#5: Sadie Lincoln, Barre3

Welcome to From Startup to Grown up, the podcast. My name is Alyssa Cohn. I'm an executive coach, an angel investor, and the author of From Startup to Grown Up. Each week I talk to founders, creators, advisors, investors and builders of all kinds about their insights and experiences in going from startup to grownup. This is episode number five and I'm so excited to have Sadie Lincoln on the podcast today. Sadie is the co founder and CEO of Barre3, a studio fitness company that she co founded with her husband Chris, and which has over 170 franchise locations worldwide, each of which is owned by women entrepreneurs. Now, if you don't know what Barre is, it's a combination of ballet, Pilates and yoga and it's focused on creating a strong body and as well as inner confidence, all within a connected community. It's also a massive business and Bar 3 is one of the most successful companies within it, privately owned by Sadie and Chris. Since this is mostly an in person experience, of course, Bar three had to pivot quite a bit during the pandemic and Sadie and I talked about how they did that and what she learned. We also discussed how she sees running her business as a spiritual practice, the most awful feedback she ever got, and how she finally realized the importance of having the right team around her. This conversation is filled with so many interesting nuggets and helpful advice. Please enjoy this conversation with Sadie Lincoln. Sadie, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming today.

Oh, it's my pleasure.

I wanted to talk, you know, our mutual friend Petra introduced us originally and when we had our initial chat, I told you that I was doing this podcast about the personal growth journey from founder to. From founder to CEO. And when we spoke, you said you resonated with that because you thought that building your business was a spiritual practice. And I've been dying for like a month to ask you more about that. Can you talk more about what you mean by building your business was a spiritual practice?

Yeah, I, I kind of live by a motto that my friend Donda Pani said to me once. Whatever you practice, you become. And that we practice things all the time and become them all the time. And you know, usually when you think of your practicing something, you think, oh, I'm practicing the piano so I can become a pianist. Or, you know, I'm practicing baking this chocolate souffle till I get it just right, you know, or I'm, you know, practicing being a better parent or whatever it is. And I'm reading all these parenting books. I think one thing I've discovered As a leader is sometimes you can practice things unconsciously and become those things too. So, for example, and those things often, if it's unconscious, you didn't mean to be good at it. It's often in contrast to your values. And an example of that is one of my core values. Top five core values is family and being a present, focused mom. And unconsciously, I was practicing being really distracted because I would come home from the office on my phone while talking to them, kind of doing everything all at once, thinking I was sort of getting after everything really, really well. But in truth, I was practicing becoming a really distracted mom, and I was getting really good at that. And so my kids weren't My undivided focus, which I think is the greatest sign of love and respect. Right. And just becoming conscious of that allowed me to sort of reprogram myself and practice my, just as one example, my work life without compromising my value as a mother. And I just think growing your own business is such a test over and over of core values because there's so many external forces that can pull you out and away from them. But if you use business as a conscious way to anchor yourself back to your core values, make hard decisions like taking a financial hit to uphold your core value, that is a spiritual practice that's building a business based on your spirit. My definition, definition of spirituality is being close to one, being close to God, being close to my values. And so I kind of, I just see business that way now. Yeah.

So I can definitely understand this idea that you make choices consistent with your values and then you demonstrate your values. And that's a big one. Like, you know, to give up financial gain in order to be consistent with your values. Are there little practices that, that you feel that you do every day, sort of micro practices that bring you closer to this, this, the spiritual, this overall spiritual practice?

Yeah, I think a lot of it is a practice of being self aware. So along the way, 13 years in, I've learned, you know, different traits or attributes that I had learned over the years that weren't healthy, that weren't a good way to, to lead. Like interrupting or switching, kind of switch tasking really quickly when the team really needs one, one direction to go. You know, I've learned these things that I tended to do. And so just being aware of it with, with compassion, without shame, like we're all human, none of us are perfect. And just observing it like, oh, I'm interrupting, like just kind of noticing it in the moment, I think is a spiritual practice again. Because it's a practice of understanding yourself with compassion and love, not shame. And then working towards a more whole place. You know, do I really want to show up that way?

