IAM2150 – Yoga Studio Owners Offer an Escape from The Frantic DC Lifestyle

Co-owner and Director of Teacher Training, Kathryn Taron was a Division I long-distance runner who found yoga while on a quest to heal an injury. After completely recovering from the injury, she continued to cultivate her practice on the North Shore of Oahu and around the world. She understands the struggle to balance competitive drive with respect for the body’s limits. She teaches yoga to empower others to engage in self-healing. During her classes, Kathryn focuses heavily on proper alignment and mindfully linking movements with breath.

Co-owner, Lindsey Canaley discovered yoga 15 years ago via a VHS workout tape as a teenager in her native Los Angeles. After a personal practice for many years, she got the courage to step foot in a real yoga studio in DC in 2011 and fell in love all over again. She believes in a playful practice and tries not to take herself too seriously. At classes with Lindsey, you can expect high energy, creative flows with a little restorative yoga thrown in for a well-rounded sweat session on the mat. For her personal practice, she loves vinyasa, power, yin, and restorative yoga equally. Lindsey is a RYT-200 and completed her studies at Tranquil Space and her prenatal training at Mind the Mat. When not in the studio, she's probably snuggling her one-year-old daughter or one of her three kitties.

Website: Refresh Alexandria

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Transcription:

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Lindsey Canaley Teaser 00:00

We tend to go after the physical part first, and then people notice later the mental benefits. Some of them are spiritual benefits. We're not dogmatic, but it comes organically. Right. When you learn how to sit still for just even a minute for some people is a challenge at first, and then you start to meet the rewards.

Intro 00:18

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview. If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:44

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresham Harkless from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I have two very special guests on the show today. I have Kat and Lindsey from Refresh Yoga Center located in the the heart of Alexandria. It's great to have you both on the show.

Kathryn Taron 00:56

Thanks. Thanks for having us.

Gresham Harkless 00:57

No problem. No problem. And what I wanted to do was just kick off the show to hear a little bit more about Refresh Yoga Studio and all the awesome things that you're doing. So I wanted to hear about your CEO story is what I call it like what led you guys to start your business?

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Kathryn Taron 01:09

Sure. So this is Kat. I was at Refresh First as a teacher. So we aren't founders, but when the opportunity presented itself to become owners, we both jumped at it.

Lindsey Canaley 01:19

Yeah. Yeah. This is Lindsay. Actually, pretty similar story. I was teaching and had an opportunity to come in as an or to the business. We both came to the studio as teachers because we love the practice and love sharing it with others. Ownership, being able to cultivate a community under shared values that are important to you. So that's what really happened for us.

Gresham Harkless 01:40

Okay. That makes sense. And I always wondered that I was just gonna ask that if you always find that people that start out as yoga teachers, they end up wanting to be an owner just because they enjoy yoga so much.

Kathryn Taron 01:49

It's very common. It's not always something I would recommend for every teacher. I mean, because we also run teacher trainings and some people come out with that dream. And so it's a hard balance of being a business owner and being a yoga teacher, and sometimes people think those are in conflict.

Gresham Harkless 02:04

Okay.

Kathryn Taron 02:04

So it can be a struggle for some, and it's also really rewarding. So for us, we we try to balance that.

Lindsey Canaley 02:11

And how do all the qualities that make you a good yoga teacher necessarily make you a good entrepreneur. And so we certainly see that happening occasionally, especially in communities that are underserved. I don't have a lot of yoga available. But that will naturally happen is that a somebody who's very passionate about the service. But if you don't have some, business background or the thick skin and the willingness to learn how to do it. Or the only word?

Kathryn Taron 02:41

Yes. The ability to say no sometimes. Yeah. Yyou always wanna serve and give and help, but you have to also look after yourself.

Lindsey Canaley 02:47

Yes. Yeah. Put your cup first. So sometimes we do see yoga teachers that will go down that journey and crash and burn for lots of reasons, and not all of them are necessarily their fault. But it's definitely not an easy business.

Gresham Harkless 02:59

Yeah. That makes sense. And then, like you said, and one of the reasons I love, like, interviewing entrepreneurs and business owners that I call healthy CEOs is because you guys have, like, that triple bottom line where it's about, of course, profits and generating revenue, but it's also about having that hopeful attitude that you have with all the people that come in as clients that you work with.

