Compass Yoga has taken another step on the journey toward incorporation. A few weeks back our attorneys filed our Articles of Incorporation with the Department of Education. The Articles of Incorporation explained our reasons for being, and the board and I worked closely with the attorneys to get our objectives and the associated language just right. These Articles set the stage for the financial, governance, and programming structure. Get those wrong, and the whole mission is at stake. Luckily, our phenomenal attorneys have given us top-notch support from the get-go.
The Department of Education gets involved because our mission is primarily one of teaching and instructing. Yesterday I found out that we sailed through the review process and they have given their consent for us to move to the next step – filing with the Department of State. The Department of State will now review the articles and if all goes well, then will officially give the incorporation green light for Compass Yoga.
So many of you have generously offered your support and advice in this process. On behalf of the board, I am so grateful to each of you and wanted to share this exciting update. The adventure continues, and there will be more to come!
Middle Management is a dreaded term in the business world. It’s taken on a connotation of someone trapped in the middle executing a lot of actions that were defined by some Senior Leader. I am one of those people in the middle but here’s what I’m learning: being in the middle can be a curse or a blessing depending upon our attitudes.
In the middle, everything is happening. It’s where products and services get built and also where the big decisions are communicated. Someone in the middle has the unique position of translating between strategic objectives and tactical actions. To be effective in the middle, someone needs a wide variety of skills sets and the ability to build relationships up and down the corporate ladder. Middle management must have the ability to dream big and act upon small details. It’s art and science in equal proportion.
And while it is a position in which everyone could blame you for something going wrong, it’s also a position in which everyone can also celebrate you for things going well. And that celebration or blame has a lot to do with you. Can you trust your gut and drive a team forward with a vision while working side-by-side with them at all levels?
My friend and Compass Board Member, Lon, suggested that I read Jason Saul’s book as we begin to put together the financial plan for Compass. I’m actually going to work through the book with the Board because our main financial goal is to be a fully self-sustaining organization – exactly what Jason Saul advocates in his book. We want fundraising to be the gravy of our financial plan, not the main course. Jason Saul gives us a way to do that, and his book is a solid resource for anyone starting or running a business, nonprofit or for-profit.
The biggest take-away from the book is something I often heard in business school and the greatest I have learned from yoga – focus is everything. We cannot be all things to all people. If we try to do that, we end up being of very little value to anyone. Does that mean that what we offer is only useful to a handful of select people? Absolutely not. It may well be that everyone who comes into contact with your products and services takes away something positive. The question at hand is one of focus – yours. Where do you put your time and energy, both precious and finite resources? And to answer that question you need to figure out who you serve and why you matter to those customers.
Compass Yoga‘s ideal students are the once who aren’t going to walk into a traditional yoga studio. They’ve never tried yoga or meditation before though they’re curious and want to give it a shot because they want to be happier, healthier, and more at ease in their daily lives. And they have some specific therapeutic reason for seeking out yoga.
Could a long-time practitioner who is happy, healthy, and at ease get something out of a Compass class? Of course. Would I turn these people away from a class? Absolutely not – they will always be welcome. I remain steadfast in my belief that yoga is for every body. I’m just not the right teacher for every body and every student is not right for me. I love people who have the courage to begin from zero; I love to be a guide. My energy is focused on those beginners, and if others get something out of the teaching, then all the better.
The question “Who do you serve?” is fundamentally about finding our place in a crowded field; it’s about defining a way to shine with our gifts in one hand and our passion in the other. It’s about finding our authentic purpose and the people who will benefit most from us fulfilling our destiny. I have tremendous empathy for beginners and for people who are challenged with health issues, be they mental or physical. I was one of them and I will never forget how that felt. I will also never forget how useful yoga and meditation were to me in times of real trouble, and how much comfort they continue to provide on a daily basis. By serving those beginners who are challenged with health issues, I’m paying forward the gifts my teachers (and there were many!) provided to me.
It’s a nice idea to be inclusive and giving to anyone who wants to learn the lessons we have to offer. I recommend it as a way of life; I don’t recommend it when developing a business plan. Figure out exactly who you serve and why you’re the best person to provide that service to those customers. In business, focus is rewarded. Go too broad and you are setting yourself up for irrelevance.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.” ~ Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher
Tucked away on a quiet section of East 11th Street, there’s literally a tower of healing. Formerly the St. Denis Hotel, 80 East 11th Street is home to private practice wellness practitioners, now including Compass Yoga. I’ll be teaching yoga private clients and very small group classes at this address.
