This will be a bit long winded, but I think it’s a pretty good story of ambition and resiliency.
My love of movement began when I was just three years old and my Dad took me to ice skate for the first time. My skating era lasted over fifteen years and brought me many joys, sorrows, and lessons. The biggest one being, you are going to fall down time and time again but those falls only define you if you allow them to. It is a choice to get back up, keep going, and write your own definition. Injuries from said falls lead me to physical therapy for which I am grateful as this was introduction to a really natural career path for me.
When my skating career came to a close and I officially entered the workforce, I felt lost, bored, and incomplete. Going to the gym left me unfulfilled. I desperately wanted something that brought me the joy in movement and community that skating had for all those years.
My mom was taking Zumba at the time. I like to dance so I tagged along. It was fun & I needed direction. Enter my Zumba instructor era. This was a great start for me in leading group fitness and soon I was presented with the opportunity to instruct rhythmic indoor cycling. Despite literally never having been on an indoor bike, I said yes. Guys, I sucked. I couldn’t get it. I told the gal she was going to have to find someone else. With a lot of encouragement, I decided to stick it out and eventually fell in love with the feeling dancing on a bike gave me. Enter my cycling instructor era. Unfortunately, this particular endeavor was not the right fit for me so we parted ways.
At this point I was back to wondering what the heck to do with myself. I started working out more with my husband, Mike, who is into supplements. Out of the kindness of his heart he got me this supplement that was going to turn me into superwoman or something (ladies, we already are superwomen, naturally) …I took it once & I was up for thirty-six hours straight. That night, while lying there wide awake, I dreamt up Studio 619. Ironic.
In summer of 2017, I dove headfirst into the business start up world which was a world I knew absolutely nothing about but naively thought “How hard could it be?”. Sometimes I long for that naive, inflated confidence. I had, and still do, an epic support system. My mom’s cousin was a business banker, both my brothers are small business owners, my dad is a jack of all trades and knows a master in each of them, my mom is fiercely committed to my success, and Mike is a saint. I put a business plan together, found a space, and signed a lease for a commercial storefront in a strip mall. Notice I didn’t say I used a realtor or had an attorney look over the lease; we’ll circle back to that. So there we were, jack hammering concrete up for plumbing, recruiting friends and family to help paint and lay floors, creating a logo and a website, searching for instructors, and tallying up a budget that was six times too low. We made it happen and in January of 2018 the doors to Studio 619 opened.
I was in WAY over my head. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. The next two years were full of highs, lows, and countless lessons that made reality feel like a crushing weight and slapped that naive, inflated confidence right out of me. Thank God I still had the support of those who helped get me started and now an entirely new tribe from Studio 619. The bills were too high and I got stuck in a battle with the landlord over a lease I never should have signed ultimately forcing me to close Studio 619. Not only did I feel like a failure but I felt like a huge part of me was gone. This was a hard fall and it nearly took me out for good.
I decided I was going to get back up. I was driving past Platinum Fitness where I took group fitness classes in high school. I knew they no longer offered group classes and wondered what they were doing with the space so I reached out. A short time later, there we were again building a space from the ground up. I needed a new name not only for a fresh start but because of a major lesson I learned. You have to work ten times harder on marketing and branding when your business name does not say or imply what kind of business you are. Inspired by my tribe of supporters and how it aligned so perfectly with group fitness, Tribe Fitness was an obvious choice that I never thought twice about.
We opened Tribe Fitness in February, 2020. Yes, that’s right, my revival came just in time for a global pandemic. If it were not for our new home being inside of a well established business with an owner who was confident in my long game, we would not be here today.
Here I am seven years into my entrepreneur era with a much more cautious confidence, ever evolving wisdom, and an incredibly grateful, humble heart.
Cheers to the ride,
Calli