The One Thing- Storytime

Like anything in life, if you choose to go after it, you’ll have obstacles. Your success in that will be determined by if you can overcome those obstacles.

When I had just started my “in real life” business, my first year, I was so gritty and determined to overcome anything. I was ready to show the haters what I was made of. Yes, I did have haters. People in my life who should have been the most supportive, were not. What was the business? A ballet school. In the first year I went from 1 student to about 75. All my money was going in to rent and I had to lug my stuff in and out every week for classes because it was a shared space. When I established the business, I had a plan set up of where we would be eventually. This was only short term. By the second year, I had gotten into the new space. It was perfect. Someone had bought an old cathothic church and were using it for a food pantry, youth ministry, and a church. There was so much building space that we were able to come use some of it for an extremely low price. The best part is that there was an auditorium for our classes. This was bound to be a perfect setup that would help our business thrive. That year we purchased thousands of dollars worth of equipment and flooring. This would easily pay itself off in a few years. These were small expenses compared to most small businesses. We thrived our second year. And it was a blast! I was doing what I loved and finally started to see a profit from it. I even started to hire teachers. It was bliss! We had a system going. Our flooring was cut to fit the room. So were the mirrors. We paid to have them installed. It was perfect.

The end of the year rolled around, we had our performance. It went swimmingly! Then I found out that they would not be allowing us to come back for the next year. It didn’t matter how many times we cleaned up after ourselves AND them in that space and worked with their requests. It didn’t matter that we always paid our rent on time. It didn’t matter what they promised. They had some other ideas and we weren’t a part of it. This was DEVASTATING. My entire vision fell flat. We were back at square one again. That money I invested to get the equipment set up was flushed. And now on top of not having a place, I had to pay to store all this flooring that we didn’t even pay off yet.

Two years in I was faced with a choice. Do I give up? Or do I continue? I decided that it didn’t matter what we were facing, I had to make it work. We had so many families that were depending on this. We were the studio that made the difference in their kids lives. I even have families today who remind me of the difference we made in their lives. I still have people calling me for classes. Years after we shut down. We chose to go back to the original place we rented from.

We decided to go back to the studio we started in. It was costly for us, but back in that place so many lives were changed. I wasn’t in it to make a buck. I was in it to serve these families. I was clear on why I was there. I was clear that nothing would stop me. We would go on to have another couple amazing years. Lives were changed.

I had one adult class that I would do. There were a few women in it broken from spiritual abuse. The classes we had were so impactful and healing to them. Being able to come alive in the God given skills and talents they had. And to do it in a safe place. It set me on fire to be able to provide that for the time that we did.

If I had let that one obstacle stop me that second year, I would have deprived these people I was serving with what God wanted to do in their lives. You may not be a person of faith, but whatever you believe… we can all agree that there’s purpose and destiny for each person. And we all have a role to play in this grander scheme.

As a business owner, you can’t let the obstacles get to you. That’s going to be the key to success in anything you take on. Don’t give up. Find a way. If you weather the hard times, you will blossom.

There’s a story on why I had to walk away from that business, but you’ll have to wait till next time.

Don’t give up. Keep building. Keep plowing.

You were made for more.

Katherine Penniman.