I learned about the building through an ad on Craig’s List. That ad led me to one place that wasn’t exactly right for me, though that place led me to connect with the building’s Facebook page where I posted a message and got a number of responses. Today I picked up the keys to a space I’ll be renting on an hourly basis, and took a look at a few additional space so that I can have a network of options for added flexibility in my client scheduling. I took the advice of my dear friend, Lon, and celebrated this big yesterday evening. Today, I’m rolling up my sleeves and getting down to work on my business development plans. Time to build a client base!
Breaking the chicken and egg cycle of commercial real estate
There’s a tough paradigm about being a private practice practitioner of any kind: it’s tough to start to build a client book without an office space and it’s tough (and expensive!) to commit to office space without having a client book. So what’s an enterprising lady to do? Set her priorities / nonnegotiables and plan to move forward. Here’s what mine looked like:
Priorities / nonnegotiables
Easy access by a number of subway lines
Quiet
Safe space – for client and for me
Doorman
Clean space conducive to healing
Rent by the hour at a reasonable rate
Opportunity to cancel if I needed to
No lease signing or commitment of hours required
Action plan:
Decide if there is an amount of money I’m willing to lose on the space – could I afford to rent it to do my practice teaching with friend?
Poke around Craig’s List to get an idea of going rates for this kind of space
Identify a few key possibilities to call and email to ask LOTS of questions
Check out the spaces in person if they pass the sniff test via phone and email
Establish a network of spaces to call on when I book a client
Knowing what you want is half the battle
This set of priorities and action plan gave me maximum flexibility, convenience, and an appropriate level of financial and operational risk that I could live with. I was lucky to find an entire building of wellness private practice spaces that I could cobble together to fulfill my priorities. Though I was also prepared to be lucky and very clear on what I needed. If you know what you’re looking for, it’s much easier to find it!
A step in the right direction
So now the fun begins – I start to build up my client base with the confidence that I have a few places that my students and I can call our home. My friend and client, Crystal, has graciously offered to cater sushi when I’m ready for my grand opening reception in the space. There’s an invite heading to an inbox near you!
I’m ready to dive in and see where all of this takes me in due time. It feels so good to begin. I am continually amazed by the direct correlation between the clarity of our asks of the Universe and its willingness to fulfill those asks just when we need them to fall in to place. Onward and upward in the name of greater healing!
I am blessed with a life filled with inspiring friends. I love to feature the important work they’re doing out in the world. Today’s features fall to Monica McCarthy and Sara Alvarez, two women finding their voices through their writing and their practice as coaches.
Monica McCarthy with pup, KenyaMonica McCarthy, the Lifestylista One of her mantras: “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~ e.e. cummings
Monica and I met through Twitter. I was heading out to a Meetup for Tech Nerds and Monica tweeted me that it sounded interesting. I invited her to join me, and we’ve been karma pals ever since. While she’s been blogging for quite some time, she has recently revamped the blog as one piece of her broader life coaching site. Monica’s mission to help creative professionals and entrepreneurs craft lives they love.
On her gorgeous site, she officially describes herself as “a Certified Holistic Health Coach, Recovering Actor, Writer, Speaker, and proud pup parent (isn’t she pretty?) with no plans of retiring. Ever.”
Though these are the parts of her self-description that I love the most and explains why we were such fast friends:
“I Feel most alive when I trust my intuition.
I Dream of having a second home in France where I ride my bicycle to the café to read and eat my daily chocolate croissant.
I Fear mediocrity.
I Lust after all things travel and have been fortunate enough to live/work/perform in Germany/London/Scotland/Japan.
I Drink Green juice, Joe’s iced coffee, Malbec, and Guinness with equal fervor
I went from bartender to Broadway to being my own boss.
I met Sara through yoga teacher training at Sonic Yoga and since then she has proven to be a bright, shiny, supportive light in my life. She recently completed her Holistic Health Practitioner certification and started a blog called Blissful Brides where she “tracks her personal experience as a Yoga teacher, Holistic Health Coach, and BRIDE.” Her business provides yoga and holistic health counseling for artists and professionals. With a heart as big as her home state of Texas, she is “dedicated to helping others follow their bliss and learn to make healthier lifestyle choices which will empower them to succeed in every aspect of life.”
Sara’s focus on a wellness plan that is “flexible, fun, and rewarding” makes her the perfect choice for people not only looking to improve their nutrition, but to also improve their lives.
I’m mighty proud to have these two ladies in my life, and I hope you’ll take the time to get to know them, too.