Lindsey Canaley 03:16

Right.

Kathryn Taron 03:17

Yeah. That passion.

Gresham Harkless 03:17

Exactly. So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper and ask you for what I call, like, your the way that you serve the clients that you work with, your products and services, what do you how to do it here at Refresh?

Kathryn Taron 03:28

Sure. Absolutely. So we're primarily a yoga center as is part of the name, and we're what's called a Vinyasa studio. So most of our classes are flow. We go to all levels, though, from beginner to, quote, unquote, advanced, or very challenging physical practice, but then there's prenatal. Sometimes just stretch classes are  really those are some of our most popular classes. And Perry said prenatal, but teacher trainings, and then we have Reiki, which is an energetic therapy and massage.

Gresham Harkless 03:54

Okay. Okay. That makes perfect sense. That's, I guess, that's the full gamut of everything you can have as far as yoga.

Kathryn Taron 03:59

There's always we could have had goats or something.

Gresham Harkless 04:04

I've seen that in beer yoga too. Yes. It has.

Kathryn Taron 04:07

Yeah. There's a lot. I mean, we tell oh, yeah. I didn't mention restorative. So there's always something else you can combine for focused practice. Right. But we try to keep it grounded in what our community needs. Right. We always say embrace the journey, and that's one of our core values. And so we try to help from prenatal to postnatal, from beginner to teacher, and just serve. Staying focused, but casting someone of a wide net to help everybody.

Lindsey Canaley 04:31

That's the perfect word to use as community. A healthy, thriving studio is a mirror of the community around them. Right. And one of the things that we found is that the practice that we provide does target a little bit more towards older populations, athletes, people that have other practices that they do, they're runners, they're athletes, they do they have other movement practices and they come to us for mobility, for restorative, for cross training. They end up staying and making it, like a core part of their movement. Which is really cool to be a part of, but that helps influence how the studio looks, the people who come. I believe it's a little bit more accessible.

Kathryn Taron 05:15

Yes. We're not we're all inclusive. Yeah.

Lindsey Canaley 05:17

So I know a lot of people can walk into the studio and it can feel like very like, an in group or Kitchen.

Gresham Harkless 05:24

CrossFit gym, stuff like that.

Lindsey Canaley 05:25

Yeah. Right. I know.

Kathryn Taron 05:28

I totally understand it's intimidating. We really, really try to make everybody feel welcome even if it's your the first class you've ever taken. You don't have a mat. You need a mat. In the Western practice yoga, we tend to go after the physical part first, and then people notice later the mental benefits. Some of them are spiritual benefits. We're not dogmatic, but it comes organically. Right. When you learn how to sit still for just even a minute for some people is a challenge at first. And then you start to to meet the rewards in your mental stamina.

Lindsey Canaley 05:57

Yeah. Like that.

Gresham Harkless 05:58

No. That makes sense. And I know that a lot of people, especially if they're using or trying yoga for the very first time, they're probably a little bit intimidated. They see the stuff on Instagram and they're like, oh, I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to make myself into a pretzel. So it's kinda good to have that stuff.

Lindsey Canaley 06:09

I don't know how to do that.

Kathryn Taron 06:12

It's not and I don't really seem impractical to that.

Gresham Harkless 06:15

I feel like that was a Photoshop or something like that.

Kathryn Taron 06:19

It's a little shady. Not to toot your own horn.

Lindsey Canaley 06:21

And if you look at our Instagram, you're not gonna find a post like that. It's not about the physical, like, I I'll joke sometimes in the classes that I teach. Like, I know that this post looks like this in yoga journal. But, like, rather than turning your head this way, maybe think about turning it the other way. Why don't you put undue pressure on your body if this isn't the goal? Right. So that's something that we really try and drive home. It's less about what it looks like and more about, like, how you how you need to feel. Right?

Gresham Harkless 06:46

That makes sense. Okay. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, and some people have called it, like, their superpower or something that they feel distinguishes them. So what do you guys feel like either your secret sauce is or maybe even for the organization or company?

