Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health and wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Amanda Mendez, Founder of Authentic Yoga Studio and Authentic Yoga Retreats, located in Boise, ID, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
I have two businesses within the same industry. Authentic Yoga Studio, with two locations in Boise, ID, and Meridian, ID, and then in the summer of 2020, with the uncertainty with how fitness locations were going to during and after the pandemic, I started Authentic Yoga Retreats, which is a travel destination yoga/meditation retreat business. So, either I am in the studio teaching a variation of heated practices designed to empower students or on retreat, getting to safely take other like-minded humans to beautiful destinations around the world. Really, our students are anyone who is ready to show up. To a challenge, an adventure, a community, a great workout, a beautiful work inward as well. I have worked with individuals that know nothing about yoga, trained athletes using it to enhance their performance, to skillful yogis that have been practicing for many years.
At Authentic Yoga, we are more than just a yoga studio. We are a community that is dedicated to holding space for humans to practice, grow, heal, to be themselves, get stronger, find connection, to empower themselves and others. Our mission is to create a safe, nurturing environment to share the wisdom of yoga, meditation, and wellness. The community found here supports one another to live a more empowered, creative, healthy lifestyle. We hold space for everyone to show up exactly as they are. This is a space to explore your personal yoga practice and self-transformation at your own pace in a comfortable, non-judgmental space, exactly as you are. You're not here to be perfect; you're here to be you!
Tell us about yourself
I started yoga when I most needed it. The funny thing is, I didn't even know I needed it. I was in a terrible marriage; my spouse was an addict, and I was also the caretaker for my mother, who was terminal with metastatic breast cancer. I had been working 2-3 jobs to support my family, and then that reality became my full-time job. Hot yoga had been the place I could show up to daily and escape my "mandatory reality," as I called it. It was hard and challenging. I wanted to quit a lot but then forced myself to be there, which saved me. It got me through the reality I was still facing, the hard time I was about ready to have life hit me with. My life was about ready to explode in the harshest way ever, and yoga is what got me through that. Once I started to understand that's what was getting me through, I showed up more and more. Once I started getting through it a little bit at a time, I knew it was something I had to share with others. If I could navigate through some hard life situations a lot of us are faced with throughout life, I had to share it with others, with the masses, but even if it was just one other person, it would be enough. After teacher training and started to instruct classes, it was just that thing that felt right. I had never known what "that thing" was for me. At first, I wanted to be a doctor in my early 20s, as I found out structured school wasn't for me. Then having different careers in my early 20s - moved into the legal field and thought that would be the path for me, working over 7 years for the prosecutor's office and then trained and worked not just as a legal assistant but as a Victim Witness Coordinator.
Whoever thought it would be the aptitude test in 3rd grade that told me I should be an entrepreneur, I didn't even know what that word meant. The more and more I got the chance to teach yoga, the more I felt at home. Every single time I lean more towards the direction of yoga, my passion, my love, it gives back to me. Another door opens like a sign saying, "hey, you're going the right way; keep doing it." Whether it be from an opportunity that presents itself, the students walking in the door, or a big breakthrough that happens for someone in the community. What motivates me to keep showing up is the beautiful humans that fill the space. They are so much more than just clients or students; they are friends and family.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
As a business owner, hopefully, I haven't found it yet. But I will say to keep a yoga studio up and running during the pandemic was quite a task. It took a lot of sitting with myself and observing before knowing how to move forward. I have never been one in my industry to do "the norm," and this wasn't the exception. Summer of 2020 as I started Authentic Yoga Retreats and put together and sold out my first retreat to Mexico in Sept 2020. Again I talked about those doors just opening. I put together another international retreat that sold out again. To top that off, at the very end of November 2020, a second location opened here in the Boise valley (Treasure Valley, which is Boise, and the surrounding locations). Not only was navigating starting a yoga studio from the ground up hard, Making it through the pandemic with 2 locations has been quite the task. Getting the privilege to travel a large group of human beings across the country to another has been so much fun as well. Knowing retreats were going to be a difficult task, either way, there's a lot more that comes with getting everyone from one place to another during the pandemic. It's all just a rewarding experience for me, whether I am teaching someone yoga or meditation for the first time, teaching a class or workshop, leading a teacher training, helping individuals travel internationally, or working with other women to help them get started on their own way to success, or just a big huge hug for the humans that walk into the studio. All of those moments have been my biggest accomplishment.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
The hardest thing, this sounds terrible when you just say it, but it's not getting rid of people sooner. But it truly is the hardest. I am not great at ending anything at all in my life. I am sure there are still a couple of boyfriends in elementary that I never broke up with. I say that jokingly but that's never been an easy thing for me; I want to be your biggest cheerleader. (Shockingly, guess what I did in high school) I am always rooting for humans; I want you to succeed just as much as I want me to succeed. My passion allows me to do that, but the business end of things doesn't always allow that. I have kept teachers longer than I should have, some because I didn't want to have to let them go; those are hard conversations to navigate through. Some of those situations have solved themselves and the teacher left. I called letting the universe work itself out, but really it was avoidance. It's hard to have those honest conversations with people. But it's necessary as you build your community or your brand in the business world; not everyone is going to be the right fit. It's coming to an understanding and letting everyone move on their own path.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
Don't!!! Kidding. Actually, I do help a lot of individuals get things started towards becoming a business owners themselves. It's never what I thought I would be doing, but here I am, so I want to help others find their craft, where they are needed in the world, and where they can add to their communities by building their very own business. First, don't follow your competition. Do you... even if you are doing something, someone else does. No one does you better than you. Unfollow them, get off Pinterest, and get off your phone. Your idea isn't in any of those places. Go for a walk, hike, take a yoga class, go run, or meditate. Be present with what you want to create in your life.
Next, you're going to have to show up when you don't want to, when you think you can't, when you don't think you have it in you and when you are questioning yourself. Very few of those people that are successful just happened to get there by pure luck. You've got to work for it and be prepared to work for it. That's why it needs to be your passion, your contribution to this world, your something bigger. You may have to work a lot harder than someone else; that's just part of it. Are you ready for it?
Last, you're going to fail. At some point in that journey, you're going to fail. Don't take it personally. Pick yourself back up, dust off, and decide how to start over. Even if the business doesn't work, you went for it. That's more than most.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://authenticyogastudio.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amanda.mendez.9400
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/badassyogiforlife/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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