From Flickr“If your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime, then you aren’t thinking big enough.” ~ Wes Jackson
It’s so easy to fall in love with our ideas, so in love that we become blind to the glaring gaps and omissions that need to be thought through carefully. I had dinner with my friend, Michael, last night. He was one of the people whom I asked to review the first draft of my business plan for Compass Yoga. As usual, he responded with thoughtful insight, sound questions, and wise advice. He is one of those people who can tread that delicate line between being unfailingly supportive while also challenging my thought process, and he shares his opinions with grace and in the best interest of the person he is helping. He is tough but fair.
His advice is just too good for me to keep all to myself so I wanted to share it with you as well in the hopes that it helps your projects, too:
1.) First, start small. I have a tendency to take a project and throw in every last possible idea that may have something to do with my main goal. I let my imagination run wild, which in the concept phase is certainly fine and highly encouraged. Michael helped me to see that I had to stay true to my main mission for Compass as it gets off the ground and not get distracted with tangential side bars.
2.) Corporate and government grants are the most thankless forms of funding. I had been considering them as revenue streams and Michael encouraged me to put them aside for the initial launch. They’re a huge time suck and the arduous amount of paperwork makes them less than worthwhile for a new organization. What does make sense is to become an authorized contractor. A lot of paperwork there as well, but much more lucrative than being a grantee.
3.) Be self-sustaining. Michael and I both worked in the nonprofit world. We both spent a lot of time trying to encourage our respective organizations to generate their own revenue for the sake of sustainability. Though I’ve preached this to others, I didn’t take Michael’s advice in my own business plan. I needed his voice of reason as a strong reminder of the idea that “nonprofit” doesn’t equal “give away the farm”. Core services should be self-funding with grants for additional programming. In this way, an organization is never beholden to any one revenue stream.
4.) Keep your day job. This is a favorite topic of ours. We’ve both done the dance of how to balance a career with our passions and how to fund it all in the process. Having a day job with a stable income and reasonable hours provides entrepreneurs with the freedom to experiment as they scale. There’s no time pressure to get results so you can pay your bills, and therefore you can make all the right choices for all of the right reasons.
5.) The only way forward is together. When Michael read my business plan his first thought was, “You and what army are going to fill this enormous, latent need?” The mission is an audacious goal – the work of many lifetimes – and partnerships are critical. My life’s work is bigger than my lifetime, and therefore needs others to have as a great as impact as possible.
6.) Focus on your unique abilities. It’s well and good to frame up a feel-good mission that people will have some heart for. To put that mission into action, financial partners will need to understand how a partnership with Compass Yoga saves them a good deal of money over the lifetime of the partnership and that I can provide a service that they aren’t equipped to provide themselves. They need to fully understand in plain speak that they need what I have to offer, and that what I have to offer is more than they could get from any other partner. What makes us unique is what makes our market position defensible.
I left dinner with Michael feeling both grateful and hopeful. Grateful that he took so much time and care to offer this much support, and hopeful that I can actually get this going far sooner than I expected. By starting small there’s no reason that I can’t get going immediately. Many times, the tendency with big projects is to wait as if waiting will bring about some magical time when it all falls in to place. My experience has shown that magic doesn’t just show up; we have to get out there, work hard, and cultivate it. The magic lies within us.
In the past week, I have started to put together a business plan that will facilitate my goal of working on my own business full time. The admission of this goal has been a long time coming; for years I have tried to figure out what a lifelong career working for someone would look like for me. That picture never fully, or even partially, materialized. I would sit in my meditation practice, go to my yoga mat, and talk to my friends and family in the hopes that some clear picture would reveal itself in my mind’s eye. It was only recently that the answer bubbled up to the surface: my way forward lies in another direction and that direction must be of my own making.
On Sunday, May 15th I had an odd experience in Whole Foods in which I could feel my grandmother very nearby. Later on that day, I went home and began writing down how my own yoga-based business would take shape. I’ve had bits and pieces of this idea floating around in my mind for several years but all the pieces felt very disconnected from one another. On May 15th, some kind of magic found its way in and all of my seemingly disconnected pieces gelled together. I heard a divisive “shoomp” as I typed up my plan. I would ask a question and an answer would quickly rise up to meet it. My friend, Rob, summed up the result this way: “Christa, this isn’t a business plan. This is the work of a life.” I feel that way, too.
I’ve begun to circulate the plan to a very few trusted mentors and friends like Rob, people whom I continually ask for advice and guidance on just about every area of my life. As always they have responded with honesty, grace, support, objectivity, and an astounding amount of creativity. Most of them, while students of yoga or have some appreciation for its power, lie outside of the traditional yoga community. They have varied professional and personal backgrounds, savvy business minds, and a lot of heart. I am a lucky lady to know them.
