Catalyzing Success: Empowerment Strategies for Entrepreneurial Moms with Lisa Druxman

But mine was a story because I created one, a really unique fitness class. You don't often see a brigade of women pushing strollers and working out, but I also create a really unique business opportunity. Like we are a franchise, but we are not your typical franchise. So we were getting all kinds of awards and accolades for really being trailblazers to create unique opportunities for moms to have their own business. But the today show for us was just a wow. And when it aired on the East coast, we got a thousand calls before it even aired on the West coast. It was amazing. And it also opened up so many other PR opportunities, like full page article in entrepreneur magazine, and it just went on and on. So that was a really magical, special time. And you can't buy that kind of advertising. If I were to do it all the times are different. It's harder to get that kind of PR. Now we work more with influencers than trying to get on the today show that really created some huge brand awareness for us. Welcome to super entrepreneurs podcast. I'm your host Shahid Durrani. Today we have with us Lisa Druxman. Lisa is an entrepreneur, author and speaker best known for founding fit for mom, a fitness program that provides classes and support for mothers. She started fit for mom in 2001 after struggling to find a fitness program that caters to her needs. Welcome to our show. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. So tell us a story. What happened exactly that got you to open this for yourself back in 2001? Yeah, I wasn't looking to start a business. I was a new mom on maternity leave and didn't want to leave my baby to work out. So I created a stroller workout that I could do with him and it was literally our best hour of the day. But what was missing for me was I had so many questions about motherhood. I knew nothing about motherhood. And so I started a class in my neighborhood just because I was a fitness professional. I figured I could help them get in shape and they could help me with all the things I needed to know about motherhood. And apparently I wasn't the only one looking for that because that was the beginning of stroller strides and it took off so I didn't have to go back to work after my maternity leave. I was all of a sudden, not only a mom, but an entrepreneur. That's wonderful. So does this include some sort of a specialized personal training that they go through? Is it unique from any other gym? Yes. Yeah, definitely unique. Stroller strides was the first class we created and a stroller based workout. So you will have a certified fitness instructor who is going to teach you all kinds of cardio strength, flexibility, while at the same time, you're pushing a stroller. It depends on where you are in the country. Sometimes it's outdoors, sometimes it's indoors, but imagine if you're outdoors, you're doing a stroller walk, you might do lunges, squats, you might do pushups at a table, tricep dips at a bench. So moms get a total body workout and they get a chance to have fun with their baby and they get a chance to meet other moms. I designed the classes very specifically for the changes that happen in a mom's body. A mom's body will change more in nine months of pregnancy than a man's will in his entire life. So we are very specific to help her start to restore her core, restore her alignment and help her rebuild after pregnancy. A lot of entrepreneurs are probably wondering, you sustained this business for so many years. Have you faced any kind of challenges? And if you can share some of them and how you overcame. That's funny. If you're an entrepreneur, it's not if, it's when. Yeah, 21 years of business. So as my own kids grew up, the business grew up and we became more than just stroller strides. We became fit for moms. So we're fitness for every stage of motherhood. Running a fitness class, that part was easy for me. Designing a fitness class, that part was easy for me, but creating a nationwide franchise and balancing work and motherhood, that was not so easy. Certainly we run into so many struggles throughout the years, but each one of those struggles is how you build the business. That's how you build the confidence. That's funny. I feel like so many entrepreneurs want confidence, but it's like in order to get that confidence, you first need to actually have the courage to start. And then you have to build the competence by doing the work. And God, I just don't even know where to begin because we've had so many different challenges over the years. It's ironic because one of the challenges in our business that's unique to us is motherhood. It's our reason for being. It's our unique blessing, but it's also a challenge. So pretty much 99.9% of our franchisees across the country, we are a franchise. We have over 200 franchisees. They're all moms. And so starting a business, growing a business and juggling being a mom, not easy. For sure. A hundred percent. That's a big venture you have there. So can you share some details about the franchise opportunity? If there's anyone in the audience that may want to look into this as opening one up? My pleasure. It was always important to me that this was a low cost turnkey business for moms. I, it's interesting. Our franchisees are everything from accountants to attorneys to teachers. Lots of teachers. A lot of people who realize that their career no longer fit who they wanted to be once they became a mom. So I wanted to create a business that moms could have positive impact in their community, could do what their baby could work from home. And so that's really fit for mom's kind of a unique opportunity in that. So if someone's buying a fit for mom franchise, they get their own territory that's exclusive to them to offer any of our classes. So we do have fitness for every stage of motherhood. We have I think six or seven programs. I've lost count starting with fit for baby, which is our prenatal program. Going all the way through body well, which is just this beautiful transformational program for moms at any stage of