It’s Been Awhile…
Before I say anything, I want you to know this is written from the heart with no AI polishing, definitely some grammar mistakes, and for sure there are better words to be used, but at least it’s 100% authentic.
There are 3 things I want you to take away from this:
One, thank you. I appreciate every one of you, your commitment to the practice, maybe trying a new studio, a new café, or trying yoga for the first time. Thank you for choosing to spend your hard-earned money with us.
Two, every decision I make when it comes to the business is to keep the lights on the staff paid, deliver a high-quality product, hopefully grow the business in a way where we can impact more lives with peace, safety, healthy meals, and bring community together.
Three, I am human. I struggle financially with business and at home. I struggle with my mental health, I struggle with doing too much and thoughts of not doing enough. I over think. I struggle to meditate and make it to yoga classes. I struggle as a parent of two elementary kids, as a wife who for the past almost three years has been now financially dependent on someone else for the first time in my adult life. Sometimes, by the minute, I wonder if opening this business was the best or worst thing I could have done for myself and my family’s future.
I want to give a transparent update on where things stand at a little over 2 years open. Over the last few weeks I thought a lot about what I would say and how honest I wanted to be. After receiving a few emails with genuine feedback in ways that felt they were trying to cause intentional harm, in other words hurt my feelings, I have decided to do what I know how to do, which is be honest.
The end of last winter I was sure by the end of the year I was going to close the café. It had always lost money for the business and it wasn’t growing quick enough. This business is a bootstrap business, built using my severance package from the job I was laid off from in May 2024, personal savings, and a small personal loan. I continue to give my time, energy, sometimes personal savings still, my family time, sweat, tears and hope to this business and community. Every penny that is generated goes into the pockets of my staff, to run the business, to improve your experience, to invest in new ideas and marketing to grow the business, local charities, and to provide room for the four tenants that sublease this space to grow their businesses and make their dreams come true. I have not contributed to my family financially since.
Why? What keeps me going? I made more at 12 when I was illegally working under the table pouring sodas at Whalom Park than I do now. I do this because I know what it’s like to work hard for something I believe in. I come from lower middle class, and my parents did what they could with what they had. I put myself through college working 3 jobs and eating microwaved hotdogs and rice for dinner. I did this when I left my first marriage for the safety of me and my 2 year old daughter. I did this when I held the hands of my employees who just lost a colleague in a horrific workplace accident and continue to do it every day when I walk into RISEilience.
I am confident if I keep showing up and pivoting and making hard and sometimes unpopular decisions that we will succeed. Some may say we have succeeded already. I live in the future. I dream big and I drive to make things happen. I opened this pace in hopes to heal our community. I wanted to give a peaceful and safe sanctuary to you where you can come back to your breath and body and maybe even experience that for the first time since you were small. I want you to feel, cry, be seen, be held, be cared for. A place where you can receive healthy food, space to appreciate all you have, a place to slow down in a world that continues to ask us to do more, want more, and move faster. When our classes are full and our space is vibrating with chatter and energy, I know that we are in fact succeeding and moving in the right direction. The more new faces I see continues to fuel that hope that we are bringing these gifts to more people.
This weekend we will have our first graduates on Yin training and we will be hosting our first 200hr yoga teacher training in January 2027. I hope to have a domestic retreat in the Spring next year, I want to open a non-profit for people and teens that can’t afford yoga. I want to bring Wellness and Yoga into local corporate businesses. I want to have a men’s group. Yoga for sobriety. I want to open more locations to increase the positive impact we can make on humanity.
To do the hard things, to keep things going in the right direction. I will be the first to admit we don’t get it right every time. We have changed software 3 times, we have had 4 different coffee roasters, teachers and staff have come and gone sometimes on their own and sometimes to keep the business going forward. We have doubled our square footage and changed pricing up and down. The schedule!!! Wow, that has changed more than anything. Endless hours combing over data, is it the time, is it the name of the class, is it the instructor, is it the day or the weather or the time of year? What changes do we need to make to positively impact most people and continue to survive?
I am confident I drive Priscilla, my staff, my husband and certainly myself crazy rethinking the decisions I’ve made and how I’ve responded. I haven’t communicated the best every time, I’ve had emotional responses, I have made too quick of decisions and taken too long. I have trusted the wrong people, I haven’t listened to my intuition.
Right now I am dealing with increased food costs for the café and utilities, a contract with Arketa and the decision to pass credit card fees to you instead of increasing prices of the plans. I had the understanding that there were ways where you could avoid these fees when I signed and now I have to hold them accountable to their promises. We are also training a new staff member in the café and working to keep ticket times down.
All this to say that everything we do here is done with intention, care, using data, and striving in the end to make a positive impact on our community. We do this by sticking to our policies, pivoting when we need to, small increases, and a whole lot of love and gratitude. Know that no matter who you are, how long you have been coming, why you had to cancel class/membership, or what not, you are being held to the same standards and policies as everyone else. There is no hierarchy or special treatment. We all deserve to be treated fairly, we are all special, we all have hardships and suffering at times. So, if it means I am the punching bag sometimes or the one that says no, or the one doing and saying the hard things then so be it. It is the path I have chosen, or some may say has been chosen for me.
All the love and gratitude always. I am always open to a chat and a coffee to see you and hear you. I wish you a life filled with gratitude, joy, and peace.
Krystle