IAM1465 – Northern Virginia Yoga Owner Brings Innovation and Creativity to the Health and Fitness Industry

This was an awesome chat with Suzie Mills of Honest Soul Yoga located in Alexandria, Virginia. Suzie is a Healthy CEO which I loved to speak with because she isn’t your traditional yogi and she has brought a fresh perspective to the health industry. We spoke about her background, her unique approach to yoga, and advice that she has for entrepreneurs and business owners in the area including hiring up, innovating, and reengineering things.

Suzie (Owner of Honest Soul Yoga) came to yoga to find grounding, personal empowerment, and physical restoration after her time serving in the US military. She quickly decided that the benefits she felt from her practice must be shared and studio ownership would be her path. What started as a small meet-up in her basement, Suzie’s studio has since grown to a full-scale, multi-faceted yoga center comprised of a robust schedule of daily classes, a highly sought-after training facility for new and experienced teachers, and a family-oriented lifestyle center. Students who attend classes, workshops, and training with Suzie receive the recipe for her secret sauce of compassionate self-inquiry and leave feeling both inspired to manifest their own big dreams, as well as equipped with the tools to take the very next step. In addition to running an ever-expanding yoga center, Suzie is a wife, mom to two kiddos under two, and lifelong resident of the DC metro area.

Website: honestsoulyoga.com
E-mail: suzie@honestsoulyoga.com

Episode Link: https://ceochat.co/interviews/northern-virginia-yoga-owner-bring-innovation-creativity-health-fitness-industry/

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Transcription

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00:00 – Intro

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 Harkness 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.

00:28 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast formerly the CEO Chat podcast. So doing something a little bit different as we ease into the fall from the summer and you know everybody's traveling a lot more. You know life is obviously a lot different than it has been in the last 4 years, definitely since I started this, let alone the last 2 years or so. But I had a podcast called the CEO Chat Podcast, which is a lot more of a long-form podcast. I didn't really reach the 1,400-plus episodes that we did with the IMCEO podcast. So there's a lot more long-flowing, a lot more conversational, but might be dusting off the CEO chat podcast and bringing that back out.

So with that being said, while considering that what I wanted to do is go through some of the interviews that I had that were some of my favorites and share those. It's not going to obviously be the entire interview. We're going to have links in the show notes so that you can go and listen to the full interview, but I wanted to do some snippets that you can get. You're going to hear, of course, the visibility, either the resources or the connections in each of these different snippets.

So it's gonna be one of those things that are really gonna help you to hopefully learn more about the guests that are on the show, what they do, how they do, why they do it, but also get that opportunity to really learn about some resources that can make you more effective and efficient. So sit back and enjoy this special throwback CEO chat episode. You know, a lot of people think that when you start a business, this is like you, you know, you have the idea and the next day you have 15 studios or something like that, but to hear the progression step by step on how you've been able to do that from having an idea or having actual pain and coming up with an idea and then just kind of going from there step by step has been awesome to hear.

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01:46 – Suzie Mills

Yeah, and nobody believed me I was opening a studio and so I just started changing my language. I was like I'm opening a yoga studio and everyone's like oh my god that's awesome. When? I'm like I don't know, soon. Once I started kind of declaring it and believing it things just kind of started falling into place the money became available didn't take that much to start up but we were able to make it happen in a very short amount of time with very little.

02:09 – Gresham Harkless

Wow, that's powerful. Like you said, you spoke it into manifestation and then I guess the actions just followed from there once you truly believe you're going to be able to do it.

02:17 – Suzie Mills

Yeah, absolutely

02:18 – Gresham Harkless

Cool, cool.

02:20 – Suzie Mills

Although a lot of late night.

02:21 – Gresham Harkles

Yeah, you can't forget that then Probably the most important part as well too.

02:26 – Suzie Mills

Yeah, I was literally blood sweat, and tears like lots of crying I didn't think it was gonna work sweat We physically did our own build and then I got a paper cut on signing the lease. So there was blood too.

02:38 – Gresham Harkless

Wow, it never fails. Could you take us through, I guess, what some of the things are that you do at Honest Soul Yoga and what kind of like makes you unique from maybe other essential studios that are in the area?