Yeah, I think that makes so much sense and I could see that you, I mean it sounds like you've really been on that journey for the entire time that you've that since you founded and started Bar three. Is that right?

Yeah. Yes, for sure. And I think self doubt, conquering self doubt in different. It depends what the audience is. When I'm with all of our owners, for example, we're 100% owned and operated by women. I'm going to see them next week, a lot of them, for our summit. I feel really confident because we have such mutual respect and admiration for each other. We're all investors in Bar three. We all know what it is to teach remarkable classes and to have hospitable studios. And we're just so, we're so connected. That's really different than being in a room of like let's say male investors who I know legacy shows and I've even heard this anecdotally recently that being a women owned and run company doesn't do you any favors sometimes in the investor world. And so to walk into an environment like that and hold the same kind of confidence and security in myself and what we've built can be challenging at times. It really can.

Yes. How do you, how do you do that if it's sort of your internal state can be, you know, a little bit daunted, let's say. And then you walk into that room, how do you shift into a more confident state and hold yourself in that space?

Well, easy if they're aligned humans that truly care about empowering women and trying business a new way. That's the easy part. In fact, I just had a beautiful call with an investor today and he's just gets us and he, I, I'm like so excited to be around him because he's going to add so much worldview that I don't have from his male worldview but also from his life experience. And he deeply respects me and my feminine way of leadership and our organization. So that's, that's the easy thing, right? I still have self doubt, but it's an easier thing to overcome when someone, it's harder when you have someone say to your face, which I literally have said I've had happen. We have our wonderful president. COO is male, his name's Bruce. I literally had an investor say, the only reason I'd invest in Bar 3 is because of Bruce. I mean, not that blatant. Right? Wow. I mean, that was kind of an easy one because I'm like, you're an a hole by. But. But there are more. There are more microaggressions that happen that are nuanced and more passive. And in those moments, I think for me it's just to have a mantra that these are not there. You just haven't found the right investor yet. This. It's not you that's broken. It's not you that's wrong. You're on to something here. It's okay. There are many other people in the world, in the universe that you get to meet, and it's just because they don't like you doesn't mean that you aren't a viable, you know, exciting business that's poised for growth.

Mm. Well, I. There's a lot more to dive into on that. But let's talk also about Bar three and kind of the founding experience. So it's an in person studio fitness experience. In person studio fitness experience. And of course, it's been touched by the pandemic. And I want to talk about that. But if. Go to. Go back to 2008, tell us the founding story of Bar 3. Yeah, we did.

We started with gathering in our studio, our first studio here in Portland, Oregon, in our Pearl District. My husband and I broke off on our own solar house in the Bay Area, put that money to work with a small investment from one partner. He's the only one so far who's invested outside of our amazing owners. And we opened up our own studio. And it really was a culmination of many years of experience for me in group exercise, in fitness, but also scratching our own itch and solving a problem that we were directly experiencing and witnessing in the fitness industry. And kind of at the core, the epicenter of that wondering that we had is why is the fitness industry booming in sharp contrast with our health on the decline, and specifically our mental health and how we feel in our bodies. 91% of women in North America report body dissatisfaction. That's all of us, basically. And many of us are doing exercise to feel good in our bodies. So why? Where's the disconnect? And I just, sample of one looked inside of myself and was asking myself questions like, why don't I feel good in my body? You know, why am I pushing through chronic pain when I'm exercising versus honoring a modification? Why am I beating myself up when I look at myself naked in the mirror every Morning and then promising to exercise harder so I look better. And why isn't that working? Why when I work out harder, am I not feeling better in my body? And I just had this huge realization when I was pregnant with my first child that. And I started to, like, look at myself naked in the mirror and be like, wow, you know, because my body was changing every day. But I was loving it because I was growing a child inside of me. And then I started to move in a way that reflected that same sentiment of, wow, I can move this way today or that way today to honor what's going on in my body that's changing every day versus exercising to fight my body and to make it do something and look like it's something that it wasn't. And that little gem of an idea of, oh, we could exercise as a practice, because whatever you practice, you become. We could practice while we're exercising compassion and love for our bodies. Okay, so how do you do that? And then I started to put it together. Well, I want it to be low impact, isometric holds. I want it to be in group, and I want to create an environment where women support women. I want it to be beat driven because energy creates neuroscience in the brain. When we move in sync, we'll feel closer. I want to create modifications and rebrand them. It's actually something we celebrate versus something someone does when they're lazy or not good enough. So I just had all these ideas and we put them together and we started our. Our first exercise program, Bar three and the Pearl District, and it just kind of blew up from there.

