We recently connected with Lisa Vogt and have shared our conversation below.

Lisa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

I don’t fancy myself as much of a risk-taker. I typically do things by the book. I’m a rule follower. I
graduated from high school, attended college, got an advanced degree, and settled into a career that
lasted thirty-two years. But, something inside of me kept saying “You need to own a business”. Even
though retirement sounded like a great idea, I just felt I needed to do something more. I set my sights
on becoming the “boss”.
My husband and I left behind the busy city life in Denver and headed north to Erie, Colorado. I have
always loved the countryside and was thrilled to finally be living among the corn fields. After settling in,
I began looking for the perfect place to open a yoga studio. For close to three years, I drove around
scouting out a spot. For some reason, I just couldn’t seem to go through with it. I would take my
husband to look at various spots but we never agreed on the perfect place. Then one day he told me,
“This is never going to happen. You are never going to open your own business.”
Game on! Within a week, I had a business plan, a lender, a realtor, and a letter of intent. Haute Yoga
Colorado opened 6 months later. It’s been a very risky endeavor especially in light of the events of the
past few years. We have struggled through the pandemic. We have faced closures, restrictions,
mandates, re-opening, and re-building. I can’t say that we are on solid ground yet but because of my
dedicated teachers and students, we are starting to see some growth.

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?

My name is Lisa and I own Haute Yoga Colorado. I retired from teaching high school in 2016 and after moving from Denver to Northern Colorado, I made the decision to open a business. 

I have always loved teaching so becoming a yoga instructor was a natural fit. I started practicing yoga in 2012 and truly believe that yoga changed the way I live my life. For me, yoga helped me put things in perspective. Yes, there are a lot of physical benefits to having a regular yoga practice, but for me, yoga has brought more mental stability than physical stability in my life. I want to help others achieve this so I decided that at the age of 57, I would open my passion business. Haute Yoga Colorado is a small hot yoga studio offering a variety of heated classes and a few non-heated ones as well. 

I am extremely proud of the dedicated staff that teach twenty-seven classes each week. They are very experienced, knowledgeable, and excited about teaching yoga. Our studio is state-of-the-art, equipped with radiant heat, dry steam, MMA mat flooring, and an ionization system to keep the air free of pathogens. We get many compliments about the studio design, cleanliness, and the attention to details throughout.

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

I retired from teaching high school in 2016 and after moving to Northern Colorado, I made the decision to open a business. I have always loved teaching so becoming a yoga instructor was a natural fit. I started practicing yoga in 2012 truly believe that yoga changed the way I live my life. For me, yoga helped me put things in perspective. Yes, there are a lot of physical benefits to having a regular yoga practice, but for me, yoga has brought more mental stability than physical stability in my life. I want to
help others achieve this so I decided that at the age of 57, I would open my passion business.

Haute Yoga Colorado is a small hot yoga studio offering a variety of heated classes and a few non-heated ones as well. Because there are very few hot studios in the Thornton area, we have a little something for everyone. Our classes include the traditional hot 26 + 2 yoga as well as, heated flow, restore, Reiki, HIIT, mat Pilates, yin, Trauma Informed Yoga for Youth, and Fundamental Yoga- a mid-week non-heated class for beginners or those you work a lot at the computers.

I am extremely proud of the dedicated staff that teach twenty-seven classes each week. They are very experienced, knowledgeable, and excited about teaching yoga. Our studio is state-of-the-art, equipped with radiant heat, dry steam, MMA mat flooring, and an ionization system to keep the air free of pathogens. We get many complements about the studio design, cleanliness, and the attention to details
throughout.

For all of us at Haute Yoga Colorado, we want our students to feel comfortable and safe in our space as we welcome people of all shapes and sizes, abilities and backgrounds. We want our students to feel better when they leave than when they arrived.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Covid took a toll on local yoga studios. Many long-standing studios closed their doors. Because of this, we had to expanded our class offerings to provide a greater selection of classes other than the traditional hot 26 + 2 style. We discovered that our students love the variety of classes ranging from non-heated to “Inferno” temperatures, with gentle stretch or intense heart-pounding, sweat dripping classes. 

We are adding even more classes to utilize the studio space throughout the day. Some of our niche classes include Haute Barre, Restore with Reiki, a gentle mid-day stretch, Yoga for Golfers, and Trauma Informed Yoga for Youth. We are happy to provide private classes catered to the student’s needs or interests as well as private group activities such as corporate team building, Yoga for Weddings, birthday parties or other special events.

Recently we began partnering with Renew Active to provide yoga for Medicare/Medicaid and other members of United Health Care at no additional cost to the subscriber.

For all of us at Haute Yoga Colorado, we want our students to feel comfortable and safe in our studio and our goal is for students to feel better when they leave than when they arrived. There are so many physical and mental benefits of yoga. My staff and I enjoy sharing our love of the practice with anyone who is willing to take a risk and give it a try. We welcome yogis of all abilities and backgrounds. As the owner of Haute Yoga Colorado, I take pride in the beauty of our space and the truly wonderful people who practice yoga with us.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hauteyogacolorado.com
• Instagram: @hauteyogacolorado
• Facebook: @Hauteyogacolorado
• Yelp: Haute Yoga Colorado
• Other: Zen Planner

Image Credits
Emily Pulaski and EL Pics