02:50 – Suzie Mills

Sure, so obviously our primary focus is yoga. We offer over 65 classes a week. Our offerings are for yoga classes for adults, but we have expanded into family offerings. We do prenatal, babies, kids, and so forth. But again, our primary offering is for adults. It is all movement-based, so primarily flows, but we do offer restorative yoga, which is something that is becoming more and more popular. A lot more people are looking like understand that they need to relax.

And we also are starting to add more things that are not just focused on the movement, like meditation. In addition to our yoga classes, we are a yoga training school. So we do train people to become yoga teachers. We offer a 200-hour program, which would be like an associate. And then we have, we're launching a 3, 500-hour program this year, which would be more like a bachelor's program for more advanced teachers, teachers looking to take it to the next level. So we offer a lot of yoga. And I think what separates us from other studios is we really fine-tune what our brand is. We're very clear on what we offer and what we do well. I learned pretty quickly not to offer everything, but to offer just a few services and get really good at those.

And then we also focus on our members. They're definitely our top priority and we take a lot of pride in our community. And I feel like our space reflects that, our physical space. We have very spacious rooms, we have a very spacious lobby with a lot of amenities, like a T-bar and lockers and different things like that, that they don't have to pay extra for. We try to create an environment where people feel like they belong.

04:20 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome. And it kind of goes back to what you were saying, I guess in your early days when you were kind of looking around for, I guess, essentially a community, it kind of sounds like you have, and you've built that to some degree with your studios.

04:34 – Suzie Mills

Yeah, we have a lot of military members. We're right outside Fort Belvoir, so we tend to get, I mean, more than half the population of our studio is military. So we understand that people are here for a short amount of time, usually 2 years. That's typically how long we have a client in the military and they're looking for their home when they first get here, like getting grounded and getting back to feeling more like a place where they may belong or fit in. So we try to be that place for everybody. Like they feel welcome. We say their name when they come in the door. We have a lot of community-based activities, like a book club and happy hours, and things to connect with other people so you can make friends.

05:10 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, and that's huge for somebody, like you said, whether you're in your 20-something or a court or a military person that's gone from place to place to place or location to location. And you're trying to look for a home and a place to kind of feel comfortable, especially in working out and something that might be kind of new is things like that's something that you guys are able to do very well.

05:29 – Suzie Mills

Yeah, absolutely. And we also realized, I actually started a family in those 4 years that I've had my studio open. I had 2 kids and I've also realized…

05:36 – Gresham Harkless

Wow, did you have time?

05:38 – Suzie Mills

Not that it was crazy enough, opening or expanding twice, but having 2 kids during that too. Our community as well is our families, young families, and older families, but we don't just focus on one person, how do we make this fit for your whole family?

05:52 – Gresham Harkless

Right. That makes sense. Well, cool, I know you mentioned that, you know, you didn't grow up doing yoga, you didn't grow up as a yogi. So what types of things do you feel have made you successful as a business owner and what can other business owners learn from?

06:09 – Suzie Mills

I think for me, I love yoga, but business was always my first love. I loved to be innovative, I loved business, I was a business major, and for me, business has been a way for me to have kind of that creative outlet. It's almost come naturally to me owning a business and being able to look at the big picture not just day to day but kind of looking at what the market is offering, how we can innovate within the market And also we've really, I really like to define our brand and I love branding.

Another thing, too, early on one of my mentors told me to hire up, and any time I've come across anything that wasn't a natural fit for me to do or I struggled with, like QuickBooks, I opened that and then quickly closed it. I hire the best people that I can find. I always try to hire up and make sure I'm working with the best people. I'm also a big-picture person, like I said earlier, and I love to kind of re-engineer things. I guess that's my IT engineering background coming back, but I like to look at how things are being done now and how can we improve them. How can we do them better?

And what are things nobody else is doing? And that stuff comes naturally to me and I have a lot of fun doing that. And also, Even though yoga is a tradition, this is the fitness industry. And so we have to offer things that get people coming back. And we have to keep people interested. And I like to bring in different things that get people excited and that want to come back. Obviously, we still stay true to our roots of yoga. But we may change things up a little bit and do little pop-ups or fun things to keep people coming back in the door.

