05.08.2019
Episode 107: Lauren and Rachel Piskin, Co-Founders of ChaiseFitness
Summary
With a nod to Mother’s Day, this week’s episode features Lauren and Rachel Piskin, the mother-daughter team behind ChaiseFitness. Lauren, a former competitive ice skater and Rachel, a former professional ballet dancer, developed their own fitness method combining pilates and resistance equipment as a response to health issues Rachel sustained as a dancer. The two describe the dynamics of mixing family with business and how their generational difference have been a boon to biz.
Transcript
| Announcer | Welcome to WHERE BRAINS MEET BEAUTY® hosted by Jodi Katz, Founder and Creative Director of Base Beauty Creative Agency. |
| Jodi Katz | Hey, there. It's Jodi Katz:, your host of WHERE BRAINS MEET BEAUTY® Podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. I'm incredibly grateful for your support of our show. This week's episode features Lauren and Rachel Piskin:. They are a mother and daughter team who are the co-founders of ChaiseFitness, which is sort of a combination of Pilates and bungee cords. So I look forward to trying that workout. I hope you enjoy their episode. If you missed last week's episode, it featured Tina Hedges. She's the founder of LOLI. I hope you enjoy the shows. So I am so happy to be joined by Lauren and Rachel Piskin:. They are the founders of ChaiseFitness. They're a mother-daughter team. Welcome to WHERE BRAINS MEET BEAUTY®. |
| Rachel Piskin | Thank you. |
| Lauren Piskin | Thank you. |
| Jodi Katz | I'm so excited for you both to be here today. |
| Rachel Piskin | We're excited to be here together. |
| Jodi Katz | So I'll start with you, Lauren. Tell us how you're gonna spend your day today. |
| Lauren Piskin | So my day today is now sitting with you. Then I will walk over to our Flatiron studio, which is right down the street on 23rd, between Park and Madison, and I'll go see the manager there, and I'm gonna work with her on things for more of my Upper East Side studio. Client follow-ups, classes. We're trying to actually work on another Pilates teacher and make sure she has enough lessons to teacher things, just kind of going over the operations. That will be my day, today. |
| Jodi Katz | And you, Rachel? |
| Rachel Piskin | Today? Well, today is unique because later today I'm gonna go home to see my son, but yeah. Normally I will be at the studio, working with the managers, teachers, developing new programming and so forth. |
| Jodi Katz | How old is your son? |
| Rachel Piskin | Five months. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh! A baby. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah, yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | Congratulations. |
| Rachel Piskin | Thank you. |
| Jodi Katz | Is that your first? |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | That's cool. Congratulations grandma. |
| Lauren Piskin | Thank you. Oh, god that name. |
| Jodi Katz | What is your grandma name? |
| Lauren Piskin | I'm called GiGi Lu. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh! |
| Lauren Piskin | It makes it a little more tolerable. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah. |
| Lauren Piskin | I mean, I love him more than anything, but the grandma thing is just like, "Oh my god. I'm this old, now?" |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah. Well my kids have a GiGi. |
| Lauren Piskin | Oh, they do? |
| Jodi Katz | Yep, they have a GiGi, they have a NaNa, and they have a MiMi. |
| Lauren Piskin | Oh. Picked the different names to make us feel better. It's not about them. It's our problem. |
| Jodi Katz | Well, you get to pick your grandma name. That child can't speak when it comes out of the womb. |
| Lauren Piskin | She kept saying, "Just pick a name already." 'Cause I really couldn't pick a name. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah, the first few weeks we just didn't have a name, so we'd be like, "And blank." 'Cause we kept going back and forth. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah, you have to have that name. The name's important, but you get to choose it. |
| Lauren Piskin | Yeah. No, actually my director of certification, he chose it for me. Is that funny? He runs all the certifications, and he's the trainer of all our teachers that are up and coming. |
| Jodi Katz | And he just felt inspired that you would be a GiGi Lu? |
| Lauren Piskin | Yeah. He really felt I could not be a grandma. And so he ... Well, kind of the GiGi was my great-grandmother, and my nickname is LuLu, so he put the to together. And this is someone that never wants children, by the way. So it was cute. |
| Jodi Katz | I love it. You could've also just been LuLu. |
| Lauren Piskin | Yeah, no. No, that was debating. |
| Rachel Piskin | That's what we were debating, yeah. |
| Lauren Piskin | But then the GiGi Lu just flowed. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah, it's cool. It's awesome. So Rachel, tell us. What is ChaiseFitness? |
| Rachel Piskin | So ChaiseFitness is a boutique fitness studio in New York City and New Jersey, and we have four locations, and it's group fitness that Pilates, dance training focused, and it incorporates an overhead bungee system with a Pilates chair. And then we also have, now, almost seven years in, developed a lot of other classes that include resistance bands, and it really gives you that long, lean dancer-like body while really improving posture, spinal health, and giving you a really strong core. |
| Jodi Katz | So let's talk about dancer-like body. So your background is a professional ballet dancer, as a child and a teen. |