Because so many of you have shown your unwavering support of my ideas through comments, tweets, facebook messages, emails, voicemails, and texts over the 4 years that I’ve been writing this blog, I wanted to share some of the details with you as they’re taking shape:
1.) Compass Yoga will incorporate as a nonprofit. This has been a decision that has required a lot of soul searching, fact checking, numerous hours of consultation, and more pro-con lists / decision trees than I can count.
2.) There will be a physical place that houses Compass Yoga. I have tried this changeable location model and while in many cases this has worked out, for this more refined business vision a permanent physical space is needed.
3.)Compass Yoga will continue to focus on working with underserved populations, and will actually deepen that commitment further with a variety of new programs.
4.) Partnerships will be a key component of the business structure.
5.)Compass Yoga will turn a good deal of its energy toward growing the depth and breadth of the yoga field for all practitioners and teachers.
6.) In order to bring this vision to life in as full a way as possible, I will be undergoing a good deal of additional yoga teacher training in the next year. I am grateful for my location in New York City where many of the top teachers in my chosen specialty reside and teach, and I am equally grateful for my current day job that provides me with the personal funding and flexible schedule to make my extensive yoga teacher training possible.
More details are developing every day as this picture becomes clearer and clearer. The way forward is unfolding…
“Are you really listening or are you just waiting for your turn to talk?” ~ Robert Montgomery
Do you remember a time when trust was where a relationship started? I have trouble remembering those times. I’m sure there was a time when trust was the norm, in the same way that our legal system once started with “innocent until proven guilty.” Now, we are a society of skeptics and cynics, but can you blame us? We feel cheated and lied to by companies, by our government, by our employers or former employers. The recession exposed a very sad and dangerous truth – we participated in an economy and a way of doing business that really was too good to be true. Double-digit positive returns are tough to sustain. We knew that, but we went along for the ride. In Margaret Heffernan’s words, we willed ourselves into blindness. We feel let don and disappointed and we have no one to blame but ourselves, which is too much to bear so we blame everyone else.
Enter Michael Masloansky, Scott West, Gary DeMoss, and David Saylor with the book The Language of Trust: Selling Ideas in a World of Skeptics. In all of our economics mayhem, we forgot how to talk to people in an authentic way. We forgot how to put others first. We’ve been so busy making excuses that we forgot to take responsibility. This book is meant to help us get back on track in the post-trust era (PTE).
It’s got some tough advice for us that is not going to be easy to hear, though not as hard to act upon as we might think. It gives us language guidelines under the very simple yet priceless principle that people believe what they understand. In other words, “Don’t be a wonk.” Drop the jargon and communicate in real language, not language that you think gives you some kind of desired image. And no one is interested in why you did something that was not in their best interest so drop that game altogether; it’s a battle that’s lost before it’s even started. Take responsibility and do better going forward.
The book lays out real world examples of communication gone right (Jetblue and Conservation International) and communications gone wrong (Toyota). It breaks down what worked so beautifully in the successful examples and how the unsuccessful examples can be improved. These examples give marketers (and that includes all of us who work on our own personal brand as well) a way to compare our current communication tactics against these examples, essentially creating a map for us to communicate more authentically with our audience.
This book should be well-worn after continuous consultation by marketers of all stripes. We’re living in a new age where trust must be earned at every moment. It’s a world of missteps from well-intentioned actions. In some ways, we may feel like we can’t win in this world of skeptics. Don’t throw in the towel. You can win – it’s just going to take a whole lot more work that it did prior to the PTE. The Language of Trust can help. Available in bookstores starting today.
“We are our boundaries.” ~ George Simmel, Sociologist
I read this quote on a blog by one this blog’s supportive readers, bwinwnbwimusic. The quote showed up just as I was thinking about a project I’m currently involved with. The Universe is so wise; it knew exactly the encouragement I needed. The project is not fun – difficult partners and a difficult team to manage. I was nashing my teeth a bit over how to proceed. I felt like my efforts, and even my creative abilities, were blocked. I was stuck, and quickly time was flying by.
Meditating on boundaries
I decided to sit down, close my eyes, and really focus on this quote from George Simmel. If I feel blocked, there must be some boundary I am trying to cross over and that boundary doesn’t have any give. What is the boundary? What lesson is it teaching me? How do I either traverse it, or find an authentic way to incorporate it into my plan?
Finally, an answer surfaces
Yes, the partner on this project is difficult. Yes, there’s a leadership vacuum and a team that is not proactive. The boundary though, the real boundary that I was wrestling with, was me. I’m the one who needed to grow and change because I am the only individual I really have control over.
