and that's something I would
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: never want to go back to a life where I
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: was worried about covering payroll. We'll never go back there.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: And I think because of that, it's taught me to
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: be conservative when that is not my natural nature.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll fast forward here a little bit for this
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: take of time. Talk to me about when you know
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: that you're going to be okay in terms of like
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: making it through that chapter.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: I would say sometime probably towards the end of twenty fourteen.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: We introduced we were actually able to buy the reformers
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: and started doing actual reformer classes in early twenty fourteen,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: And as soon as we did that, it just clicked.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: It was working. People wanted what we were selling, and
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: I think I had this moment, especially coming from dance,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: where listen, I'm obsessed with ballet, but like, no one
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: actually wants to go to ballet. Very few people unless
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: it's ABT, right, Like we all want to go see
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: ABT or New York City Ballet, but like if you
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: are making weird dance in Bushwick, very few people actually
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: want to go to your performance, right. So, coming from
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: a world of making weird art, selling something that people
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: wanted to buy was very exhilarating, and that moment of
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: being like, WHOA, this is working, This is traction. People
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: want what we're doing that moment and we also, I
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: would say that combined with we started working with an
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: analyst who helped us build out a forecast plan. And
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: when we built the plan, I remember looking at the
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: spreadsheet and being like, there's like, probably no way this
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: is going to happen. And then we followed the steps.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: We followed the plan, and at the end of the year,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: we were on target, were exceeding the targets that we
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: had built in the cash flow forecast or in the
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: business plan. And I remember looking at that and being like, WHOA,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: I can see the future.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: It's trending upward, so exciting.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: That was a very cool thing, and you know, being
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: a person that I didn't I think I built my
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: first spreadsheet after opening New York Plates. Right, there's like
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: my background who I am and being able to engage
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: with that as a tool to not just like see
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the future, but to create the future because you can
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: go in there and you can play with scenarios until
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: you hit a scenario that works and then you're like, Okay,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: those are the targets. How are we going to make
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: that happen? And that is really empowering that you can
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: through good planning, I know, Shaker guys, through good planning,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: you can change your future.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: Wow, bold statement, whoa, whoa Okay, but even the best
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: lead plans have hurdles. Fast forward to March twenty twenty.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Talk to us about what happened for New York Pilates
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: during the pandemic.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Well, it is no secret that all of fitness in
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: New York City was closed for about a year and
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: four months, So we were effectively closed for over a year.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: And as you can imagine that we were pretty fucked.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: There's not really any way else to say it, so
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: we did what we we those first few weeks, Brian
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: and I were like, Uh, what are we gonna do?
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: We listened to a lot of economics podcasts, in particular
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Planet Money I'm a huge fan of. And what was
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: great is that listening to economists talk about the economic
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: impact of the closures, it wasn't politicized in the same
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: way that it was from other news outlets, and so
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: it gave us a really quite accurate, actually vision of
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: how things were going to play out from from calculating
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: this is a bit twisted, I'm sorry, guys, the like
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: what the cost to the government is of a death
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: right and using I know it's very dark, I'm sorry,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: but hearing from economists about that, how they can only
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: we can only close the economy for about three months
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: completely before it no longer is economically viable, right, those
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: kinds of things, And so all the way back in
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: the beginning we were like, oh, well, this is definitely
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: not two weeks. Then, this is at least three months.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: There was no way that we could have guessed that
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: fitness would be for some reason closed for a year plus.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Nothing could have told us that, because that was just
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: weird and doesn't make any sense, but it is what
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: it is. So but I think that that was really helpful.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: So once we realized this is not two weeks, this
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: is at least three months, then we made a very
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: hard decision which was basically a turtle and that's a
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: term that I adopted from Brian. It's a boxing term,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: which means you kind of like huddle in your shell
