Business Strategy and Fitness with Christa Gurka Founder and CEO Pilates in the Grove

About this episode:

Christa Gurka is a board certified physical therapist and nationally certified pilates instructor specializing in pilates based rehab and injury prevention. She is the founder and CEO of Pilates in the Grove in Miami Florida. What started out as a passion for mindful movement transformed into a movement to help people learn to feel better by moving better.

Over the last few years Christa started a mentorship program to support other female boutique fitness and wellness entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses to suit the lives they wanted for themselves and their families. Outside of the studio Christa enjoys walking her pup Duncan and cheering on her favorite athletes her two teenage sons at their various sporting events.

Topics Discussed:

How being a business owner helped Christa learn how to be a better leader
How she builds her business around her life and not the other way around
Her tips on how to free up your calendar and prioritize time
Why helping others brings Christa joy both personally and professionally

About Christa:

Christa is a board certified physical therapist and nationally certified pilates instructor specializing in pilates based rehab and injury prevention. She is the founder and CEO of Pilates in the Grove in Miami Florida. What started out as a passion for mindful movement transformed into a movement to help people learn to feel better by moving better.

Read a raw, unedited transcript of this episode:

Thank you for joining us, Christa. Tell us about your business, Pilates in the Grove and what gave you the courage to launch it.

Thank you so much for having me. The opportunity to chat with you is really exciting. Pilates in The Grove was started like a side hustle. I am a physical therapist by degree Now I consider myself an entrepreneur. Working in a Pilates based physical therapy practice in Miami, Florida, and we were using Pilates with our patients to help them get better. And people loved it. And I said to my boss at one point, we have all this built in clientele. And then when they're done, we're sending them to all of these studios around town. And it just seems silly to me. You know, they're always asking, where can I do more of this? So he said, Well, what do you think? And I said, Well, it would be great, I think, if we could have a place where they could do some small group classes we were an insurance based facility and then doing private pay was expensive for some people. And he said, okay, great, let's do it. And so two of my patients at the time and my boss said, Let's be partners I had no idea what business was. I didn't have that modeled for me growing up. My mom actually is an immigrant in this country, never went to college. she worked two jobs, so I just didn't know what that meant. But we opened a 300 square foot space right across from my clinic, and we started with group classes and that was in the middle of a recession. I was too young to know we were going through a recession. So ignorance was blessed at that time. And fast forward, 12 years. We are a multi-location, multi seven figure business, so very proud of that.

That's so smart because it's just like a rehab. once you start to get better, you want to continue. And stretching is good no matter what kind of sports you're doing, no matter your age, it's such a good thing for the body.

Yeah, and that's really why I loved Pilates, because I came from a strength and conditioning background. I was an athletic trainer, I was an athlete in college, and that's what I thought I wanted to go into. And then I started working with athletes and I was like, Yeah, this is a lot of I don't really think this is where my energy wants to be spent. So I started with Pilates at my clinic and I saw these amazing changes people were having in their bodies and also becoming more aware of things. So becoming more aware of how they were breathing and becoming more aware of, Oh, I am shifting or moms, for example, when we have kids carrying our kids on that hip all the time and then I don't understand, why am I one shoulders down in all of my all of my career, whatever I've done professionally, I'm a teacher at heart. I love teaching people how they can help themselves and what's possible for them. And that's transpired over everything in my career.

You grew your business from one location to multiple locations and eight figures like you mentioned. Congratulations. Such a big deal. You share with us your approach to leadership and what you think is the most crucial element for growth.

The person I had to become to be the leader that my company needed was the hardest barrier for me to overcome and growing the business. When I first started, I didn't know what I didn't know. There was safety in that. As the business started to grow, I went from being a technician to then managing people, and that was really hard because I could teach applied class. I could treat anyone that comes in with a low back with my eyes closed. Managing people is an entirely different skill set. So I had to. Develop myself personally, and that was challenging. I'm super transparent about this. I started going to therapy to become less reactive about things. I'm very much a people pleaser. I'm very much a I strive on external validation. So when people if you do the Enneagram and everything, I'm a three. if people left me, for example, I'm going to quit. I'm going to do something. I took it very personally like I was a bad boss, and I used to get so angry and resentful and I realized that I should be grateful that I was a part of their journey. And I had a small piece in their growth and that they would remember that they worked at Plotting in the Grove and what kind of a leader I was. It took several years. And what we've gone through in the last couple of years almost forced my hand because we were forced to be separated where I couldn't micromanage anymore. So one of the best things a leader can embody is listening more than they speak. And. Allowing ideas and innovation to happen. Because when we I think the one of the biggest things that that stifles growth in a company and innovation is when people don't feel they can be vulnerable in front of their leaders, and so they don't feel that their leaders trust them. And that is the first then people will just stop offering ideas. And so we as leaders have to put ourselves at the cause of that sometimes and say, I need to be a better leader. And there came a point, my business, where I said, my staff, my team deserves a better leader than I'm being to them right now.