Yeah. And then you ended up going to a franchise model. Can you tell us a decision there? Yeah, tell us about that.

We wrote a business plan to be a franchise company. So we knew going in we wanted to do that. And right away we just bullishly put up a tab on our website that said grow with us and started to take leads and just sort of jumped right into it and figured it out.

And I know that you had background obviously in the fitness industry, so you probably had an experience with franchise, but how come you were so certain then that you wanted to have a franchise model? And how did you figure out how to choose the right franchisees?

It's a good question. So, first of all, when I was at 24 Hour Fitness for close to 11 years, it was all owned and operated, so not franchise. We grew from 25 gyms to 430 globally while I was there. A lot of those years I spent with the executive team and with Mark Mastrof, the founder and CEO. I learned a ton about scaling right at towards the end, Mark was very entrepreneurial, and so I worked on his portfolio of other businesses. And we wrapped my husband Chris into the mix, and he gave the two of us a special project to basically from scratch, build a new franchise concept. We went really far down that path and learned a ton and worked with franchise organizations and kind of tested our partnership, Chris and I, and our dynamic. We didn't know we were going to break out by that time, you know, in those moments, but in retrospect, that was like getting our masters. And what we ended up doing with bar three, Mark ended up leaving 24 Hour Fitness. And right during all that fallout, Chris and I decided to step away as well and start R3 with that knowledge. And we decided to franchise, to answer that part of your question versus owning. Because I loved, I want as a woman, I wanted to put my own skin in the game and have my own business and my own identity in my community here in Portland. And that's what drove me is like, and then we're going to have childcare and maybe I could bring my babies there once in a while and, you know, I could do class and then go out to tea with friends. And I just love the idea of it being my business, my kind of thing. Right. Taking the towels home and doing them, doing the towels, the laundry at home. I know that sounds silly. And bringing it back to the studio, sweeping the front porch, like just kind of nurturing my own business just felt so good to me. And I really looked, took a step back and realized that so much of the fitness industry is run by men and then managed by women, owned by men and managed by women. And it really became important to me. You know, I know women are often kind of the center of their communities to empower them with the same feeling that I had and grow that way with true partners. True partners who had skin in the game.

So I can understand your own personal feeling of nourishing your own business and having the lifestyle that you wanted, but it sounds like you were really, also really driven back to your values. You wanted to make sure that other women had that same opportunity. Is that right?

Thousand percent. And I knew that they would do the best job, which they have proven to do in a pandemic. It was a move. It was a good move. Yeah. I want to empower women. I want women to start to take the lead in fitness.

Got it.

Period.

Yep. And, well, I have. There's a lot. I think there's a lot of questions I have about female leadership, but I do want to pick up on what you just said about COVID So, you know, the pandemic hit. You guys are an in person experience. You have these, what, 170 franchisees all around the world, I think, and suddenly you could no longer have an in person experience. So what did you do and how did you all decide to do it?

We actually started our online streaming product in 2011.

Amazing. Yeah.

Way before, ahead of our time. And it was a ride along with our studio business. The studio was foundational. And then we had a ride along, which is a digital business. It grew really quickly. It became one third of our revenue stream. So we had one third digital, one third owned. We have six owned studios and one third royalties from our franchisees. It's kind of. We decided to diversify our investment when all of the studios were closed overnight. Within a month, our Digital business grew 100% year over year. So that proved to be a really smart strategy because that helped keep us afloat. And the really kind of headline punchline is even though we had that premium product, which actually we had re platformed in 2019, so it was even better and a more premium experience for our clients. Even though we had that, we decided to allow all of our owners to open up their own digital studio on Zoom, which is less premium, less remarkable. Right. They're not trained on camera because we took a bet on community that their clients would prefer to work out with each other and with. With the owner and the instructors that they had a personal relationship and connection with over our premium product while their studio was closed. And we were right. We took the vast majority of their clients, chose their Zoom classes over our digital subscription and continued to pay premium price for their studio classes to support those women that owned that studio. I think that a lot of communities care about local business and had we owned all those studios and been like a corporate conglomerate that owned everything with managers and all those places, I don't think we would have had the level of retention with our clients as, as we, we. We've continued to experience to this day.