Lindsey Canaley 06:59

One of the things that I think we certainly bring to this particular community of Old Town is small classes, very intimate, welcoming. What we were talking about before, yoga team coming into a yoga studio for this first time can be really intimidating. So we've put a lot of time and attention and education into our programs that are really, forward facing. The beginner series is primarily what comes to mind. It's a 4-week program that we offer every couple of months, not necessarily every month, but students are encouraged to come in. They come for 4 weeks every Monday night typically, and they're with other people who are starting their journey together. So it's a safe space where they can explore and learn some of the basics and then move from there. And we found that has been a really good entry point for a lot of new people who are new to the studio, people who are new to yoga. It's less scary than just wandering into a class that they don't understand what Vinyasa means.

Gresham Harkless 07:53

Yeah.

Lindsey Canaley 07:54

We we tend to raise bias in our own community because people who know that what that means. Right. Most consumers, if they're coming up or we're on the second floor, for those of you who don't know. We're above an ice cream shop, which we joke is balanced. Actually, like, clump the stairs, and I don't know what vinyasa means. I don't know what a stretch and refresh class is. But the theater is pretty universal that can feel a lot safer.

Kathryn Taron 08:15

Absolutely. So I would just this is Kat again. I would just piggyback on that. Yeah. With we actually limit our class sizes, so you're not gonna come in and feel like a sardine packed in there, because it's and there's merit to that, but we really it's important for the teacher to be able to see every student, and we also offer hands on adjustments in all of our classes with permission, of course. And that just means that you're gonna get a little bit of contact and, like, some of that healing touch. I don't know. I don't know what they would say that necessarily, but people really benefit from this. A little slight variance, with their posture, it can make it just that energy transfer, I think, is really unique. And not all the students are offering it anymore because it can be a delicate thing to offer. And also, we do have massage, and that is not always available, but it's a compliment to the practice, of course, body work.

Gresham Harkless 09:03

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I appreciate it. And what I wanted to do was switch gears a little bit and ask you guys for what I call a CEO hack. And this could be an app, a book, or even a habit that you guys might have that makes you more effective and efficient as business owners.

Lindsey Canaley 09:15

This is like my favorite question. Because I think about this all the time. I love podcasts and talk about, like, entrepreneurship and CEO. I would say if I had to pick one thing, it would be time walking. One of the things that I found is being an entrepreneur, the to do list doesn't have an end. If you've reached the end of your to do list, like, you need to go back and find something else. You're like, selling your business.

Gresham Harkless 09:34

Yeah. You probably have to.

Lindsey Canaley 09:35

Always be growing. You could always be diversifying. You could always be doing things better. And there's like really, there's beauty in that. There's the challenge in that, which I think some entrepreneurs that, love being entrepreneurs thrive on. But what it creates is this dual system where you have the work, and then you have the mental load of the work. And if you don't have strategies in place for keeping those in their zones, it can be overwhelming. So one of the ways that I do that is by time blocking, by actually taking my calendar and, like, blocking up the day from 9 to 10, I'm looking at our interlock, our email account.

From 7 to 11, I'm like doing some social media posting or I'm responding to people on social media. It doesn't always look exactly like that, but I find that if I clear all my tabs or I close them, or I think nobody closes tabs, I minimize them because I lose important things if I do that. Right. I'm searching that menu. I didn't know. I I need to read that article. So it's minimized. And I just keep what's in front of me. And it may not be a full hour. It may just be a 20-minute block. But if I do that and I'm very purposeful, it feels less overwhelming.

Gresham Harkless 10:43

That makes sense. Yeah. I'm really big into time blocking as well too. So especially when you're trying to run a business, there's so many different things that you have to do. But to be able to break it down into smaller bites, you can make it a lot easier to be successful.

Kathryn Taron 10:54

Yeah. Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 10:55

There you go. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, and this could be like a word of wisdom or piece of advice that you have. Or I always say if you jump into a time machine, go back in the past, what would you tell your younger business self?

Kathryn Taron 11:06

I'll take that one. And I didn't come up with this. And at first, I think it doesn't sound very yogic, but I know everybody, I think, has heard it's higher slowly, fire quickly. I wrestle with this a lot, but I think most instantly when the energy is not right, if it's just not compatible, why try to foster some kind of relationship that's can be either toxic or just not beneficial to either party. And it's better just to let it go, and in the end, you're always relieved rather than stressing anymore. And take the time to find the right people. The way it works here, like, people that we hire from within the community, usually. So some of our students have become our best teachers and our best employees. Right. So people that share our values, and that makes it much easier.

