We were lucky to catch up with Kristin Lee Geiger recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kristin , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.

Oh my gosh…SO many things! I wasted time. I wasted money. I wasted brain cells and hours of sleep. I chased the wrong leads. I said the wrong words. No doubt I probably wasted a few good opportunities in that list, too. If I really sit back and look at the last 10+ years that led to today, all I can do is laugh at how truly green I was when I started. I had NO IDEA what I was doing! The thing about being an entrepreneur though is that, even with years of experience under your belt, you never really shake that feeling or know 100% what you’re doing. I wish they included that part in the dictionary! People are going to ask you questions you don’t have answers for. Problems are going to come up that you don’t know how to solve. You’ll find yourself pivoting your business on the fly in a way you never saw coming. Unfortunately, there’s no way to know what you need to know…until you need to know it. That’s your learning curve! As much as we all want to get to wherever it is that we’re going as quickly and intelligently as we possibly can, there’s really no way to shortcut your own growth as a human being. You can’t skip it! Honestly, why would you want to? That process of getting to learn as you go, and affording yourself the opportunity to evolve along the way is what makes entrepreneurship meaningful.

So, long story long: if I were starting over, what would I do differently? I’d actually give myself MORE time, more patience, and more space to mess up. I’d laugh more in the moment and less in hindsight. I’d value my mistakes. In fact, I’d make more of them. I’d take myself, and my business, A LOT less seriously. I’d throw the supposed timeline out the window. I’d look at decisions less like monumental crossroads and more like lab experiments. I’d handle fear instead of letting it handle me. Most importantly, I’d approach work more from the place I do today: as creative play. The paradox here is that I wouldn’t be able to articulate any of these musings if I hadn’t taken the exact path that I did, missteps included. This was all MY learning curve, you know? I needed that friction to grow. We all do! If I look at it from that perspective, I’m not sure I’d go back and change much of anything ;)

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Yes, of course! I first got into yoga when I was in college. I was really into distance running at the time and found yoga to be a great way to stretch and counterbalance all the miles I was putting in. Then, when I entered the workforce, yoga was kind of my refuge from the design office, that place where I could put all the stress and chaos away for a little bit, you know? One day after class, a flyer about teacher training caught my attention. I just remember thinking, “Wait a minute, you mean I could teach this stuff?!” I had no idea that was even an option for me. So, I jumped in! What I had thought would be a way to give back to the community in a Saturday side hustle quickly became my primary focus. Stitching yoga poses together was so much more up my alley than banging out tech packs behind a computer or trapsing around the fashion district trying to find the perfect button. I just loved teaching and being able to connect with people in a way that left us all feeling a little lighter. It was such a breath of fresh air for me! That kind of exchange was rather rare in the design office…

After I got my feet wet in the yoga world, I pretty much took on every opportunity possible to teach. I taught in studios, gyms, schools, homes, community centers, corporate offices, hotels, art galleries, churches, and event spaces. I held classes on the beach in conjunction with community clean ups. I worked with one-on-one clients. I partnered with non-profit organizations to give back or help raise money for causes I believed in. You name it, I did it! Several thousand hours of teaching later, I slowly uncovered my niche or that thing I was able to offer as a teacher that kind of made me, well, me. We all have something unique to bring to the table, right? I approached teaching from the perspective that, above all else, exercise should be sustainable and FUN. It’s adult play time! That boundless, kid-like JOY is such an important piece of the puzzle because, let’s face it…working out is WORK! Why on earth would we want to put ourselves through all the effort and discomfort week after week if it isn’t at least a little bit enjoyable and a lotta bit rewarding? Why waste the time and sweat if that thing we’re working so hard to do isn’t going to guide us all into our 80’s or 90’s with confidence and grace? In my mind, exercise shouldn’t have to be this big, gnarly thing we grind our way though. We do enough of that in other areas! Instead, I see exercise more as a vehicle that takes each of us to some place we want to be, maybe even some place we never thought was possible. Watching people surprise themselves, and catching the uncontrollable smile that usually ensues, is probably the coolest thing I get to witness as a teacher!

