myself in a situation that required teaching and public speaking was more challenging than I expected. Throughout the barre training program, there was a voice in my head telling me I should just sit down and shut up. I had so many moments when I thought to myself, “What if I spend all this time getting certified, but then I suck at teaching barre? What if this is all a big waste of time? What am I even doing?!”
It didn’t help that during most of the training sessions, I felt like the class dunce. All of the other teachers-in-training seemed so graceful and athletic—like every single one was a retired ballerina, gymnast, or a reincarnated swan. Meanwhile, I was grunting and sweating like an asthmatic bulldog. It was disheartening to look around the classroom and realize, “I am definitely the worst one here.” How was I supposed to compete with these other instructors once we were all certified and teaching classes? Who’d want to come to my sad, grunty class?
But I knew that barre had already transformed my body—and my life—and I was genuinely obsessed with it. I still am. I wanted to help other women become obsessed with barre, too. So even though it felt like a big emotional and financial risk, I finished the training program, got certified, and started teaching classes. I embraced the risk—and it was one that has paid off.
Take the Next Risk…Then the Next…and the Next
Getting certified to be a barre teacher felt like a big risk for me at the time. But it was just the first stomach-churning risk in a series of risks. That’s how empires get built, and it’s how goals are achieved: one risk at a time.
After teaching barre for a few years, I began to feel more confident in my abilities as a teacher. I started bringing more of my personality into my classes, developing my own signature style. I had started to teach yoga, and I began to bring some of the spiritual aspects of my yoga training to my barre classes. I used each class as a chance to express a message that was close to my heart—an inspiring quote, a mantra; some type of empowering idea that I wanted to share.
This was a great creative outlet for me. But in order to change my style of teaching and use a new format, I would have to break off from my beloved mentors, Elisabeth Halfpapp and Fred DeVito of exhale, and go off on my own. I would be leaving the studio where I had grown so much to start my own business.
Would students like my new teaching style? If I showed people more of the real me, would they respond positively? I wasn’t sure. But it was a risk I was willing to take. In the end, not everyone loved my style of barre, of course—but plenty of people did. I began to build a reputation in my community. One by one, the right clients found me.
At around this point in my career, I had given up my management role at exhale and was teaching my Barre & Soul Method classes at a variety of studios. I had taken a pay cut to make this change, but it felt like something I had to do for my own sense of self-expression. I started to seriously consider the idea of running my own barre and yoga studio. But owning a studio felt like a crazy, unreasonable, stomach-churning, queasy kind of risk. It was too much—too big. The thought of starting a business gave me nightmares. In my nightmares, tumbleweeds blew through an empty studio where I sat weeping at the front desk, writing out rent check after rent check, with nothing to eat but dust and shame as I slipped into financial ruin. I couldn’t imagine taking on that kind of monetary risk.
The part I feared most about opening a barre and yoga studio of my own was signing a lease. It felt like such a big commitment—a legally binding, long-term arrangement for people who don’t mind being tied down and who have enough money in the bank to float a few bad months, or years. At that time, signing a lease felt like signing my life away.
I wasn’t ready to make that kind of leap…not yet. So, I took a different risk—the biggest one that I could stand at the time. I contacted a couple of yoga studio owners in my area, and I asked, “Could I use your studio as a home base for my barre program?”
That way, I could teach my Barre & Soul classes and begin training other teachers in my method, but without all of the financial risk that would have come along with running my own space. It was a baby step toward entrepreneurship—still a big risk, but a risk that felt tolerable.
Sometimes, Life Pushes You into the Next Risk…Faster Than You Expect
The months rolled along. My plan was going pretty well. I was teaching Barre & Soul classes in a few studios around town—doing the classes using my own signature approach and enjoying my self-employed lifestyle, without the stress of actually running my own place.
And then…an unexpected opportunity fell into my lap.
I approached another yoga studio owner to ask about bringing my Barre & Soul program to her space. She invited me out for coffee and asked if I wanted to buy her entire business.
She was moving to another state and wanted to hand things over to a new owner as soon as possible. I’d take over her lease, her client email list, mats, props—everything.
At first, my knee-jerk reaction was, “Good Lord! Seriously? Me? Own a studio? Like, my own studio? Like, now?! Ha! I am not ready for that. No.” (Did I mention I can be pretty dramatic?)
Despite my initial reaction, something deep in my gut told me, “Andrea, this is the next step for you. This is the next risk you need to take. If you back away from this opportunity, you’ll regret it later.”
I knew if I said “Yes,” this would be the biggest professional and financial risk I’d ever taken. I couldn’t see how I’d be able to pull the money together. And what about getting insurance, as well as business taxes and accounting—all that stuff that I didn’t know how to do? Was I really qualified for this? I had serious doubts.
I slept on it. I crunched the numbers. I gnawed on the idea for several days, feeling pressured because I knew she needed an answer quickly. I kept thinking to myself, “If I don’t do this, if I watch somebody else take that yoga space instead of me, I’ll feel so jealous. I’ll keep kicking myself for missing this opportunity.”
I mustered all of my courage, and I told her, “I’ll do it. I want to buy your business.”
Making It Work, No Matter What
At that point in my life, I had never had more than a couple thousand dollars in savings at any given time, so I couldn’t just write the studio owner a check. Luckily, she was willing to let me make monthly installment payments on the purchase price, and judging by all the financial records she showed me, I could expect that the business would continue to be profitable and that I’d be able to make the payments. But as we worked through the paperwork and other legal details, I faced my first major challenge as a business owner—and it was a big one.
The landlord of the yoga space didn’t want to transfer the lease over to me. He had other plans for his building that he’d wanted to pursue, and he flatly refused to work with us. Which meant I was now purchasing a yoga business, but with no studio space.
At that moment, the whole deal could have fallen through, but I wasn’t ready to let that happen. The studio owner and I ended up agreeing on a greatly reduced price for me to purchase the business, which was now little more than a mailing list and some used props. Even though I would have to find a completely new space and sign a completely new lease, I needed to make this work. No excuses—no matter what. There was no turning back.
I set out, determined to find a home for this yoga community. Knowing what I do now about how long it typically takes to find a space and get a studio ready to open, I should never have expected everything to come together within sixty days. Once again, thank God for naiveté, because somehow,