That's such good advice and thank you for being so honest because we all have our strengths, and when there's so many different dynamics of leadership, it's managing the people, it's managing the growth, it's keeping up with all of the things going on within the business. It's such good advice to say, I have to look at myself and how can I improve as a leader and what areas do I need to develop?

Yeah, and I caution business owners to especially business owners like myself, for example, that we were the technicians in the business. some of us don't have the business acumen that maybe somebody who has an MBA that's investing in a certain brand does, and we can learn it though. It's just a skill like anything else, and we can learn how to do it. Well, when I sometimes see business owners and I put myself in this category too, we become very much like I was Oh, they're doing this, they're doing that. They can't learn the training. Well, I had to start learning to put myself at cause with that. So if they're not learning the training, what am I doing that is stifling that learning curve? Maybe my onboarding process is, first of all, maybe I don't have an onboarding process. Maybe it's just like, Hey, you got hired here, start working, right? Or maybe I'm not asking for feedback enough, or maybe I'm not listening to the feedback, or I'm not holding my team accountable, which is a really hard skill to learn, is to be able to hold people accountable in a safe space where you're not feeling bad about it. someone told me this once. That really helped. She said, you are responsible for your delivery of the feedback. Good news. You're not responsible for their reaction to it. So I thought that was really helpful. So it allowed me to see I can give feedback obviously in a tactful, respectful, mutually respectful way. I am not responsible for their reaction to it.

Such good advice.

Yeah. Because I think some of us are afraid to give feedback because they're like, they're not going to like me. They're going to get mad. If they get mad, that's something that's coming up for them. And you can discuss it. but you have to if we shy away from giving the feedback because we're afraid of them getting mad, then it just piles up and then we become resentful and there's all sorts of other stuff that we need to that. So again, I'm not saying that we should deliver news in a harmful or derogatory way, but if we're saying it and you have already built a team of trust, then they can hear it and absorb it in their own time and if listen, if someone keeps showing up late to work and you have to bring that to their attention. It's a fact they're late to work. So. Right. Yeah. So.

What is your strategy for putting your personal needs ahead of your business needs?

So that is a great question. it's important to create a business around our life. So many people go into it creating their business first and then fitting their life into their business. We have to create the life we want and see how our business fits into that. I have started saying, what do I want for my life right now? What I want for my we were speaking preshow my oldest son is 18. He's going to go to college. I want to spend time with him. In six weeks, he's going to be gone from my home. And so I've created my life now to block out time so that I can spend time with him. And that's how I've created my life. And, I try to take Fridays for myself to do things, whether that be with my kids or go get a massage or go on a walk with my dog I love to read. The other thing that I really enjoy doing, I just started implementing this year were CEO days and a lot of people talk about them. Where I block out every quarter, two full days, I go somewhere local, and I just focus on uninterrupted strategy for my business. But that is also for me, self-care because it allows me not to feel stressed for the next quarter, I've planned it out. I know what I can fit on my schedule, I know what can't get on my schedule and I will stick to those boundaries and I will learn to say no. I love all of this advice because you're right, once a quarter you should. Taking that day has to make you feel so much less stress because you have a future plan in your mind, at least a tentative one or a firm.

Yeah, exactly. And it allows me to do kind of a higher level I do work a lot from home even though I have a brick and mortar location. But my kids are home and the computer are going off or someone's texting me a question or I try to shut my notifications down. it's not always uninterrupted, but when I go away, I'm not in my home environment. So I can focus on what I need to focus on.

And it's so easy to be in the business. You're so in the business, but taking that time away to work on overall strategy is great and I love that you say build your life first and see how your business fits in, because so often we can think, Oh, I don't have time for a run today the times I've done that. But it's interesting because recently I made a shift where I'm going to get that in in the morning because my days go better, my meetings, I'm happier throughout the day. And I agree with you. I have eight-year-old twins. And from the beginning I said, I don't want to miss out on these moments because there is going to come a day where they're going to want to be off with their friends even more than they are at eight years old. And we can now create that. you can work remotely, it's always a blessing and a curse, because then you can always be on, you can always have your phone on you. But I think in a way I took my son on spring break and we went on a ski trip, but I was able to work from there. I recorded podcast like we were talking about in the closet But I was still able to work. you don't have to follow somebody else's model. You can create a business that supports the life you are currently in because you have eight-year-old twins now. But ten years from now, when they're 18, you're going to be in a different place in your life, so if you have littles at home, you're in a certain season right now, it will change when they go to school. It will change when they go to high school. It will change when they go to college. there's nothing wrong with saying in this season, what I'm prioritizing is this.

