 I'm Sarah Funk, an on-camera travel host, video producer, and New York tour company owner. I live and breathe the entrepreneurial lifestyle. And I'm Maxima Amartno, a fantasy author, co-founder of a writing resource site called All the Kissing, and a brand writer for GoDaddy. Being an entrepreneur takes courage. This lifestyle is full of ups and downs, twists and turns, and unexpected hurdles. But overcoming these challenges means building the business of your dreams. Which is why we set out to chat with everyday entrepreneurs from all sorts of industries about their roads to success. Real stories, real people, real inspiration. This is School of Hustle. You know, I'm doing pretty good, all things considered. I'm feeling a little cooped up, and I'm like a self-proclaimed recluse, so I don't like to go out anyway. Wow, this is a lot for you to feel this way. Yes, it's a lot for me, so I need to be doing something that sparks either my creative energy or gets the juices flowing or something, because I'm feeling a bit stagnant right now. I'm not going to lie. I hear you. I told myself I would work out every day of this, and I think I've probably worked out a total of five times. I know, I think by the time I get out, I'm going to have zero muscle left in my body. But, you know, we've got to take care of our health these times. We've got to take care of our mind. Today, we're chatting with Taylor Elise Morrison, founder and CEO of Inner Workout. From movement to breathwork, to meditation and journaling, her mission is to make self-care more inclusive and accessible to all. Her business has been featured in Forbes Entrepreneur and more, and we're so excited to chat with her about her entrepreneurial journey. Taylor, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. We're so thrilled to have you here. So, could you tell us in your own words about Inner Workout? Yeah. Inner Workout, I like to say that it's people's self-care support system. So, we're rooted in this yogic concept of the Koshas, which we call the five dimensions of well-being, and we really create offerings that help people build the skill of self-care, which we define as listening within and responding in the most loving way possible. From the moment you came up with this concept, you actually used to be the vice president of operations at a wellness startup. So, why the shift from corporate life to starting your own business? Was there an aha moment you had? Yeah. So, I've always been entrepreneurial ever since I was a kid. I would always be learning things and then wanting to turn them into a business. So, even before I started Inner Workout, I had a brand strategy company that I started my senior year of college, and I ended up actually marrying my high school sweetheart, and I remember telling him pretty early on in my relationship with him, like, if I am still working for someone else by the time I'm 30, then you have to make me quit my job because I know I'm meant to be an entrepreneur. I love that. That's so inspiring, and I completely agree as well. That was kind of my timeline. So, we're in line with that. Yeah. So, I was working in corporate at Allstate's headquarters, and I knew that that life wasn't for me, so moving into a startup and a role on the ground floor of a startup really felt like a good way for me to start to build up some of my business, and especially my operational chops. So, let's get back into Inner Workout a little bit. How did you know that was going to be a good business idea? I wish I could say, like, there was a specific moment, but when I had the idea, I was about to take a yoga class, and I just thought, why isn't there a self-care class? And so, I did a lot of looking around to see if there was something similar to what I wanted to build, and I didn't really see anything that was exactly the same. There were some things that were kind of similar, but were maybe focused more on cardio. There wasn't anything in the restorative space, and nothing that was purely focused on. We were here to help you build the skill of self-care, so I saw that market opportunity, and then I started talking to a lot of people. I was in a startup program, and so I was doing a lot of customer discovery and talking to people and running the idea past them and getting a lot of good feedback. Could you tell us a little bit about that startup program? I'm so curious about that. I bet it taught you so much. Yeah, so I did a program called, well, the organization is called Future Founders. The program that I'm in was at the time called the Startup Residency. They've since rebranded to the Startup Bootcamp, and it's for idea stage companies, and it really takes you through the process of validating your idea, starting early stages to think about what a business model could look like. And for me, it was really helpful because it gave me a lot of accountability. We had to talk to a certain amount of customers by a certain amount of time, and then also it gave me a really good support network. Like there are people who went through that program, and then there's a second stage where you get even more support and mentorship, and I still talk to those people today. Was there anything that people had told you during your process of validating the idea, maybe some people you spoke to asking if they would be interested, that gave you new ideas to tailor your business model? So I think the biggest learning was that people knew in general that self-care was something that they should do, and either they knew what worked for them, but they struggled to make time for that for it, or they didn't know, and they were just kind of lost. So I really saw the biggest opportunities for us to offer support was one in putting something, creating something that people could put on their calendar. If they could go to it, they can show up for it, that accountability piece, and then also the support and kind of guiding people through a practice, guiding them through things that can resonate with them. So let's talk about a little bit. The first thing you did when you had your business concept, now how do you