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: and cover your head and be ready to take the punches. Right.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: So that's what we did. We basically closed the business.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: We tried to stop all outflow of cash and just
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: sit quiet as much as possible in order to preserve
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: the business in order to be able to reopen. And
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: adjacent to that, we started working on opening our online.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Your online platform. So in doing that where you still
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: like paying the leases that you had.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: I will say that we were accruing debt towards the
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: leases that we have and we made a tough decision
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: to keep all of our leases a lot of I
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: can't remember the amount, but at least fifty percent of
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Fitness closed in New York City. And the reason most
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: of it closed is because if you're closed for over
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: a year and a half, you are liable for all
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: of that rent, and we made the tough decision to
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: keep our leases and negotiate, and those were those were
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: really tough conversations because our landlords didn't agree with our
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: decision to keep our lease but also not move out.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: We would like all of it.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So we were like, look, guys, we're not moving out.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: We've been a great tenant. We've been here for in
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: some cases four five, six years. We've always paid you
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: rent on time. These are extenuating circumstances. You're not going
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: to get another tenant because New York City is closed,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: and we're going to stay here and we're going to
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: reopen and as soon as there's the moratorium on rent
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: is over, then we will negotiate. So that's what we did.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: We came to settlements with all of our landlords. But
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: you know, people think, oh, you're back open, like everything's done,
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: but it's really taken not nine months to a year.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: It took nine months to a year to agree on
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: terms with all of our landlords. And we just you know,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: we're paying back a huge amount of that back rent.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: It's not like they just forgave it. So one of
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: the challenges now is that and there are probably a
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: lot of businesses in this situation where they are paying
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of back rent, so their costs are up
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: pretty significantly.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Right right, man, I just can't even what were you
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: doing emotionally during that time to like handle being so
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: out of your regular routine.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, listen, it was tough.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: I was definitely trying to take care of myself and
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: my own body. Something I started doing during the pandemic
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: was I started doing Instagram live workouts. We were closed,
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: everyone was stuck at home. It was just a tough time.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: So that was one of the ways that I coped
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: and also a way to continue to engage our community
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: and just give something to people. So every day, for god,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: I think six months, I did Instagram live workouts and
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: I got on there every single day. They were, you know,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: approximately fifteen minutes, had nothing to do, so sometimes they
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: ran over.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: Sometimes that's just how it went.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: But that's something that I did that was a really
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: great way to It was just great to engage with
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: people and give some focus in what was a very
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: unfocused time.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, wow, oh my gosh, just like the stress
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: of that time for so many now, like looking back
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: on it, It's crazy to see where we are now
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: versus where we were at this time maybe a year
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: to two years ago, right, and how everything just switched
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: on a dime. Really, So going back now to what's
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: going on with New York Pilates these days, I know
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: you recently opened a new location in Flat Iron, which
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: is super, super gorgeous. Congratulations on that. How does it
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: feel to be on the other side of the pandemic
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: now from the POV that your studios are open, new
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: spaces opening. I mean, that's probably something again two years
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: ago you could only dream of.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: Well, I'll say that we took that Flat Iron lease
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: immediately before the pandemic and choosing to keep it was
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: a tough and bold decision, but we decided to keep
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: it and go ahead and continue and finish the construction.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: And I would say the biggest challenge of it is
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: that we were so pared down as a team that
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: getting that completed was really tough. But I couldn't be
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: happier to be really finally on the other side of
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: that with the studio open. It is so beautiful and
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: I'm so proud of that space and of the work
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: that we did there, and I'm so happy to be
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: in that neighborhood and building that new community there. I
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: think after really what felt like such a battle to
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: get to that point where we were open, where we
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: are building community, it's really it feels like a bit
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: of a calm after a very long storm.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you like working with your husband?