So true. And I love that you say you don't have to create your business like someone else's model that's giving someone permission to do whatever they want within the business, which sometimes can be hard for a business owner because you think, oh, I need to do it the certain way.

And honestly, what they teach you in school was designed by corporate men in a boomer generation, for the most part, which had their wives at home.

You've created simple techniques to make the switch from hard to productive. We'd love to know what they are.

Oh, yes. Are you working hard or are you making things hard? Because I think I'm Generation X. I was you know, we were taught, put your head down, work hard, strive to be the best. That's the only way you're going to get accepted, especially as a female. Even though, I didn't grow up with Title nine, so when I was wanted to play sports there was no T-ball team for me. There were no girls intermingling with boys now, so even my dad was like, you're going to have to work really hard. You're going to have to be smarter than all the other people out there. And so that you learn that growing up, sometimes what we think is if it's not hard, if it's easy, sometimes we self-sabotage that work because we're like, Oh, we don't deserve that money because it was not hard. So I encourage people to think and I ask women this all the time, is it hard or are you making it hard? one of the things I do is I use a project management system. I love asana. And to me, if it's not an assignment, if it's not in my calendar, it does not exist for me.

To weather there.

And I even have something like 2:00, it says from 2 to 3, I pick up my kids, I feel like says 2 to 3, pick up my kids on a day three days a week. One of my sons has an online class, so then he goes to school late. So those those days I have that blocked off.

You should see my calendar, too. I'm nodding because I have the pickup times for my kids too.

I have to remind myself about that, because if I'm in a call, sometimes I remember, oh, I have to get off, I have to go get my kids. So I definitely recommend a project management tool. And then I recommend I love the CEO days because it does allow me to prepare for the I do 90 days let's say for example, I reach out to you about trying to be on the podcast, but if you said, Oh, can you do tomorrow? I've started being very intentional that if my schedule's full, I have to say no setting boundaries is the easy part. sticking to boundaries is the hardest part. And there's ways to say no that you don't have to feel guilty about that's been the biggest thing for me this year. I've even committed to not working past 3:00 I'm just energetically I'm drained by 3:00.

I completely agree. If it's in my calendar, it will happen. I'll find a way to make it happen. And I also like to time block I'll write out the day of what I'm doing, from what time to what time. And I completely agree. At the end of the day, I love to put the phone down and say, okay, my work is done. What you do at that 3:00, I like to say, okay, I'm not thinking about this anymore because it gives your mind that mental break that we all know for sure.

I even set my do not disturb on my phone I don't get the slack beep anymore what did somebody say? Was it important? Should not be important, but if I don't hear it, then I'm not worried about it, Do you have three simple strategies to trim hours off your calendar starting tomorrow? What are they?

I love time blocking like you do. My first simple strategy is decide. How many hours in the day you want to work. also are you a night owl or you an early bird? I technically am neither, but I am much more productive first thing in the morning. So I try to do all of my creative work first thing in the morning. that first 2 hours is really, if that means creating social media posts or writing or doing a reel or something like that, anything where I have to be creative, I get done first. some people are night owls, some people are really creative. My husband he's super focused after like everyone goes to bed. You're not. I'm not.

I guess I am a night owl. I'm more much more awake in the afternoon. But it's interesting to think about structuring your day as transactional versus creative.

Strategy number one is to decide and if you think you need to stop working it, two, because your kids come home at two or you're energetically not ready to then focus on what it is that you need to get done. Turning your notifications off is really important, so maybe I recommend to some business owners too. you can have an autoresponder on your email that says, I check emails at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Please note that if you're emailing me between that time, I will respond to you in my email window. That's what you can do. So you're not checking email all the time.

That's a great boundary, too.

I ask this question at the end of every podcast episode, and magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy. What is one tip you can leave with us today about how you find and live your joy?

Things that bring me joy are helping other people help themselves. when I help a patient realize that they don't have to have back surgery because they are invested in their program and are getting better. It brings me joy when I help other female business owners realize that they can have the business that they wanted. And so any time I can do that, I lean into that. And I feel it when I'm doing things like this, podcast interviews where I'm like, I hope that something I said resonated with one person it lights me up inside. And that really does bring me joy.

You have built an incredible business. Congratulations on all you've accomplished. Please share with us how and where we can find you. https://www.pilatesinthegrove.com/ or over on Instagram at Pilates in the Grove. For my personal brand, https://www.christagurka.com/ and on Instagram at Christa Gurka.

Sabrina ParkJune 30, 2022