We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Thaddaeus Irby a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Thaddaeus, thanks for joining us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?
I am in a very unique position, as I am both a business owner and I also maintain a “regular job”. I am very happy doing both. I operate from a perspective that happiness is an inside job, and we should only do things in life that makes us happy. Most of my adult life, and over the last 20 years, I have maintained a regular job in a wide variety of Fortune 100 companies that are in the Engineering, Information Technology, Academic, and Aerospace industries. But I would like to consider myself a new Business Owner – as a Yoga & Meditation studio
Their have been instances where I have desired to step away from being a Business Owner, and go all in on my regular job because it is known and familiar to me. The most recent time these thoughts have come across my mind was late Summer 2022. At this time, I was leasing space for my yoga studio, which was ok at the time. The lease was very affordable. My thought process, based on my professional and academic experience, is to always own and to avoid leasing long-term. An opportunity had risen to buy a building that fits the vision of where I want to take yoga & meditation: health & wellness. The cost of the building exceeded my budget. This brought me to a point where I realized that if I really want to step deeper into the world of entrepreneurship, I will need to take personal financial risks and leverage additional alliances. This was my personal inflection point: be a business owner, or walk away.
As a Business Owner, I know that if I am not in pursuit of the vision for my business, then their is a low ceiling for me financially and also a low ceiling for the community in which I serve. I have many life goals, and I cannot operate in a “what if” scenarios. That kind of thinking will impact my happiness. So my thoughts immediately shifted to, I have to try, I have to take the risk, so let’s get this building and enjoy this business owner journey.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
One of the foundational pillars of my brand is based on my 20+ years of professional experience in Corporate America and Academia.
Within Corporate America, I have experience in Program Management, Product Management, Business Transformation, Organizational Design, Operational Excellence, Process Management, Business Development, IT Service Management, Portfolio Management, Strategic Planning, & Proposal Writing in Automotive, IT, and Engineering organizations. I am a U.S. Air Force veteran. My career experiences allowed me to be seen as an Enterprise-level Portfolio leader that specializes in managing stakeholder expectations, scope planning and management, the user experience, project management, risk/opportunity/mitigation, cost management, negotiation.
Within Academia, I have taught within the School of Business – undergraduate and MBA graduate classes that focuses on business, management, leadership, and strategy. My experiences here allowed me to also teach executive level classes to major organizations.
I hold a Doctorate of Management, M.S. Project Management, and a B.S. Business Administration. I also hold process management and information technology certifications.
My performance has been recognized many times. Some awards received include: Michigan Chronicle – Men of Excellence Award, Black Engineer of the Year (BEYA) – Science Spectrum Trailblazer Award, Celebration of Excellence – Individual Excellence, BEYA – Modern Day Technology Leader, DoD High Performance Computing – Up & Coming Hero, U.S. Presidents Community Service, the U.S.A.F. Joint Service Achievement Medal. I have also been nominated for Professional Achievement Award, and a Career Achievement Award on two separate occasions.
But the above is only one aspect of my foundation / my brand / who I am. I am also a father, a plant dad, retired long-distance runner, avid book reader, wine lover, professional consultant, and a yoga/meditation teacher.
A yoga and meditation teacher is where my current business owner experience is and is the current focus of my brand expansion. I had an affinity for yoga for many years, but I got serious with this practice in 2019 when one of my yoga teachers recommended that I take yoga teacher training so I can rediscover who I AM. Pulling on that rediscovery thread in 3 months of yoga teacher training allowed me to be who I AM, but also pull forward my past professional experiences to create a very unique brand that can serve the community. This brand focuses on inspiration, restoration, and balance.
In the health and wellness industry, or more specifically, the yoga industry, the focus tends to be on mindfulness, breath, cool yoga poses, and/or being present. So you will see flavors of this in a yoga and meditation class, which is great. My brand also moves vertically into restoring and balancing the whole person. So we aim to dig into relationships, the family, social, economics, finance, communication, art and science education, and other day-to-day areas that can impact the mind, body, and soul. Doing all of this work is where we are most proud.
How’d you meet your business partner?
One thing that I learned early in my professional career is you can do a lot of good things by yourself. One person can achieve a lot. But burnout is real in pursuit of those achievements. Balance is needed. And because of that, you should always have a team around you, not only for inspiration, but for partnership, mentoring, and support. This raises the achievement ceiling that much higher. The capacity to do more and achieve an even bigger vision becomes more attainable. Because of that, I am always on the look out for business partners in all that I do.
I met the co-founder of my business when I was going through yoga teacher training. She had known one of the yoga teachers for many years. We ended up building a strong friendship because of our similar life interest and passion for yoga. Once the COVID-19 pandemic began and quarantines started, we stayed in touch. We often taught each other yoga classes one on one to support our overall well-being. During these times, we often talked about the need to start our own health & wellness business – what it would initially look it and the vision of what it could become. One thing led to another over a 2 year period, and here we are, co-founders of Balance & Flow Yoga Studio.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
Over the last 20 years, I have led many (diverse) teams. My doctoral dissertation touches on the art and a science to managing a team and maintaining high morale. Research shows as a foundation for management, all employees desire two things from their managers: be present and show empathy/support their personal and professional lives. If you do these two things, the team will perform. This could mean being the first to arrive, being the last to leave, rolling your sleeves up and doing the work with the team, encouraging vacations, public or private recognition, or even paid training.
To maintain high employee morale, managers must understand each employees preferred leadership style. No employee wants to be managed the same. All employees have different wants and needs every day because our lives evolve every day. People in general have a wide variety of experiences throughout the day. Some of these experiences are life altering. Based on this, managers have to have high levels of emotional intelligence, be a strong active listener, and observant of non-verbal queues. These traits will help them adjust their leadership style based on their employees needs at that moment. Doing this consistently with all team members will help keep the team’s morale high.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.balanceflowyogadetroit.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/balanceflowyogadetroit
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/balanceflowyogadetroit
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/dr-thaddaeus-irby
Image Credits
Thaddaeus Irby