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Listen? I love Brian, He's amazing. It's really tough to
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: work with your partner, but I also think that it's
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: been so amazing for us learning to communicate with each other.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: And you know, people talk about this where they're like, oh,
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: I could never work with my partner, but most people
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: do actually work with their partner in so far as
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: when you run a household, when you have a kid,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: those are times and places where you're going to need
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: the kind of communication skills that are required to also
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: run a business. And so that's something we've talked about
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: a lot over the years, is how how the journey
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: that we've been through around communication, around roles, responsibilities, how
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: just how we work together, how that mirrors a lot
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: of what's required in everyone's relationship.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: What would you say is one of maybe your best
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: tips for any duo, whether it's in business or just
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: maybe even friendships relationships to accomplish that like better level
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: of communication.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: I think the thing that's helped us the most is
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: reading the same books at the same time and then
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: talking about them. Oh I love that, and you know,
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: both being entrepreneurs together and having different levels of experience
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: coming into opening a business using books. I mean, this
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: one's a classic. Everyone should read this if you haven't
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: a book like Radical Candor that you read together, and
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: then you have a common language to talk about those
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: concepts and then implement those concepts into your life. And
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of books like that that we've
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: read together, and then can use that as a common
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: language and say, hey, what did you think about this,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: What did that mean to you? What do you like?
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: How would you use that thing? And then when you're
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: in a challenging situation, you can use that language to
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: sort of ground you in something that feels like a
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: third party idea and not either one of you pushing
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: an idea on the other person.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Super interesting. I love that recommendation reading the same books
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: at the same time. So right now someone comes to
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: your Instagram, they see the founder of New York Plates,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: and they also see that you've got something like sixty
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: four thousand followers. When you look in the mirror, what
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: is it that you see looking back at you?
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I just see myself and I don't see
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: when I look in the mirror, I just see me
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: as a person. I see the person who woke up
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: in My hair is messy and I need to wash
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: my face. I see the list of things my laundry,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: list of things I want to get done that day.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: I think it's really it's really interesting to look at
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: It's very easy to look at other people and assume
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: how they think or feel or what their life might
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: be like. But everyone's experience is just themselves in their
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: own body, having their own experience. And when you wake
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: up in the morning, if you need like a tea
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: or a coffee and to brush your teeth and think
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: about what you're going to do that day. Definitely a
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: beautiful life. But no, I like absurd ideas of grandeur.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: Grandeur. I love this word. I love this word for you.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: Who would you say? Who or what would you say?
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: Inspires you?
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: Well. Someone I've looked up to so much over the
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: years is Elizabeth Cutler and Julie Rice, both of them
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: who are the Soul Cycle founders, and I've been lucky
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: enough to have a relationship with both of them. I
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: know them through the studio, and Elizabeth has advised us
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: over the years. And that's actually an amazing story. She
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: came to the original West Village studio which no longer
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: exists there and took a class and left her phone
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: number at the front desk and said, have Heather call me.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: And I literally I lost it. I was like, what
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: this is amazing, so so generous, so generous, so kind.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: What happened when you called her?
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: She told me to move my studio right next to
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: her house.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: Why what was the reasoning for that? Aside from the
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: fact that she liked pull outis.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: Well one is our original studio. I signed this lease,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: which we talked about before. The original location was definitely
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: a starter home.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Let's call it that. Okay, okay, it.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Was definitely a starter home, but it was also it
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: was lower level. So she when we got on the phone,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: she was like, listen, our first location was in a basement.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: You need to move this store, and I think you
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: should move it onto this street in the West Village.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: And I was like, why there and she was like, well,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: I do live around the corner. It was a very
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: funny conversation but also like so incredibly validating for me,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: like at the very beginning of my business. I mean,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: what they did with soul Cycle, for anyone who's in
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: boutique fitness is the ultimate there are you know everything,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: they created a new category and just everything about their
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: journey is so incredible. So definitely look up to the
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: two of them so much for what they built Little Plug.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: They have a new venture that is opening right now
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: called Peoplehood that is really about about interpersonal communication. And
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: they're two founders that they've been going to therapy together
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: since the very beginning of their relationship as business partners,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: and I have found their business partnership very inspirational.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: As well interesting. I have to look into that outside