And then also knowing that people have a set budget every month for health and wellness, and that does include gym memberships, massages, hair appointments, manicures, whatever. And that budget I'm competing with. So like I said, we have to keep things interesting in keeping people engaged and also innovating and seeing what the trends are in the industry, not just yoga, but fitness as a whole. That still fits in with our mission and our core offerings. But again, keeping people engaged and wanting to come back.

08:06 – Gresham Harkless

You're absolutely right. I can't say that enough, especially in any industry, especially in the fitness industry. When you're creating a product or a service or you're creating memberships where people have to come back every time. You wanna make sure that just like your workout plan, where you have to continually to work yourself out in a different way to continue to see results, you have to do that in business as well. So it's great that you kind of tapped into that. We love yoga and you've taken your business background and your engineering background, and you've kind of been able to manifest that in honest soul yoga.

08:36 – Suzie Mills

Yeah, and I think a lot of people who want to start businesses are stressed in whatever career they may be in because they feel like they'll never get out of it. Looking back, being in IT and yoga sounds like 2 different careers, but I've been able to pull a lot of what I've done in my past jobs as a network engineer and project manager into my business now. So I look at all of my past experiences as kind of preparing me for what we're doing now.

09:00 – Gresham Harkless

Interesting, and in what ways have you kind of seen that kind of bleed-through? Because most people think that I guess if you want to own a yoga studio, you have to go and be a yoga, but you can have different backgrounds, you're saying, and still be able to kind of pull from those skills or experiences?

09:15 – Suzie Mills

Yeah. And you know, it's funny, everyone that comes to yoga, we have so many unique backgrounds, all different walks of life. I think people are attracted to yoga because it does change your life in 1 way or another. But for me, being an engineer and project manager, like the business side of things, I'm able to organize better or understand how to organize my business from the back end. I feel I laugh sometimes because a lot of stuff we did in the corporate world, I'm like, oh, yeah, HR departments and policies and procedures, we need all those things in a yoga studio.

09:46 – Gresham Harkless

Right. And that's how you, I guess you've been able to kind of develop that culture to some degree.

09:51 – Suzie Mills

Yeah, this business, I still hire people. So we have right now almost 40 employees. So we have to have all of the best practices for a business to be able to employ people as well, not just being able to do the day-to-day operations, but being a good employer too. And I look up to a lot of the companies I've worked for and pulled from them what they did that I really admired for their employees. So for me, it's not just about my business and clients, but also about being a good employer as well.

10:18 – Gresham Harkles

Awesome, awesome. Yeah, I mean, and that's not a, it's kind of like, it just speaks kudos to who you are as a leader, that you've been able to do that and how you're comfortable enough, like you said, to even hire up. I think that's a big thing that a lot of business owners sometimes don't do as well, where they're trying to maybe hire less or equal to, but you've been able to be confident in understanding where you want the business to go and how, and what pieces need to be in place for you to do that.

10:44 – Suzie Mills

Yeah, I know what I'm good at now. It's taken me a few years to be okay with that and also know I'm what I'm not good at. And there are people that are very good at that kind of stuff and being able to bring people onto my team to support that. I feel like only elevates us as a community and a business.

10:59 – Gresham Harkless

Right. And it has a bigger impact on the entire community. So that's awesome. If you could maybe look or hold a crystal bowl and you can look maybe 3 to 5 years down the line and you can say, this is where honest soul yoga is gonna be, could you kind of paint that picture for us on what things you have in place, what things you're thinking about working on and kind of like where honest soul yoga would be in the next 3 or 5 years?

11:20 – Suzie Mill

Sure, like I said, I sometimes get too many ideas and am very creative, so there are many directions we can go. And actually just talking about hiring up, I just hired a business coach that I start with this week to kind of help me fine-tune that direction. But right now the yoga industry is going online. So I think for us we'll still have our physical studio. Absolutely, that is super important. But taking some elements online, and being able to offer classes online.