It starts and ends with me – that’s leadership
The partner was difficult because I had not set firm guidelines with them. There is a leadership vacuum and I will need to fill it. The team is not proactive and so I need to be more prescriptive with them. I have the ability to influence and if the project is to turn out in a way that I’m proud of, then it is up to me to find a way to motivate, inspire, and bring all the disparate pieces and parties together. In this way, I am learning that leadership requires the close examination and then acceptance of boundaries. It’s back to the oldage of once I accept myself as I am, then I find that I can change.
On the New York Times blog Room for Debate several experts batted around Cathie Black’s quick appointment and quick dismissal as the Chancellor of New York City public schools. Most of them recapped what I thought were less-than-insightful points-of-view. One response, by the Cato Institute’s Neal P. McCluskey, brought up a very intriguing idea that I’ve been unable to get out of my mind for the last 5 days since I read his article. “In business, you don’t need public consensus to get things done. In something run by democratic government, you do.”
Cathie Black’s short tenure
Cathie Black was an abundantly successful giant in the publishing industry. She’s smart, savvy, and courageous. Taking the position as the NYC Public Schools Chancellor took a tremendous amount of guts. I don’t think she was fully-prepared for the complexities of the job. And while I was disappointed and shocked by some of her very public and distasteful mishaps (i.e., joking that birth control could help the overcrowding problems in schools), I was also sorry that she seemed to get very little guidance from former Chancellors. After a number of years working in the corporate world and after spending an equal number of years in the nonprofit world (some of that time in a government role), I whole-heartedly support Mr McCluskey’s opinion that making it in business is far easier than making it in the nonprofit / public sectors because of the consensus factor. The difference is public scrutiny and approval. I would go so far as to say that if you name any of today’s Fortune 500 CEO as the Chancellor of NYC Public Schools, they would likely follow in Black’s footsteps.
I’ve never bought into this idea that a good business person would naturally be a good fit as the head of a public organization. Business experience and the skills that come along with it, are not the be all end all of leadership. If anything, they’re only one small piece of the leadership pie. A leader also needs charisma, ethics, public speaking ability, creative acumen, and passion for the cause. Most importantly they need to have empathy and compassion for the people working alongside them. It’s entirely possible to cross the chasm, and the skills of business and nonprofit management can certainly support one another. That has absolutely been the case in my career. It just isn’t a given, which brings me to my latest political heartache – the potential candidacy of Donald Trump for President of the United States. Heaven help us – he may be the only Republican candidate who I fear more than Sarah Palin.
The Donald
On the Today Show last week, Meredith Viera asked The Donald why he thought he was qualified to be President. The first words out of his mouth? “Well, I hate to even say this, Meredith, but I did build the #1 rated show on NBC.” Given NBC’s recent track record of shows, I wouldn’t consider this a difficult feat. (That’s changed a bit in the past few years with the brilliant 30 Rock, and others like Parks & Recreation. For a while, The Office seemed to be their only saving grace.) The Donald’s second comment was that he’s an excellent businessman and therefore qualified to run the United States. And he topped it all off with his now-infamous rant about how President Obama is not a real U.S. citizen. I started having flashbacks to the ignorant dark ages of GWB. I have two words for you, Donald – “Cathie Black”.
What business people can learn from the public sector
For too long, business skills have been considered the silver bullet. “If you can run a corporation, you can do anything.” Bologna. As a business person myself, I think that view is elitist and short-sighted. We have to stop thinking of the public sector as the second sector. It’s much more complex than business, more difficult to lead, and to be honest, has much further-reaching, long-lasting effects on our society. The Chancellor of NYC public schools is responsible for educating the future adults of New York City. The President of the United States is the leader of the free world as it stands today. Think about that for a moment. These are incredibly awesome scales of responsibility, and need to be treated with the reverence that they deserve. Consensus, my dear business colleagues, is a much more lofty and difficult goal than driving stock prices and the bottom line. Approach these types of jobs with humility – we are beginners in this space. We have a lot to learn.
Compass Yoga has taken another step on the journey toward incorporation. A few weeks back our attorneys filed our Articles of Incorporation with the Department of Education. The Articles of Incorporation explained our reasons for being, and the board and I worked closely with the attorneys to get our objectives and the associated language just right. These Articles set the stage for the financial, governance, and programming structure. Get those wrong, and the whole mission is at stake. Luckily, our phenomenal attorneys have given us top-notch support from the get-go.
Christa Avampato 