Gresham Harkless 11:47

Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsey Canaley 11:48

And I will say partnerships are never easy. They can hit grooves, and they can hit rough spots, and working with Kat has been incredible. But the one thing in the beginning, I was like, I really resisted this this idea because I'm used to, like, I wanna make split decisions and go with my dad. And, hey, we got a really good person here. Let's take a chance. And every time I push back, she's been right. She's a really good reader of energy. Right. And I'm like, darn it. Okay. You were right about that. Just, like, alright. Let's just learn.

Kathryn Taron 12:20

Excusing my mistakes. Yeah. It's true. A big difference. Job break. Yeah.

Lindsey Canaley 12:25

So but it's been funny. Of course. Of course. But it's true. We were just talking. This comes up, and I was starting to come around. Okay. We'll go a little slower. It can take a week.

Gresham Harkless 12:33

Yeah.

Lindsey Canaley 12:34

Sometimes it's we're slipping weaker.

Gresham Harkless 12:35

Yeah. Exactly.

Lindsey Canaley 12:36

But sometimes it means I'll have to teach a couple extra classes. Right. Exactly. Like, until we find the right fit for that particular time or that day. Or it ends with the studio overall. But thankfully, we have that luxury and that we we are we both teach. We we are able to step in as needed when stuff comes up.

Gresham Harkless 12:54

Yeah. When life happens. That makes perfect sense. Also, now I wanted to ask you for my favorite question, which is the definition for what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show, so I wanted to ask you both. What does being a CEO mean to you?

Kathryn Taron 13:07

CEO, it sounds I think you covered some other episodes, but, yeah, we don't we would see ourselves, but it's not a CEO, sounds good. I know. Simply put, being CEO means you own both successes and failures. Bottom line.

Lindsey Canaley 13:20

I love that. I sometimes when I think about CEO, I think about all the C-suite, the different roles that go with it. And one of the things that I'm finding is and more in my experience that really a good organization is gonna have two essential head roles. So sometimes it's the same person, but I like to divide it into, oh, somebody who's very operationally focused and making sure that dogs are on time. And then the CEO is much more of, like, visionary, much more strategy, marketing, outreach, growth. So whenever I think of just CEO in in that sense, I think of somebody who's looking forward and looking, to take the business to the next level or do more of what their mission is, which is for us is bringing yoga to this this community.

Gresham Harkless 14:01

Awesome. I appreciate both of you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know, and then how can we find out about Refresh Yoga?

Kathryn Taron 14:12

I just recommend everyone go to our website, refreshyogacenter.com, and you'll see all the amazing workshops that we're hosting, our teacher training program, which is by far something I'm most proud of, I think, or one of the things I'm most proud of here. Again, it's an intimate setting, and we really challenge our students to go deeper, looking into themselves, looking at their practice. And they have just blossomed, and they share it with everyone. So I'm really proud of that. And read our blog. You do all that stuff and just come visit us. We're in King Street. It's beautiful down here. We would love to host you.

 Lindsey Canaley 14:48

I second all of that. One of the things I'm always thinking about, again, because this is one day I love reading. And there's a lot of energy towards taking your business to the next level, and sometimes that's taking a virtual or doing something that's gonna impact, like, outside of your local community. So it's been a really interesting challenge to do a business that's so local. How can I do both things? How can I serve my community, but also be of that growth mindset? And one of the ways that I've done it, I feel like I've scratched that itch personally is by getting really connected with other entrepreneurs through business groups, through and typically through Facebook driven groups. Sometimes that's just studio owners.

So I would encourage you if you are in one of those categories, not necessarily an owner of a studio, but if you own a business and you're looking for opportunities to collaborate, like, definitely reach out. We love talking about how we grow our businesses. Sometimes the things we learn are translatable to other industries, sometimes they're not. But, honestly, it can be we found it can be a really isolating business. We're lucky and then I have a partner. We're partners. But we have reached out to other studios, even local studios in the past to do collaborative events. And then we get the sense that, like, they have no one to talk to. So I know how isolating being an entrepreneur can be, and we have to create a tribe. And if that means that you are on the other side of the country or other side of the world, we're always open to collaborate, share stories, share share ideas. Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 16:05

Awesome, I appreciate both of you for taking some time out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Lindsey Canaley 16:09

Thank you.

Outro 16:11

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community. Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at CBNation.co. Also, check out our I AM CEO Facebook group. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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