| Rachel Piskin | Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah. I was in School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet. I joined the company at 16, and my whole life was focused on becoming a ballet dancer, professional ballet dancer. And so my body was my job. And so I now use that knowledge to train our clients and our teachers, and use that knowledge to help kind of grow our business. |
| Jodi Katz | And at what age did you stop a professional career in ballet? |
| Rachel Piskin | I was about 22. |
| Jodi Katz | Wow. And then mom, you had ... This is the dynamic duo. You have a long history of being a professional ice skater and coach. |
| Lauren Piskin | Correct. Well, I was ... I didn't go as far as Rachel. Rachel really went as far as anyone could go. New York City Ballet is really the premier company in the world. So mine was more about ... I was a competitive figure skater, I enjoyed it, I loved it, but I didn't get to that level of being in the Olympics or that kind of crossover, but I ended up, later on, years later, training a lot of competitive figure skaters that were National or Olympic champions. So I would do choreography and the fitness training with them. So I kind of went back to NYU after college and I got my Masters in ... Actually, there was something, the first time ever, was called corporate fitness, and then I combined it with dance education, and I kept thinking I would go back to skating right away, but I didn't. And I ended up being the corporation fitness consultant for CBS for eight years, developing all kinds of corporation fitness programming. And I think this journey of fitness, which, later in life, doing the ChaiseFitness, led to what we do now. I couldn't have imagined that at this point in my life, we would be here and I'd be working with my daughter. But all of that definitely helped create what would later become the Reinvention Method. |
| Jodi Katz | And just out of curiosity, when you put on skates, are you still an awesome ice skater? |
| Lauren Piskin | Well, it hasn't been in quite a while. I talk about taking my grandson when he's ready. Rachel was on the ice at three, and I was coaching then. And Rachel actually was a skater up until about nine. Or no. Right? I think, at this point of my life, I could probably get around fine, I could probably do a few things, but I would not attempt, at this point, I'd be very scared. Actually, the funny story is one time, Rachel was probably three, and I showed my husband, we were away at a ski vacation. And said, "I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna do all these jumps for you," and the next day, I couldn't get out of bed. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh my gosh. |
| Lauren Piskin | And the thing is, when you coach, as a coach, you don't do anything. You do very minimal, so you really, more than anything, you're freezing cold because you're not moving. It's like what you see when you watch TV. You're at the wall, you're at the bench, you are moving a little, but not a lot, at that point. It's more just instructional. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. And if you, Rachel, put on ballet shoes, I mean, you could dance like you danced before? |
| Rachel Piskin | I mean, I haven't taken a ballet class since the day I stopped dancing, but I think I would be able to move, but definitely not in the same way, because to be a professional ballet dancer, you have to be training 24/7 to be able to do that. You know, it's just like being an elite athlete. You have to be training all the time to be able to do it. So I wouldn't be able to dance in the same way, but you know, you could do maybe little moves here and there. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. And is it a strange feeling to be dancing for 15 years straight, all the time, that would be your focus, and then you just literally don't dance anymore? |
| Rachel Piskin | I mean, at first I definitely think I had difficulty finding my identity that was a separate ... my own identity, separate from being a ballet dancer. That was definitely a very big struggle. And I definitely missed performing, but the life of a dancer was so incredibly difficult and you live in very much a bubble that that is something I don't look back where I'm like, "Oh, I miss that." But I think as a performer, you're always a performer, and I now kind of perform when I'm teaching fitness. And so I'm able to kind of live out those feelings at Chaise. Not in the same way, but kind of the perfect ... what I need in my life right now. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. So I mean, you are the star. Right? As the instructor. I mean, everyone's looking to you, and you have the mic. You know? |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah. I mean, for me, I had to learn a lot from my mom in order to teach fitness, because as a ballet dancer, you never use your voice. You're kind of trained to not speak up, you're not allowed to ask questions. It's a very silent world. Fitness, obviously, is very different. So it took me a long time to come out of my shell and be confident in using my voice and to motivate people and train people and not feel intimidated by saying the wrong thing. And that takes time to figure out, especially coming from the ballet world. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. So you, in the ballet world, you grew up with this hierarchy of no one questions, no one diverts. Right? |