implement it, right? How do you create it? This is, this can be so overwhelming. Yeah, so where did I start? I think what was helpful for me is having a background where I was working with clients on their branding. I definitely had a little bit of a head start because my brain starts to think about mission, vision, and values where our target customer is, what the type of language we're going to use to connect with them is. But even before all of that, I loved this name of inner workout. So I searched to see like, is there a domain that I can get? Can I start to reserve names on social media and did like a preliminary trademark search to see what was out there to make sure that there wasn't something I didn't know about? So that's kind of where I started. And then I started building out the brand. I built the website myself. My husband's a designer, but it was really important for me as I was building out the brand to support as many women-owned companies as I could as I was building my company. So I actually worked with a colleague of his to build the visual brand. And then I executed that on building out the website. I had a landing page up for a while. So I would kind of tease about it on my own channels and people could go and start to follow, start to sign up so that when there was something, I had not a huge list, but a little bit of a list. So when you started doing this, it sounded like you kind of rolled it out slowly to see if there's a taste in the market for it. What were you feeling when you launched your first class? Were you scared? Were you excited? What was going through your head? Yeah. And I realized something else that I did that I didn't mention is I beta tested the class format. So I had people go through it and got some good feedback, was able to get some initial blurbs, testimonials that I could use to validate so people could see, oh, this is actually something other people have enjoyed. When I launched, I felt really ready. So I had the idea for the concept in late March. And I didn't launch until September. And so by that time, I was like chomping at the bit ready for people to actually experience it. So I was excited. It also was a little nerve-wracking because it's like, oh, what if it fails? Oh, I don't have time on this. I know. Oh my gosh. But it was cool. It was exciting to launch it. So entrepreneurship has a certain level of fluidity to it. And I'm curious, was there anything that was absolutely non-negotiable for you, like the concept or the name or something else entirely? I really loved the name. And I knew that I wanted to support people in self-care. I think values-wise, I also really wanted to be a company that represented all different shapes, sizes, backgrounds, and be really making self-care accessible. So I've been really intentional in that when there is different brand partnerships, when you see all the photos on the website, you see different types of people represented. And that's really been a stake in the ground for me. I absolutely love this message that you're putting out there. And it sounds like you were just so prepared, right? This came to you in late March. And then you launched in September. So was there anything that you wish you knew now that you could have told yourself back then? I wish I would have been a little bit bolder in asking early on. I think I had a lot of fear and imposter syndrome of what if someone finds out that I'm not a real CEO, whatever it means to be a real CEO. In some ways, failure can teach you so much more than success can. And learning from failure and adapting failure can lead to a more successful outcome. And I think the little voice in our head that's always like, oh, I'm an imposter. I'm not really this great. That's what it's really saying, is you're afraid of failure. Yeah. And I also noticed that there was a lot of self-sabotage where I was afraid of failing. And so I wouldn't want to tell people about what I was building, or I wouldn't want to ask for help, which inadvertently, actually not really inadvertently, subconsciously, was leaning me towards failure because I was so afraid to put myself out there. And so I was just like, either I'm going to do this and ask for things and show up in a big way. And if I fail, I fail or not do it at all. But this in between, it's just not healthy for me. Is there anything you're still actively learning about? Well, it's funny. I don't feel like I know it all. I think the reason why I'm good at running this company is because I'm a person who is actively figuring out what self-care looks like in my life in any given moment. I think the biggest thing that I'm looking at when it comes to self-care is how I relate to self-care when self-care is my work. And I love what I do, but I also know that my tendency is to be a workaholic. So really trying to figure out how I can have things that I do for fun outside of my job, which honestly is a good problem to have. Like a lot of people don't enjoy what they do so much that they're like, man, how do I step back from this? So I'm curious, Taylor. You have had so much experience, right? You worked at a startup before this. You've gathered an email list before you even launched your business. So you're, I would say you're pretty savvy when it comes to the marketing side of your business. However, like the wellness industry is growing, right? Like I feel like there's a lot out there, a lot of competitors. So I'm really curious how you separate yourself. How do you stand out from everyone else who's trying to say that they're a wellness brand right now? I think a couple of things. One is being really firm and intentional about being an inclusive wellness brand. I also think that focusing on being a product and a company that's focused on self-care. Yes, there's like a mental health aspect of that, but we're not really a health company. We're not really a fitness company. We're really about you relating to yourself. That's such an honest mission. I love that. So what's next for your business? Are you looking to expand it to other products and services? Can you talk about what products