Somewhere along the line, that commitment to joy through exercise that had taken root in my classes ultimately led me into the online space with FLOFICIENT. It’s kind of like the “Greatest Hits” of everything I’ve ever learned and done as a teacher, all rolled into one easy to follow program that’s accessible from anywhere. I’d venture a guess to say that it probably turns most things you’ve been told about exercise on their head a little bit, too! FLOFICIENT is built to help you create your best fitness routine yet – one you absolutely LOVE and one that supports you in all the right ways. It’s also fully stocked with 100’s of time-saving yoga, fitness, and meditation classes to make those workouts a breeze and help you squeeze in a few minutes of movement on days when you need it most. I’ve been absolutely blown away by what people have been able to accomplish with it so far. Running and growing that program is now mostly what I do!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

One thing no one ever tells you when you set out to build a business or pursue a dream is how many OTHER challenges will creep into your life to pull your attention elsewhere. I swear it’s a test! I went through a phase there for a bit when I had just barely started FLOFICIENT where literally EVERY aspect of my life starting falling apart, work included. There was no warning. There was nothing I could have done to prevent it. One day, just BOOM! Everything came crashing down in its own weird way, ALL AT ONCE. It was overwhelming at its best and completely debilitating at its worst. I was, without a doubt, an anxiety-riddled, sleep-deprived emotional dumpster fire, spread tissue-paper thin and operating at my wits’ end. Not a great place to be as a yoga instructor, let me tell you! Even so, I still had clients to see. I still had a business to build. I still had goals I wanted to bring to life, even if my timeline had just doubled, or tripled into infinity. I think that was the most devastating of all, watching an already massive hurdle just fade farther and farther into the distance, hyper-aware that there was a regrettably large chance I may never actually reach it. If there was ever a time I wanted to give up, that was most definitely it.

At one point, I actually gave myself permission to waive the white flag and accept defeat if that’s what it came to. Oddly enough, that personal leeway turned out to be a pressure release valve. Staying in the game became a deliberate choice. Getting out of bed turned into a formidable accomplishment. Facing the day was an act of valor. Imperfectly trudging through the mud and checking off the next thing on the list was like mental bicep curls. If I was still standing, maybe I was doing alright. Somewhere in there I stopped worrying about the optics and just embraced the mess, myself included. I focused less on the difficulty of what was in front of me and more on the potential that might grow out of tackling it. “What’s the lesson here…” I’d think. That’s the only way I could move forward. Afterall, you’re only as good as your challenges, right?

So, is that really resilience or just not knowing “when to fold ‘em” as Kenny Rogers might say? My friends tell me I’m “resilient,” but I still shake my head at that a little. Mostly I’m just grateful I got through it. Relieved, honestly. Then again, I suppose this is the kind of stuff that’s harder to see from your own vantage point!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Totally! I feel like this one goes back to that question about resilience a little bit. For sure, the biggest lesson or idea that I’ve had to reprogram in my own head is that failure is not a death sentence. It’s actually something to be dug into, over and over again. In fact, I’d go so far as to say now that if I’m not making some kind of small mistake on the daily, then I’m probably not moving beyond the confines of my own comfort zone. If I’m not a little bit terrified of what that next goal or step is, I’m probably not reaching high enough. Moving forward means living in this space where you’re always a little bit uncomfortable and a little bit unsure. That’s when you know you’ve got things about right! It’s like Julia Cameron says in her book The Artist’s Way, “You can’t look good and get better at the same time.” It’s so true! If you want to improve, you have to let yourself be a little bit of a disaster first. That’s the part I used to have a really hard time with.

When I was younger, I think I kind of had the mentality of an old-school Hollywood casting agent – the kind that slowly spins around in their desk chair, peers over their spectacles to look you up and down, and flicking what’s left of a cigarette, decides your entire fate in one gravely, off-the-cuff sigh of, “You either have it or you don’t, Kid.” So, I leaned into what I was good at and pretty much avoided everything else. I’d cringe at even the thought of being “bad” at something. It never occurred to me that the things I wasn’t yet excelling at could actually become my biggest strengths…if I worked at them. Starting my professional life over as a yoga instructor and entrepreneur, while having to learn an entirely new skillset, was a huge lesson in that!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kristinleegeiger.com/
• Instagram: @kristinleegeiger
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristin-lee-geiger-56858131
• Other: FLOFICIENT: https://app.floficient.com

Image Credits
Rikki Young, Cathleen McGrath, Myself (Profile Image)