Right. And I. You probably wouldn't have had the same kind of flexibility because it's like corporate has to do this and corporate has to do that. But this way your individual owners could do their thing that made sense for their community.

That's right. Yep, Yep. They did an absolute stand up job. I'm so proud of them. Not only did they teach zoom classes, they were like hustling. They're Creating shops on Instagram for their retail and delivering retail to people's doorsteps and just surprising and delighting at every turn and supporting each other. We have kind of a internal hub where we learn together. Supporting each other. There's a supporting each other on our Facebook page. You know, they, they certainly didn't feel alone, which I think, you know, is really, really important in times like this.

Yeah, definitely. This is a hard time. And I'm sure that during this period, you and you're leading company through this experience. I'm sure you learned a lot as a leader. Can you share maybe a few of the insights that you. You took away from this time and you're still taking away from this time.

Yeah. Three weeks before COVID struck, we had just hired our president and coo, Bruce Edwards. And that was like the best move I've ever done. I didn't know a pandemic was around the corner, but boy am I glad that I had him by my side. I learned this year the power of taking the time to find a team to surround yourself with who can block and tackle so that I could focus on my unique strengths. And I block and tackle so he can focus on his unique strengths, you know, and that's something you read and I've read in business books. People have told me. But I think I really, I mean, I've really learned it in every cell in my body. The importance of not just striving for that. Absolutely. Like expecting it, that everybody around the table is going to elevate and mutually respect each other so that we can all be our very best selves. And my way of leading as a chief executive officer is really different than other people's interpretation of chief executive officer. And I think I've had a lot of self doubt. I've had a lot of criticism about my style because it didn't fit into a box. And I learned that who cares? I get to be a octagon and, you know, people around me can support that. And that's who cares. It's my business. I get to do it my own way. You know, it doesn't really help to, you know, try to be something other than you are. So that's probably the biggest lesson I've had this year.

How. What did, what brought blocking and tackling did Bruce do and what blocking and tackling did you do once he came on board?

I mean, I think he should be chief Block and tackle. That should be his title. He's just hearty. He's like, he's rational. He Is data driven. He is. Has an incredible worldview. So he has, like, a stress callous, you know, like, he's gone through so much crisis with other companies. He's ran. He's a driver. So. So some of that stuff doesn't impact him as much as me. I'm an empath. Like, I can walk into a room and read the room and know how to mirror, know how to have a nuanced conversation or make sure someone is seen and heard. That's maybe quiet in the corner where he might not see all that. Right. And we just work together. That way we have a dance. And if I was in being the empath that I am, if I was hearing all the complaints, all the frustrations, all the anger, all the data every day, it would be really hard for me to walk in the room and hold space for that quiet person in the corner I just mentioned, because it just kind of takes me down, you know?

Yeah, yeah. But you. You probably had to do that for years before Bruce came on board. And. And I know that at some point you sent out a survey to your team. I read this and that it said you got feedback that brought you to your knees. And I'm curious, when was that and why did you send out the survey and what kind of feedback did you get?