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: of the new location, what would you say excites you
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: about your business at the moment.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: I think what excites me the most about my business
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: now is definitely our teacher training program. During COVID, one
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: of the other things I did is I completely moved
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: what had been an in person training program, overhauled the
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: training program, and we put it completely online and now
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: it is a self paced program where it's in a
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: learning management system. There are two tracks, Matt Plates Certification
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: and Reformer Plate's Certification. Both of them come with anatomy
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: training and anatomy for PLATES. And I spent the better
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: part of twenty twenty one recording these seminars for this
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: training program. So I'm delivering a huge amount of the content,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: and then we also have other New York Plate's instructors
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: delivering portions of the content that are teaching the exercises.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: And I'm so passionate about it because what was really
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: challenging about certification and what you'll see in the marketplace
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: is that you go for however many days the training is.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: Let's say it's you know, twelve days over six weeks. Right,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: you go and you spend eight hours, but you can
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: only absorb so much new information, right. It's like studies
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: show that after half an hour, your brain kind of
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: shuts off.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: So what I love, love, love about the format of
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: the program is all of that dense content you can
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: do for half an hour, take a break, come back
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: to it, and you can move through all that content.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: I feel like you learn it so much better. And
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: I'm just so excited about it. And I've been really
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: happy with the teachers that have been coming out of
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: our training program. And then we have what we call
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: an apprenticeship, which is the in person portion where you
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: can come into the studio and do your practice hours
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: on the machines, and then we have a weekly session
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: where you can jump online with one of our mentors
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: and ask any of your questions. You can workshop exercises,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: so there's that in person portion as well, but because
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: the content is quite dense, it is so amazing to
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: be able to really take your time and then be
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: able to re listen to something. If you're like yore,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: where does my so as attached to? And from right?
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: You can go back to that video and you can
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: rewatch it. And then there are quizzes all the way
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: through to check for understanding. So you know, if you
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: get through one of these quizzes and you get all
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: the questions wrong, you need to go back and watch
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: that video again. So it's really I'm so proud of it,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: so building that out and really seeing the results of it,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: and of course we're going through and tweaking some things
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: here and there, but really excited about that, and then
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: really excited about running a cleaner, more organized business. I
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: think through COVID having to pare down so significantly, Brian
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: and I had to upscale a lot in different areas
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: in order to take on roles or jobs that we
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: had delegated before, and I think by diving deeper into
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: those skill sets, much better managers of them.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: Interesting. I love that word upskill. Yes, I mean upskilling
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: can be really challenging, especially when you're used to being
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: able to delegate, but also, to your point, can have
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of benefits. What would you say the perhaps
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: most difficult upskill that you've had to kind of get
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: to terms with has been well.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: I would say upskilling in our financial department and really
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: understanding that you either need a very talented CFO or
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: you need to have your own financial vision for your company.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: And then for me personally, this is my longstanding challenge
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: that I'm always working on, is managing people and holding
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: them accountable, specifically holding people accountable in a way that
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: is compassionate and non emotional but clear.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: Oh clear communication. You can be kind but firm. Yes,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: I love that. I love that. Well. I'm so glad
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: that we were able to sit down and chat today
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: before I let you go. Question for you right now,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: you have an opportunity to offer yourself a piece of
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: advice back when you first signed your first lease, knowing
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: what you know now, during that hurtle moment, what do
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: you tell yourself?
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: You know, when I've been asked this question in the past,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: I've said start with more money. But actually I think
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: if I had understood the fullness of the challenge that
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: I was, of the situation I was putting myself in,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: I don't think that I actually would have moved forward.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: And I do think that being naive in that way
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: is the reason I moved forward, and I have no
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: regrets about that. But I would recommend making sure you
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: have enough money.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: But still, Heather, I'm so excited that we were able
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: to do this. Give us the info. How do the
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: hurdlers keep up with you? How do they follow along
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: with you?
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: Tell us You can follow me at Heather Anderson Underscore
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: at the end PS. My last name has an S
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: E N. But you can also find us at New
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: York Plate's n E W y O R K P
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: I L A T E S. You can find us
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: at New York platates dot com, or you can find
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: us inside the studios. Come and ss come and see us.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: I'm over at Emily Body and at Hurdle Podcast another
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: hurdle conquered. Catch you guys next time.