motherhood. Our franchisees get their own website, email, social media support, marketing assets. And we really train them on all aspects of running the business. Not just in teaching the classes, but in how to be a leader, how to be a manager, how to build their team. Some franchisees just teach a few classes a week on their own, but many are building their own little mom empires and have full teams working underneath them. So are there any mindset courses that you give your franchisees? Yeah, my master's degree is actually in psychology. So I'm glad that you asked that. I do believe that mindset is such a big part of being an entrepreneur. I created a podcast just for our franchisees. So it's a private podcast just for them called mom business Academy. And in that we teach everything from time management and productivity to help them, but also about mindset. In fact, I was just doing an episode. It was just talking about changing your perspective on things. Sometimes being an entrepreneur, it can be lonely. And sometimes you're like, feel like you're in the dumps and just how to change your perspective and how to realize that whatever challenge it is that you're facing, how is this happening for you and not to you? How is this an opportunity for you to grow? And it's amazing how, when you can switch your perspective like that, you can change what the stressor is and create a completely different response. Oh, definitely. A lot to do with the self-talk. Absolutely. Do you have franchisee owners that have multiple locations? We do. Yeah. We have franchise, we have different territories that franchisees can buy. Very often, not always, but the business will grow as their kids will grow up. So as their kids get older, they buy additional territory. They start to expand their team, expand their offerings. Yeah. It just, we have business for every stage of motherhood too. Oh, that's cool. Is there opportunity as a passive income setting one up where you guys provide any kind of support to put people in your community that run it for a passive investor? Yeah. I think that's difficult from the start. We had some franchisees who have been with us for 15 years, 17 years, where they really have full teams who are running the business now. And so it is, I wouldn't say completely passive, but more passive, but it is hard at the beginning because the way to really get a Fit for Mom business off the ground is to become what we call the mayor of Momville. And so to have these deep connections in the community, and that's so much a part of Fit for Mom. We have playgroups and mom's nights out and it's hard to outsource that. Yeah, true. Just curious, a lot of entrepreneurs in our audience, they'd like to add sources of income, always to know that information, if it could help anyone. When it comes to your own internal workings, you studied in psychology, do you do anything on a daily basis to keep yourself elevated for your entire business? Because it sounds like a lot of work. Absolutely. It's evolved. Again, I feel like everything evolves around motherhood with me. So my kids are older now. So my kids are 21 and 18, which gives me far more space than I used to have. And I really realized that in those early years of running the business and having young kids, I lived in a state of overwhelm a lot and just could just never get it all done. And I really realized that was me and I'm the architect of my life and I'm the architect of my day. And so I could redesign my day to make sure that I am counterbalancing that stress and that work. And for me, a lot of that came from having a morning ritual. And so the morning ritual is much deeper than it used to be. I have more time for it, but every single morning, it's a combination of journaling and gratitude work, meditation. I'm also doing a lot with breath work. I'm now starting to play with doing some ice baths, taking breaks that so many people just grind through the day. And I think this has been for me, a perk of the pandemic, if there is, if there are perks was we lost our office. We left our office during the pandemic and everybody started to work from home. And the nice thing about working from home was I can take a break and I can go out to my garden. And those things really recharge me and give me far more focus, energy, better mindset to be able to handle whatever's coming at me as an entrepreneur. I also want to add besides the morning routine. Again, I think that being an entrepreneur can be a lonely thing, which is why podcasts like yours are amazing is having some sort of a mastermind, having some sort of fellow entrepreneur community. I've done many different groups over the years right now. I'm a part of EO, which is entrepreneurs organization here in San Diego. And you get a really tight group of people. So I'm in a forum with eight other people and there are eight entrepreneurs and we can lean on each other and not feel so alone. So I feel like a combination of community and self-care, I guess, is a long answer to your question. Yeah. Good answer. I love this stuff. I also have a morning routine. And so I always like to know. So it's good that you brought it up. What I'd love to know. What's your morning routine? My morning routine. Okay. So as soon as I wake up, I journal. So I write out grateful statements, about 20 of them. And then from there, I read a few pages of that, right? Of that book. And then I meditate for an hour. An hour, that's impressive. I thought I was good at my 20 minutes. Yeah, I've been doing it for the longest time. It's just, I can't wait to do it actually. I can, the night before I'm just excited for when I'm going to do it. It wasn't like that in the beginning. It felt like work, but it's a mindset, right? It's the paradigm. We have this paradigm that we feel that everything that we do just seems difficult. It's just been programmed growing up. But really, if we change that and we make it fun, if you make it like we get to do it, right, not have to do it, and you start changing that self-talk about it. And you'll notice you all of a sudden you start feeling excited about it. And then over