I think it was in a year. I think it was 2017 or maybe 18. Yeah, that was during our first kind of. We had. We had let people go for the first time, and we had raised this beautiful kind of family for a while, this team of people that grew up with us. And we were definitely payroll heavy. The math was not working, and we made some decisions to slow down franchising. There were all these business things that were happening around us. We did not have a strong, at the time we do now, CFO operator. We didn't have the right team around us. So Chris and I were making kind of crazy decisions, to be honest, and we laid people off. And then from there, there was just a cultural shakeup and we were fatigued. We're accountable for all this. And a newer team member came up to us and said, hey, we should send out a healing survey to see what's going on. You guys need to get a pulse of what's going on. And I was like, absolutely. I want to know, you know, what's happening, because this has never happened to us in the history of Bar 3. We'd always just been happy. Things are great. And we sent this out and we had a lot. It wasn't like multiple choice it was just qualitative. So people just were behind their keyboards typing and it came back and it was brutal because it was personal. It was frankly hurt my feelings. And because the comments were hurt, some of the comments were very hurtful.

What was said? You're not the only CEO to have gotten hurtful comments, by the way. I mean it's so common and it's so hurtful and people don't see the CEO that way as hurtable. What kinds of comments did you get?

Oh, she doesn't know what she's doing. She thinks she's hot. She's an egomaniac. She screams in meetings pretty. I don't think I've ever screamed. But you know what I've learned is it doesn't matter. Like when you have that title and you walk into the room and you say, hey, have we thought about doing this? It could sound like, you guys, we should be doing this. Right? Like, yes, there is an. And I've actually learned to accept that now and I'm really self aware of it. And I. So I don't blame the comments. I was so kind of naive to dealing with something like this that it just brought me down. I have a friend who's a data. She has a research company so she analyzes data for a living and she is so sweet. She took all the data and she's like, I'm going to turn this data into something that's productive. These comments are not productive. They're not going to help you. So she did things like word clouds and she did an analysis of it that was less emotional. And then from there I had a choice. I could continue to be angry and resentful and like a hurt little kitten, you know, or I could look at it and, and decide to put myself to, on a plan to be better and be accountable for it. And I did that. And I'm really proud of how I handled it, how my husband and co founder handled it. Nobody else truly on our leadership stood up and was accountable in that moment, which was a sign that we were not super good leaders because we didn't have other leaders that raised their hand and said, me too. Like I need to take accountability here. Right? So when we went out to get our next like senior leadership team, which we really needed, we looked for that. We looked for someone who was going to be accountable. If we ever have a healing survey that comes out like that again, we'll all be prepared. It'll be a team effort versus just me standing on a stage by myself. Yes, definitely And, And I didn't even know that was possible back then, but now I know it's. It's absolutely possible. I'm not alone anymore.

Yes. That's so powerful. And I just want to highlight something that you said. You know, I spoke to Scott Harrison of Charity Water, and he had a coach for my book, and he had a coach who made him stand up on a table with. With a bullhorn and like, showed him. That's what they hear. That's how they experience you when you say anything in the meeting. Right. And it's not about him. It's about the role of founder CEO, because your suggestions are orders. Your brainstorming are orders. Right. Your inklings are orders. And people, the CEO themselves are like, I was just. I don't know, I was just brainstorming.

I hope every newish founder or CEO or person in leadership listening to this really hears that. I wish I heard that. It's so comforting to hear that it wasn't just me.

Yes. Yes. It sounds like you had your friend who was kind enough to process the data because I can understand that getting a whole bunch of comments is like, oh, what do I do? And it's so hurtful. Did you then put together your own plan? Did you find somebody to help you? Like, how did you structure your own. Your own healing, frankly?

Yeah, we've. I definitely lean on coaches and therapists and friends and my mom and, you know, people I trusted and then my entrepreneur group. So sue, who owns the research company. I also have had a group through Entrepreneur Organization. It was seven other founders at their company. So they helped me a ton. And I, Yeah, I put together a. And we met with our team monthly, like, how are we doing? How are we doing? How are we doing? And one of the action items out of that was hire someone who can run the company, who can be the operator, who. That was Chris's role. But, you know, he just was done. He was. It wasn't a good fit for him. And I think as CEO, I got the, like, I got the blame for that and that's fine. But we. That was, that's what led us to find Bruce. So it's, It's a gift, you know, that we went through that because we found such a. Such an awesome leader.

Yes. I could totally understand that because it's, you know, breakdowns lead to breakthroughs and this idea of like, oh, we finally, right, see this sort of hit bottom and that means we have to do something different.

Yes.