| Rachel Piskin | Right. You follow the rules, you follow the casting, you don't question it. At eight years old, you can't yawn, you can't hiccup, you can't move an eyebrow. It's a very strict world. And I think a lot of that gave me skills that helped me in business, which is focus and determination and all of those things help me in business, but it definitely, I think, creates different personality traits that maybe I wouldn't have if I didn't grow up in the ballet world, but I think I'm able to utilize them in a good way, now. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lauren Piskin | Well I think ... To interrupt, probably one of the funniest stories is ... But I do wanna say that Rachel, because she had an incredible talent, just to ... and probably one of the hardest workers that you ... and I'm not just saying this 'cause I'm her mom, but even in School of American Ballet, that's why she was cast as Marie as the star of the Nutcracker. She was the most focused little girl that you had ever seen. So she was only eight when she did Marie in front of 3,000 people. So that kind of ... It was almost too focused, because it made it very hard for her to have any outside world or deviate from it. And I will say, she wanted it very badly. And then it snowballs. Once you get Marie, you just keep getting sucked into that world. But there's so many elements that play into that to make it, but because she was in that world, and then came to work with me, there would be times where ... It's all about clients, and it's about that one-on-one and developing relationships. And I ... She wouldn't talk. So we'd be at the desk, and I don't stop talking. So it was hard for me. I had to learn to shut up, and I would look at her and I'd go, "Rachel. You need to say like one word." So probably, that has been one of the things that I have enjoyed watching, is how Rachel has evolved as a human being, and that I had this daughter that was just so individually focused and really, unless she was given a task, really couldn't communicate well. You know? We had to hire some driver. We live far out on Long Island, so we had people driving her back and forth. I worked, I had another child. And so she was really isolated. You know? She would have to be for hours and hours in cars. So you grow up ... It's like being a child actor. There's no difference, that what Rachel had, but she was just a dancer prodigy. But definitely that she did not know how to talk to clients, and this forced her to come out of herself. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. What does it feel like to hear that? |
| Rachel Piskin | I mean, I think it's ... I mean, it's all true. And it took me many years to be able to kind of find my voice. And now, I love talking to the clients. And when I was on maternity leave and then I came back, I was so excited to be able to continue to build those relationships with the clients, and I feel like I'm in a totally different part of my life, now. But it definitely took a lot of pushing, because I remember when I first started working in the studios, I'd be thinking about what I was gonna say to the client for minutes before I would open my mouth, to make sure it was the right thing to say to them. And now, I just feel so much more confident in what I have to say, how I'm saying it, and how I just approach business. That myself, a few years ago, feels like a long time ago. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. What an opportunity to evolve and grow. Right? |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | And I would think that would help in being a mom, too. |
| Rachel Piskin | I think so. I mean, I'm very new at it, so I don't have much experience, but I definitely think working in business and working with my mom has given me a lot of confidence that you don't get in the ballet world. So I think I feel very grateful for that, and I think as a mom, you need kind of confidence in trusting your instincts, and I think we've been working on building that in business, in trusting our gut and our decisions. And sometimes those decisions aren't right, but then learning from them and obviously working together is a very unique and special experience. |
| Jodi Katz | So what's so interesting to me is you were saying that you were in this world, but not having a lot of confidence. Even now, your mom just told me you were one of the best. Right? To get- |
| Lauren Piskin | She was. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. One of the best. So it's so interesting how fragile you feel in that position of being one of the best, because the culture. Right? |
| Lauren Piskin | You're never good enough. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lauren Piskin | And especially anything at a high level. Like, you can take ... Obviously I was in skating, so you could take the top skaters. Anyone that gets to the top, you're never good enough. You're always critiqued. You could always be better. And you're kind of beaten down, is the process. I do think, however ... I mean, Rachel wasn't there, unfortunately, but City Ballet now, the culture she grew up with, they've all been fired. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh, Uh-huh (affirmative). |
| Lauren Piskin | So that's how bad it was. |
| Jodi Katz | Mm-hmm (affirmative). |
| Lauren Piskin | So if you can think of that, because of the movement we're in now, all of those people and the one that ran the whole thing is gone. So unfortunately, she was under that umbrella from childhood on. And I think as a mother, it probably is a little frustrating for me. I mean, we didn't know any better. But that is the culture she grew up in, and that's what you hear about today. I guess, luckily, she got out kind of unscathed. It was really ... Well for her, it was really, I think more than anything, was her body. She had something called ovarian shutdown. And it's when your body is so stressed and it just ... Between the stress of the physicality, trying to be so thin, not necessarily anorexia, but just not getting your period. It was a very big thing. That's huge. |
