We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emily Figueroa. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emily below.

Hi Emily , thanks for joining us today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

The internet gives us this illusion that it is all fun and joy being your own boss. That all businesses will or can be successful with time, blood, sweat, and tears. If you just get that one post, go viral or catch that one break everything will go easier from there, but what about compromising your art to get the growth. Where is the line? In the dance world, that line is difficult to not cross. Just like in any passion or hobby there is always someone more talented, more experience, naturally more gifted and I think that is the hardest part of pursuing your dreams and creating a business out of it. I’m a dancer first and a studio owner second, but when your 24 years old trying to learn and navigate how to properly run a successful business and everyone is telling you what you’re doing wrong or how to do it better while trying to balance your personal training as a dancer, you literally want to explode. I’ve been told I’m a cool person but a horrible boss. I’ve been praised for how hard I work but get nagged at when I make a mistake. I’ve pushed my own training aside to hustle at another job just to make sure my employee’s get paid. So, when I have moments of frustration, or I yell I’m told I’m not considerate enough. I’m rude. I’m not approachable. What I have learned is that 1. I am part of the problem. 2, I am not the ONLY part of the problem. I played the martyr. Took in all the blame for being the problem even though I knew I didn’t always do anything wrong. I wanted to talk to whoever would listen about how everyone else was in the wrong and couldn’t sympathize with me. Essentially, I was actually doing what they were doing to me except instead of them taking blame they stood their ground and decided to walk away from something they viewed as toxic. My mindset was “Yall didn’t work 3 jobs over covid and opened a business to pursue your dance dreams” I did. I thought that gave me a pass on how to treat people. I felt misunderstood because I was hurting, No one was giving me a break and I was working non-stop and forgetting about my training. My dreams. No one was able to see how jealous I was that they weren’t the businesses owners. Seeing your once staff, training at your old studio or without you. Showing each other love on social media and just ignore you. It hurt. When I finally figured out my feelings, I realized a lot. I need to set boundaries and make time for myself. I need to process and communicate in a proper manner. I am allowed to be mad and yell. It doesn’t make me a bad person. Apologizing doesn’t make things go back to the way they were. The best thing to do now is take this new mindset, that I am still working on, and focus on what I can control, The growth of my art and business.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am a Houston native running a Family-owned restaurant by day and professional dancer/studio owner by night, Restaurant life has been in my family for over 30 years. I grew up learning how to do every job. While I wasn’t doing that, my favorite hobby was dancing. I was an award-winning choreographer under Soreal Dance Studio, but now I am an award-winning choreographer co-owning Garage 713 Studio. We are a prominent studio in the Houston area providing hip hop industry-based classes for people of all ages and levels. My goal is to continue my family legacy in the restaurant industry while also establishing one for Houston dancers, so they don’t have to move to LA, NYC, or ATL to fulfill their professional dreams.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

My biggest lesson that I had to unlearn is not giving people chance. I definitely use judge people just off looks and what others would say about them before actually getting to know them. This comes from a place where it was taught and if you didn’t agree with them, you were looked down on. I didn’t want to be unwelcomed in the Enviromint I was in, but I also wanted to be able to network and get to know people more, but I felt like I couldn’t because certain advantage would have been taken away from me. Looking back, I would have grown and became better had I not let judgmental adults scare me.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When I decide to part ways with my dance studio of 9 years, I had also lost all my “friends” and a path to getting me closer to my dreams. Depression and anxiety took over. I had created an eating disorder to cope with not addressing who was at fault. I had gained over 45lbs and was hospitalize for starving myself. When I went to see my doctor about this initially, I thought I had thyroid and my doctor asked me to get blood work. When the blood work came back, and everything looked normal my doctor then asked me to fill out a questionnaire and have a session with a therapist. They had both come to the conclusion that I was dealing with depression. With this being around the time of COVID starting out, I told them “Well everyone is kind of depressed right now we’ve been locked in our houses for 5 months. There is something else wrong. I can’t be that depressed. I’m not kind of person.” Being so judgmental and not wanting to accept the fact that I was dealing with depression and anxiety was the hardest part to get pass. After crying to my mom and everyone about it, I finally came to terms with it and decide to get on medication for it. That was a big deal for me because I tried to stay away from medicine and do things as natural as possible. My doctor had me on 2 medicines, going to see a therapist, and a nutritionist. While going through all of that I wasn’t dancing like I use to. I was working a new job with late hours, and still trying to keep my family restaurant a float. I also had to come to terms with as much as my old studio and friends were shitty, I was also a selfish shitty person and I wanted to do better. The blame game gets you nowhere. After 6 months on my medication, I started to see results and it motivated me to not give up on my dance dream. that’s when I started throwing the idea of owning a dance studio to my boyfriend and we get took off from there. I learned a lot about myself in my battle with depression and I know it will also be a part of me, butn now I am able to figure out who/what is triggering it and how to take the proper set to “fix” it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.garage713studio.com
• Instagram: @emilyisabelfigueroa
• Facebook: Emily Figueroa
• Youtube: garage713studio
• Other: tiktokm: @emilyisabelfigueroa

Image Credits
Kevin Nguyen Natasha Bermuda