Blog

Hi!

My name is Nicole D’Andrea. Welcome to my little corner of the Internet. This blog has been a long time coming.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved to read and write. I remember a childhood full of American Girl novels, Harry Potter and Goosebumps. I was (and still am) a late-night journaling fanatic (it helps me de-stress) and writing always came effortlessly throughout my years in school.

I studied English Literature during my freshman year of college, and while I still loved writing, I was craving a deeper challenge. My roommate at the time was a nursing student, and I remember being so impressed by her enormous textbooks and seemingly endless knowledge of the human body. In the fall of 2007, I transferred to The College of New Jersey to start my new major in Health & Exercise Science.

As it turned out, transferring to a much more academically demanding school in a major I was wholly unfamiliar with was not all puppies and candy canes. Nothing about memorizing muscles, calculating exercise prescriptions and working in a lab came naturally to me. At the same time, I experienced my first real heartbreak. Stressed, tired and a little desperate, I tried my first yoga class. That was the day that changed my life.

It was through yoga that I truly fell in love with the body and I was deeply committed to my practice. I graduated from college in 2010 and immediately started working for a geriatric rehabilitation company. But while I loved the job and the people there, I did not love the 9-5 grind, even early on. Growing more and more serious about yoga, I decided to enroll in a teacher training in 2013, and feeling the pull to buck convention in a big way, I quit my job on graduation day and resolved to make yoga teaching my full-time career.

I never regretted that decision, but full time yoga teaching was a tough grind. It was less Lulu and Insta and more long, difficult days that were stressful on my body, constantly hustling my services and waiting tables at night just to pay the rent. After four years of living paycheck to paycheck, I knew that something had to give. I still loved teaching yoga, but I was overworked, underpaid, in the wrong relationship and living in a crappy apartment. I was unhappy.

I always knew I wanted to open my own studio but was always making excuses. “I don’t really have the money,” “I can’t open in this town,” “I don’t want to settle down,” and “I’ll probably fail” were all part of my daily internal monologue. In the winter of 2016, the stars aligned for me. I really like synchronicities and man, were all signs pointing to DO THIS NOW: my relationship ended, my lease was up, I had some savings and my Grandmother (a realtor) found the cutest little (read: affordable) space in a town near my parent’s home. In January of 2017, I signed the lease on what was to become Blackbird Yoga Studio.

Thankfully, I knew from the beginning that loving yoga wasn’t enough to build a sustainable, profitable business. I didn’t know much about business ownership, but made it my mission to learn everything I possibly could. I found an incredible mentor (a former employer) who was willing to take me under her wing and devoured every single blog and book I could about small business ownership. After countless long nights (many of them sleepless), hundreds of classes taught myself, a few anxiety attacks, and a whole bunch of mistakes, I closed out my first year having generated a six-figure revenue. I was ecstatic.

I had no idea how much I’d enjoy running a business, but everything about it is an exciting challenge for me. I love creating systems, building a brand and telling a story. I love my team, our clients and the little home we’ve built together. I even like talking dollars and cents because let’s face it, the bottom line matters.

The start of this blog finds me in the middle of my second year of ownership. I just turned 30 and I’ve built a profitable business that’s allowed me to move into an adult home, eat nice meals and even take some time off every now and again. I’m in the best relationship of my life with another small fitness business Owner because when you’re living in your purpose, everything falls into place. The studio has grown from just me and a handful of other teachers to a full staff of 16 instructors, massage therapists, front desk staff and a manager. I just graduated a class of ten sparkling new yoga teachers and our community is growing and thriving.

I can’t help but feel like my life has come full-circle. I’m back to writing but this time with a mission: I write this blog to share my successes and failures. I want to reveal the nitty-gritty of the business because I want you, if you’re interested, to try out the tricks that work. I want to talk about time management because I know what it’s like to come home at the end of the day without an ounce of energy left for anyone else, or for yourself. I want to share my struggles because owning a business has hands-down been the most stressful thing I’ve ever done. But most of all, I write this blog because I want you to know that is IS possible to build the life you want. That work doesn’t have to be a job. That making money is necessary (and fun) but is just a means to free up time and energy for the things that really matter. I write this blog because I want you to know that you CAN have balance. You can have it all.