| Jodi Katz | And that's pretty common for dancers? |
| Lauren Piskin | It's common, but not always common to have happen what happened to her. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh, Uh-huh (affirmative). |
| Lauren Piskin | Which is, you start gaining a lot of weight. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh, interesting. |
| Lauren Piskin | And it really took a lot of doctors and a lot of years to get her body back, and she really found herself as I was starting to certify for Chaise. It's very interesting, really, because I sent her to trainers, I had nutritionists, I dragged her to doctors. It was a very, very difficult time and a very hard time in Rachel's life. And as well as mine, because it was heart wrenching. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lauren Piskin | It's kind of like we knew- |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah, I was killing myself to lose the weight and get healthy. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. And you weren't a dancer ... You weren't dancing anymore? |
| Lauren Piskin | No. |
| Rachel Piskin | I'd stopped dancing. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lauren Piskin | But you were gaining the weight in the company. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah, and- |
| Lauren Piskin | That's what really happened. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh, Uh-huh (affirmative). |
| Rachel Piskin | So I was killing myself with all the normal forms of fitness. Which, spinning, pulling sleds and all of that kind of stuff that I wasn't enjoying because I was a dancer. I loved moving, I loved music. But I was like, "Oh, I should do this stuff to lose weight," and then- |
| Jodi Katz | Because you were trying to lose weight out of desperation, 'cause it wasn't- |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | You couldn't control over this anymore. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah, I didn't have control and it wasn't my body. It wasn't how I felt, like myself. And then it was through kind of working with my mom and starting to kind of just play around and develop this new form of fitness, and it wasn't even that I was working with her in the sense of, "We're gonna work together in this business," and we started to see my body change, and I wasn't doing cardio. I was literally just doing our method with resistance and adding some ballet kind of back into it, in a very simple way and allowing my body to move like a dancer, but with resistance from the chair and the bungees, and it totally transformed my body. And so I think we realized what it could do, and also, I became happy again. And I realized how much I missed moving, and I felt like, "Oh, fitness I think, is my next passion. It is my next phase." And then that kind of started from there. |
| Lauren Piskin | And also, funny enough, gave her a small platform. I mean, so much smaller, to perform again. And I think even though Rachel says she wasn't very good at speaking, there was a switch that would go on. It didn't matter. And that switch was a performing switch that she had had since she was a baby. So once she hit that room, it was like, "I'm performing again whether I have to speak with a microphone," it didn't matter. Because when you go to the level she went to, you're just so talented. So you could do all that, and I think that fulfilled her in a different way. And I think that's what the marriage was so good for her, never knowing in a million years that I was really doing this in a lot of ways, for her. I couldn't have known that. But you know, as I'm getting older, I've been in it a long time, and her brain works in such different ways than mine does. She's so more involved, she's so much faster at getting things done, she also has much more ... She has a lot of ideas about technology, things that I couldn't possible think of today. So I think by her coming into the business, it really totally grew it in a way I could never have. And maybe it was just meant to be, she came in at that point. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. That's so awesome. What a lovely story of mother and daughter helping each other. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah, I think it's ... In fitness, there ... I don't know other mother-daughters, but I think we're really lucky. We definitely bring different skills and I think we utilize those and use that to focus on what we're individually good at. Because what I'm good at is maybe my mom's ... not what she enjoys working on. And what she enjoys working on is not my skillset. So I think we definitely balance each other out really well. And so I think we're lucky to- |
| Lauren Piskin | No, she's good at everything. Naturally. |
| Jodi Katz | Awe. |
| Lauren Piskin | She just can't do everything. |
| Rachel Piskin | Right. So- |
| Jodi Katz | Who has the time, right? |