Also, it sounds like Chris, your co. Founder and husband, I mean, probably it sounds like both of you were kind of going through, living your life, running your business. Maybe he was feeling his own stress and realizing like, oh, it's maybe not working, and yet was not prepared to take himself out. And I guess I'm curious, maybe I'm going to ask you, like, did the two of you see signs that he was feeling drained and ready to let go, but in retrospect, but you weren't able to sort of pull that cord?

No, I think truly he was ready. And we were very conscious that it wasn't a good fit. For a long time we didn't know how to find the right person. The first go at it, we did it. We sort of, we did it really quick because we were so fatigued. As soon as we decided we were going to do it, we, we rushed and hired someone who, we didn't set that person up for success because they weren't the right fit. The second time we did it, we hired a really amazing executive search firm who focuses on purpose driven founders, literally, and finding teams for those people. Like, he was such a perfect fit for us, this executive recruiter. And it took us six months to find Bruce. And we hired a psychologist to.

Give.

All three of us a test called the Hogan Assessment Test. Behavioral psychologist. And the three of us met on the regular, on a regular basis with this consultant to discuss our differences. And it was like marriage counseling before getting married. And we put so much work into that up front. I mean, Bruce makes jokes about, he's like, I've never had a more intense interview process in my life. But it's so, I mean, we pull out those, those reports during fights, you know, because we'll have them, we'll have these arguments and these conflicts during the year because it's been such a stressful year. And we'll bring out our reports and he's like, oh yeah, you know, you really score high on colorful during conflict. And, and I'm like, and you are really rigid. You know, so we, we, we have mutual respect and, and kind of like laughter over our differences. He's actually not rigid. He's very flexible on this, on the scale, but he's definitely high on data and science versus intuition.

Yeah, I could geek out with you with the Hogan all day long. I love the Hogan, but what I really love is that you all sat down and talked about this. You know, one of the things I recommend for co founders to do, but in some ways this is the same relationship, you know, is to sign, not sign a prenup but to do a prenup. And it's not about signing. It's not about being a legal document, but it's about talking through differences and also where you think you're headed, direction and values, and the way you handle conflict. And to just talk about those things in advance is very productive. And I think you're.

You're finding that it's so amazing, and you grow closer because of it. Like having those conversations up front before they're volatile or emotional, you start to see into each other and build respect and a sense of community and connection, which I really, both of us, really needed. Chris and I, is this to trust him and. Because we felt so, you know, shaken from what had happened earlier and kind of betrayed and, you know, and. And that really helped build our trust with him and a close relationship, which we all. We all want in the workplace.

It's so essential. I heard on one of the shows that you created the circle in your leadership group. Could you tell us about that and what the genesis of that was?

Yeah, Circle. The best way to describe it is our instructor training, and it really is why we're as strong as we are. It's like. It's like the foundation of our success, truly. Do you have permission to be autonomous and make decisions for yourself while in support in a circle? So you're together doing it? And when you practice making decisions for yourself, standing up for yourself, and kind of living out loud that way, while people kind of witness you in a way, it builds a sense of, I belong, I'm seen, I'm heard, I matter, and I enjoy growing. You know, it creates a growth mindset. I truly believe that that investment in that conversation is why our instructors stay so long with us, why our clients come four times a week, which is, I think, like, three times the industry average, you know, because we really care about the whole person, and the practice of that is sitting in a circle.

Yeah, that's beautiful. How does that seep into your leadership or your management style? Your leadership style?