you offer now as well? Yeah, so it's interesting. It's an interesting time to be a business owner. I would have answered this question probably a lot different a couple of months ago. So what we offer right now is we have the inner workout class, the namesake class, which is a 30 to 60 minute class that blends movement, breath work, journaling and meditation. And it's all designed to help you build the skill of self-care. So right now what we can offer is we have the prerecorded classes for that. And people can buy a single class or they can buy a bundle of all of the class recordings. We did do a lot of in-person classes and we have a certification program, which is now taking place online where people can become inner workout facilitators. That's what we call it rather than teachers because again, we really think that you're the teacher. We're just facilitating the experience to help you step into that role for yourself. So we've got that certification program and we also have what we recently launched is the take care profile, which is completely digital. It measures people along the five dimensions of well-being tells you percentage-wise where you're at and then gives you three customized self-care practices based on what your results are. So what are you doing to navigate these challenging times as a business? Are there any new products and services that you're going to offer, such as virtual classes perhaps? I kind of hit pause when everything with COVID-19 happened. I put out some free resources. I put out this, we call it an inner workout. That included an embodiment practice, some journaling prompts and a meditation. And it was just like, here's something that you can do to take care of yourself right now. I thought about doing more live streamed classes. I have the setup where I could do it, but I realized that looking at the landscape, there is so much going on when it comes to virtual fitness classes. A lot of the really big companies are offering them for free. Could you talk a little bit about the partnerships with brands that you've established? Yeah, so I've done a lot of event partnerships and sometimes it's me teaching a workshop on self-care. Sometimes it's teaching an inner workout class, but it's been really good because it allows me to get in front of a different audience. So I've chatted with a few entrepreneurs in similar spaces, whether that's wellness, fitness, or adjacent to the wellness industry, who have a very strong social media following, and their followers expect them to be motivational and energetic all the time. Like their posts on social always have to be happy and smiling faces and positive speeches. And right now, that can be difficult. It's a lot. So when you have people counting on you for this type of support, emotion, feeling, whatever that may be, how do you keep yourself motivated? I've built the brand in a way where we don't have to do that, both my personal brand and inner workout. I think of around Christmas, we had a post that was like the most wonderful time of the year question mark. Like actually, this isn't the most wonderful time of the year for everyone because you're having to sometimes see family that really annoy you or have like done something terrible to you in the past or you're stressed out or the end of the year. So just being able to- Or buying presents that you can't afford. Exactly. And so being able to have those real conversations instead of like it's all sunshine and rainbows, but be like, no, sometimes it's really awful. Sometimes you're pissed off. Sometimes life seems really hard. How do you care for yourself, even when you're in that place? What's one piece of advice to give to everyday entrepreneurs like yourself? In this moment especially, and something that I'll carry with me, is that collaboration is so vital. It's just exactly what I was describing. There's so many ways to create shared opportunity. And I think in having a mentality of like, I need to go this alone or I don't want to collaborate because what if they're getting money that people aren't spending on my brand but having this collaborative mindset makes a world of difference. Yeah, just connecting with people that can relate to what you're going through. I know GoDaddy has a great community right now called Open We Stand. And it's a community of entrepreneurs that are all struggling right now because of COVID-19. And I'm part of it. And it feels so good to be part of it because you're in a group of people that can understand and relate to you. And we're all sharing information. And growing and trying our best to stay open. Yeah, for anyone listening, for anyone listening who wants to join in on that community, there's a group on LinkedIn. And it's just entrepreneurs coming together talking about their current experiences, what they're going through. So just having open, honest conversations just like we've been having with the wonderful Taylor. Yes, 100%. So Taylor, you've been so wonderful before we let you go. Is there anything else you would like to share? No, I guess the biggest thing is that I would encourage anyone who's listening to this to set aside some time for yourself. It doesn't, a lot of times we think self-care has to be this long ritual or routine. But even just taking five minutes to listen to a song and have a dance party in your living room, taking one minute to do some deep breathing can make a world of difference in how you approach the rest of your day. I love that. So if anyone's looking for resources like that, I know I am as an entrepreneur in the tourism industry, which is rough right now. You can check out Taylor's information. It will be linked either in the podcast or below in this video. So Taylor, it's been such a joy having you on the show. So thank you so much for joining us. And thank you to everyone who's tuned in today. If you want to learn more about Taylor and Inner Workout, visit innerworkout.co. Follow her on Facebook at the Inner Workout and Instagram at Inner Workout. That's all for this edition of School of Hustle. 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