| Lauren Piskin | And especially now, she's a mother. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lauren Piskin | So I think that was a little adjustment period, too. She had a very bad pregnancy, so she was out for, really, a year between pregnancy and then she broke her water very early, and she was in the hospital for a while. So that part, when you both own it, and then you both have to kind of leave it, 'cause I'm worried about my daughter. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lauren Piskin | You know? So I think the last year, when you own things, you're so responsible for people. And you're so responsible for leading them, to lead the troops to make sure you're successful. So if the owners are out, the troops don't run the way they should. And so I do a lot of that, the HR, the emotional support, the working with them. It's tiring, though. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, right. |
| Lauren Piskin | But I do love everyone, and I've had some people that've been with me a very long time. And I also feel like Rachel, who had no friends except maybe the few that're left in ballet, was able to finally have people around her and friends, and the start of a normal life. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. So let's talk a little bit about that, because I would imagine that you could try to be friends with your cohort in the professional ballet world, but you're also incredibly competitive, all fighting for the few spots. Is- |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah, it's definitely a unique situation, and it was all I knew, because I never really went to a normal educational school. I was really always at ballet. And so all of my friends were my fellow ballet dancers. So it was all I knew, was that my friends were also my competition. And it definitely ... I think when I was maybe 11 or 12, was when it was the cattiest stage of girls. They were very mean, I think out of, probably jealously. Because if I was getting a part that they wanted ... And so there was a lot of things that were difficult that I think made me probably stronger and able to handle myself once I got into the company. Once you're in the company, all the people that you're with are your best friends, so to say, because you spend 24/7 with them, but you're also competing for the same parts, so it's really hard. I now, still, am ... My two best friends are still in New York City Ballet, and we, I think, just have a history that you can never take away, and has built our relationships to what it is today. And maybe because I'm not a dancer anymore, I can maintain those friendships, so I feel very grateful for those friendships and the time that we've been friends for so many years at this point, but it is a definitely ... It's a very weird world, because you're surrounded by dancers all day, but it's also lonely at the same time. And so I think that's why certain types of personalities end up in ballet, because you kind of have to be able to handle that, and not everyone can. You have to be a horse with blinders, so to say. And it's hard to not let all of the emotion and drama and gossip get to you because if you do, then it becomes very emotionally draining, as well as physically draining. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. So everything that ... All the words you're using is basically high school, just minus the physical aspects. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah. No normal high school. |
| Jodi Katz | So minus, obviously, the hours and hours of rigorous work that you had to do with your body, everything else is like normal school. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah, yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | Except, I guess, just more kids. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah. And it's heightened because it's also your career. |
| Jodi Katz | Right! |
| Rachel Piskin | So it's tied in with ... And I think the ballet world is different because you start your career so early. You're starting a career, a full-time career, at 16 years old. |
| Jodi Katz | So when you say career, you're getting a paycheck? |
| Rachel Piskin | Yes. So full-time, that's your job. |
| Lauren Piskin | Rachel had a job at 16. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah, at 16. |
| Lauren Piskin | She moved out of my house at 17. |
| Rachel Piskin | You know, I still finished high school, but- |
| Lauren Piskin | She's traveling the world. |
| Rachel Piskin | You know, yeah, it was your full-time job. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Rachel Piskin | And so I think you start work so young that I think a lot of times, it's hard to kind of grow up in the ballet world because you start work so young, and you kind of stay that age for ... because nothing changes in the- |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Rachel Piskin | It's all the same people, it's the same systems. And so it's hard to really kind of mature and grow if you're stuck in that bubble, so to say. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. Well, this is so fascinating and I think it's also just so interesting that on the other side of your story is training elite athletes. Right? And then you come together and you get to work with regular people like me. Right? I'm not an athlete. Inside my heart, I feel like I am. You know? But- |
| Lauren Piskin | I think a lot clients do. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah? |
| Rachel Piskin | But that's what we, I think, are able to provide to our clients, is our method and our reinvention method allows people to move in a very unique way, where they're building their bodies kind of like they're an athlete. It's building strong bodies, beautiful posture, but it's in a fun environment, in a very supported environment. And so it doesn't have that cattiness, it doesn't have a ... We are not snooty, we want- |
| Lauren Piskin | We try to be inclusive. |
| Rachel Piskin | Everyone can come, and I think that's what we try to create. |