We. That is something we've been working on over the years. It was an aha for me, actually, back when I. We had that kind of culture crisis is I hadn't done as good of a job in instructor training, bringing that idea into the workplace place. And we have really made great progress on that front. One of the things. One of the insights I've had is I need to step away for these circles, to really work in the office, because I am a founder, I am a CEO, and I'm seen Differently there for some reason in the exercise studio. I'm not like, we're all kind of the same there, but you get into the office environment and it's different. And one example of that is through the Black Lives Matter movement, we had a huge awareness reckoning in our organization that we needed to do a much better, much more proactive job working towards equity, diversity, and inclusion. And me as a white, affluent woman, looking around and realizing, wow, the industry is predominantly this as well, and so is bar three. How can we make change? And we had some really amazing team members raise their hands and say, we, this has got to change. And I just knew I needed to not be a part of that because I wanted. They represented diversity and I wanted them to feel safe and they needed to. They wanted to feel safe in their own circle where they could all be seen and heard. We hired a beautiful consultant who worked with them, and they essentially led circles every month around. We had a book club around different themes and practice. That same idea of everybody seen and heard and everybody's experience contributes to our collective wisdom and our core value that we're stronger together. So, you know, I think it's. It's a. It's a work in progress, figuring out where circle fits within the kind of typical headquarter environment.

Yeah, that. I think that makes complete sense. Especially it's very interesting that it's sad, but also true that the founder, the CEO, sometimes has to take herself or himself out of the equation and you wish it weren't true, and you try to be accessible and yet they still treat you like the founder and they still treat you like the CEO. It's hard to relate to that. And also, I think it has to. Has to be accepted at some times.

Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, just being compassionate and accepting of that, it's not something I can change. And I really appreciate that and understand that.

Right. So one thing I wanted to follow up in on is you said this earlier in our discussion, the idea of sort of female leadership and female leadership as embodied certainly, you know, through. Through you and in the fitness industry, can you describe how you see female leadership and. And what that means to you? And. And I would also love to hear. Do you have any suggestions for male leaders to incorporate a different style?

I think my suggestion for all leaders is to make sure, again, back to diversity, equity, and inclusion, that you have a diverse group around you and certainly 50% women, if you can, around that boardroom table, or at least a good representation of gender identity. Right. It doesn't he, she, they, but diversity, because we all have such different, important, impactful voices around that table that creates innovation. You know, our ability to attract a broader audience, to keep that audience, to push things forward, to not be legacy based, but start to think into the future. When we do that business thrives and that, that it's been studied. We're just so stuck on the old things, the old ways. So, you know, I think that's really important. At the root though, the thing that needs to change is that people with money, investors and the investment community, we need more women, we need more men. We need women with money and with the power to make the decision. And because that is just the optics around that are important. Yes. We also need men who, with money and power to invest in women. Yes. With, with a clear core value that, that's important. And not to mention people of color and other different groups of people who aren't equally represented in business. We, we need that too. But that's, that's definitely something that I, I really want to be a part of that change. I want to see that change. It. It's so sad that here we are sitting in 2021 and we're having this conversation. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous to be honest. Yes.

Things change. I like an iceberg, slowly like an iceberg. So I hear you. I guess I just have two more questions for you. What else do you wish you had known earlier on your journey?

Earlier on my journey, I think it was to truly believe that I deserved to recruit and keep like my dream team, like people outside of Bar 3 who could look in and believe in what we're doing and to trust that, you know, if I could find people to block and tackle that, I'm enough as I am. I don't have to be anything other than I am. I think for years I was such a rookie, thinking that I could do it all and that I was the answer to bar three success. And I am definitely not the answer to bar three success. I am a part of the equation, but not the answer. And I wish I could go back and give that younger woman that kind of confidence to keep her standards high and find people who are devoted to those high standards.

Yes, yes, I can totally relate. Yes. And last question. What advice do you have for other founders as they embark on their journey to grow into leaders?

I think a practice of self compassion, when you're faced with criticism and defeat and fatigue and curveballs, that's what running your own business is. It doesn't go away. The only thing that you can control as a founder is your own discipline of learning how to cope with that quicker. The suffering is always going to hurt, you're always going to feel it but the bounce back can go quicker. The resilience of going from suffering state to happy state, that gap can shorten with a conscious practice around it.

Amazing. Sadie, thank you so much for your time today. I know that everyone's going to benefit from these words and this discussion so I really appreciate your time today.

It's absolutely my pleasure and I'm really looking forward to reading your book and sharing it with our team.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening to From Startup to Grownup. If you like what you heard, give it a review on Apple Podcasts so other people can find it. And if you know of a founder or someone else who is meant to be on this podcast, drop me a line through my website alyssacon.com.