And like I said, we have a big military community and a lot of them want to still practice with us but can't from other states so being able to offer some sort of online programs so that's something we have in the works for the future. I do see myself opening up other locations and then also we're down the road 3 5 years hoping to franchise or license. So that's definitely in the work. And then also expanding our training centers. So like I said, we offer training like your associate and bachelor's degree equivalent of teacher training, but expanding that and taking that also online and also taking that nationwide. I have a couple of partners that I work with that don't live locally. So being able to offer training anywhere in the world or state, I like to think big. So I have a lot of things in the works. And then, of course, just making what we have now really good.

12:30 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I mean, it definitely sounds like, and I mean, I'm an ideas person too. So just seeing, especially the whole military connection that you just made, I think that's huge because as you said, a lot of people were looking for a home, so to speak. And you know, you have to move every 2 years or every 3 years, like you mentioned, but still to be able to still tap into that community is huge. So I think that's a phenomenal idea.

12:52 – Suzie Mills

Thank you.

12:52 – Gresham Harkless

I know you gave us a little bit some tips on like kind of what somebody who is maybe in the health and wellness industry and is trying to start a business should do. Do you have maybe 2 or 3 other tips that you can kind of give to those who are maybe looking to start a business and what things they can do to kind of be successful as well?

13:10 – Suzie Mills

Yeah, well, like I said earlier, hire up, don't be afraid to ask for help. That was my tip.

13:15 – Gresham Harkless

Okay.

13:16 – Suzie Mills

Just understanding that as a business owner, know that we can't do everything by ourselves. You'll be afraid to ask for help. And even if you can't afford good help or help at all in the beginning, maybe reach out to your friends and family. But I think most importantly, have a really good website and work with your team. And that team is your lawyer, your accountant, and your banker. Get to know people who are your team of support. Because I've made a lot of mistakes in my business. I probably could write a book on that. But I think having people, legal people, your accountant, people that really support you and have your back, and also being able to ask questions to them and understand how everything works from a financial or legal standpoint, just to protect yourself.

14:03 – Gresham Harkless

Do you have 3 maybe tips that are just for people who are trying to improve their health and wellness that you can kind of give to us to kind of be maybe more mindful or just healthier overall?

14:14 – Suzie Mills

Yeah, sure. I think what's most important in what I teach in every single 1 of my classes is just to learn how to breathe. It seems like we know how to breathe because we do it not thinking about it but a lot of things people aren't paying attention to actually how they're breathing. They're holding their breath or they're breathing too fast but just starting with being aware of how you're taking your breath in and taking your breath out and not even trying to do any specific type of breathing but just notice are you breathing? I think that's the first step.

Second, I think people need to take time to be quiet. We call it meditation but it could just be sitting and doing nothing and not worrying that your thoughts may be coming up, but just being aware of those thoughts and sitting with them and not having to do anything with them and just letting our busy minds have a moment to just be still, even though our mind might not feel still. And then last, I think it's just move your body. I mean, yoga's not the only thing out there. There are so many amazing fitness things that you can do to move your body. It's just literally moving your body.

15:11 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to kind of pick your brain and just get an idea of like, what do you feel is maybe unique or special about being a healthy CEO?

15:20 – Suzie Mills

Yeah, so as a healthy CEO, we naturally impact people's lives. Like there's no question about that. And I think where I've had to find the balance is being able to run a successful business to be financially successful, but also successful as an employer, but also just being a good human being. All of my decisions I look at from 2 directions. Are they great for the business, but are they also great for my clients? Am I being a good human being? I think that's what's most important to me about being a healthy CEO or making the decisions for everyone, not just for one side.

15:53 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes sense. Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and the CEO chat podcast. And I hope you enjoyed this special episode, give us an opportunity to kind of take some of the snippets from some of the longer form podcasts that we have and repurpose them here. And we might be dusting off the CEO chat podcast and talking a little bit more about some of those longer forum episodes and hopefully some of the people that have been on the IMCO podcast on the long reform episodes. But I hope you enjoyed this episode.

I hope you enjoy this little snapshot. Of course, you can go to ceochat.co and have the opportunity to listen to the full complete version of the episode. But also you can maybe see that it's very important to create content but also to be able to listen to and take in the hacks, the nuggets, the stories, just all the things that make these interviews so unique and so special. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and be sure to follow up with the guests, follow up with the CEO Chat podcast, and hear about all the awesome things we're working on.

16:56 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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