| Lauren Piskin | But a lot of our clients actually go away on vacation together. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh, how nice. |
| Lauren Piskin | Yeah. They've actually become family and they go away, and they travel and they take classes together. And I think if you look back at the history of fitness, that was really one of the things SoulCycle was so good. You know, doing that. I mean now, obviously, it's a big machine. But I think that's really how theirs started and became very successful. And when I started the first studio which was PhysicalMind Studio, it wasn't even Chaise, the second SoulCycle just opened around the corner from me. So I had clients coming to me that were going there, and so I think if you can look at their success, a lot of it, from those two women, were built on that. And that's what I knew how to do. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lauren Piskin | You know? I knew how to have relationships with clients. I knew how to build teams. I knew how to make teachers. I knew how to certify teachers. So those were the qualities I was able to bring to create the business. And I think you need those qualities, but I think one of the most important things in our business today, and the corporation, is that we, as owners, are still involved as a day-to-day basis. And I think that makes the company much more successful, and I think it makes our people that work for us feel like we really care. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lauren Piskin | And I think that makes them stay with us longer, and it makes them more invested in us, and we're more invested in them. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lauren Piskin | And so so far, we've been able to keep that goin' because we are both still here all the time. It is like a baby to us. You know? And it's something I certainly want to, when I don't work anymore, I don't know when that is, but I want my daughter to make sure she has. I believe in working as a mother. I would never force it on her, but I've always worked. Literally, since my kids were born, and especially today. Why shouldn't you have that? |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lauren Piskin | You could be so many things today, and I think it's really important for a woman to know that she can be the mother, the wife, the business woman. And what a full great life if you get to do all that. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. And spin a lot of joy into that mix, and you have a happy life. So you actually just walked yourself into my last question, great. Which is, what do you think the future looks like for Chaise? You're opening up a space in my hometown in New Jersey. |
| Lauren Piskin | That's right. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yep, in Maplewood. |
| Lauren Piskin | Maplewood. |
| Jodi Katz | In Maplewood. |
| Lauren Piskin | Without franchise. |
| Jodi Katz | So when you daydream about the next five years, what do you see, Rachel? |
| Rachel Piskin | I think continuing to develop our programming. So varying our classes, developing our certification program, continuing to make the studios that we have even more successful. That's always what we want. And then we never know what other studios might develop out of those successes. But I think we find- |
| Lauren Piskin | The online component. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah, developing online. I mean, at the end of the day, fitness is so competitive and it's very saturated, today. And so we focus on ourselves and what we're good at. And what, I think, we're really good at is the fitness, the classes themselves. And that, then, grows our business for us, is because our classes are very results-oriented, so people see results, feel results. And at the end of the day, that's why people are coming to workout. |
| Lauren Piskin | And it's a unique workout. There's very few workouts that work on form and posture. |
| Rachel Piskin | Mm-hmm (affirmative). |
| Lauren Piskin | And with the world today and everyone on a computer and technology, you are something constantly in that kyphotic, which means shoulders in, rounded over. Where now, what we do opens you up, and the bands from above, the bungees, really challenge you to develop the upper back and the upper chest muscles and strengthen them. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Lauren Piskin | And I think that's something we really do that's very different. |
| Jodi Katz | That's so cool. |
| Lauren Piskin | Than anybody else. |
| Jodi Katz | Well I'm so grateful that I got to know both of you. It's such an interesting story. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yes, thank you. |
| Lauren Piskin | Thank you. |
| Jodi Katz | And I wish you all the best as you grow this business. |
| Rachel Piskin | Thank you. |
| Lauren Piskin | Thank you so much. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah, I'm excited to try to the class. |
| Rachel Piskin | Yeah, you have to! |
| Lauren Piskin | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | It sounds really fun. I feel like ... Yeah, this is important. |
| Lauren Piskin | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | So thank you for your wisdom. And for our listeners, I hope you enjoyed this interview with Lauren and Rachel. Please subscribe to our series on iTunes. And for updates about the show, follow us on Instagram, @wherebrainsmeetbeautypodcast. |
| Announcer | Thanks for listening to WHERE BRAINS MEET BEAUTY® with Jodi Katz. Tune in again for more authentic conversations with beauty leaders. |
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