time, it just becomes second nature, but not to mention. Yeah, it's such a gift. We have all the gifts. And then from there I exercise for about 30, 40 minutes. Then I get ready and then, oh, and I read my self-image script. I have a script that I read and I internalize with gratitude every morning. That evolves as well with time. But yeah, that's about it. So what I love about all of this, and again, I'm so great about podcasts like yours is success leaves clues. So like you get a chance to learn from successful people who are saying, Hey, this is what works for me. And you start to hear a huge number of people. And I know that are successful and not just successful financially or in business, but all being successful, some sort of a morning ritual or routine. So if you're listening and you have not tried it, give it a try. Give it a try. Definitely. It's not easy in the beginning, obviously, but just like anything else, you just make it part of you. And the results are incredible because you ignite your day. It's like a restart from the previous day. And, and yeah, you're absolutely right. The passion behind this show is that I want to learn. Um, I want to learn from entrepreneurs, what they have achieved. I want to share that knowledge with the audience and see if it can help them. It's all about growing together, right? We're all connected. And if we can help each other and learn from each other, it's just incredible. To have this facility, imagine we didn't, we weren't here. We have to fly out to meet someone. Like I know I'm doing four or five interviews a day. Sometimes I could never do that otherwise. So we live in an incredible time to be an entrepreneur and to live life. Yeah. Do you spend time in the present moment as well? Do you practice present moment awareness? Yeah. So it's been something I've had to work on a lot and continue to work on. So it does. And I clinically do have AD. So it's always been something of re grounding myself and really just a lot of it had to do with blocking and stop multitasking. So I'm very good with my schedule to time block and be like, okay, right now I'm just doing email. Right now I'm working on a project and I don't allow notifications and all of the things to distract me. So whenever I'm in it, I'm a hundred percent in it right now with this podcast, everything else is shut off. There's no slack texting. I am a hundred percent present with you. And that's excellent. Yeah. It's something I keep working on. Yeah, definitely. Same here. It's such an important component, especially building relationships and just being in service to others. If you're not completely present there, you're not really being fair to the other person. It's not just about you. So it's really good that you do that as well. In the years of running the business, was there any part that gave you a boost of success that you still remember? And that if you had to do this over again or start another business, that one thing you're going to definitely be doing. Oh, wow. It's funny. I have something that came in my mind, but it's not something that's necessarily repeatable. The thing that came into my mind that was a big boost of success to us was the first time we were on the Today Show. We were so excited to be invited on the Today Show and they did a huge segment on us. They came out to my home. Before you continue, did you ever see that in your mind? Did you ever visualize, did you ever feel, did you ever think about it that it was going to happen or when you were running your business? I get no credit for it. No, I wasn't like putting it out into the universe. It wasn't law of attraction. It just happened. So I think the thing that I would say makes it repeatable, if there is anything, is thinking about your business as far as where is it a story, right? If it's just another fitness class or just another product or widget, there's no story there. But mine was a story because I created one, a really unique fitness class. You don't often see a brigade of women pushing strollers and working out, but I also create a really unique business opportunity. Like we are a franchise, but we are not your typical franchise. So we were getting all kinds of awards and accolades for really being trailblazers to create unique opportunities for moms to have their own business. But the Today Show for us was just a wow. And when it aired on the West, I'm sorry, when it aired on the East coast, we got a thousand calls before it even aired on the West coast. It was amazing. And it also opened up so many other PR opportunities, like then a full-page article in Entrepreneur Magazine, and it just went on and on. So that was a really magical, special time. And you can't buy that kind of advertising. If I were to do it all again, yes, they approached us. Times are different. It's harder to get that kind of PR. Now we work more with influencers than trying to get on the Today Show. But wow, that sure was a magical time that really created some huge brand awareness for us. That's wonderful. That's so incredible. I can just imagine what you guys were feeling when you got that email or call. It was very exciting. Yeah, that's wonderful. So Lisa, can you share with us what you feel your innermost superpower is that got you to this point in life? Belief. I honestly, I have this deep belief that anything is possible and everything is figureoutable. And it's not that I have. So you do work with the law. I do. Oh, I didn't say I don't work with the law. I do work with the law, so I'm fairly familiar with it. I just don't think I got credit for the Today Show from it. Like I wasn't putting that out in the universe. I definitely work with the law. That's awesome. But it's not that I have to have belief that I know how to do everything. It's just that I believe I can bring teams together to figure it out and to create anything. And so I think just about everything's possible. I have deep belief. That's wonderful. Amazing. And again, a lot of that comes from 21 years in business and the more you get through, the more you grow. And we deal with, I have over 220 franchisees. And so brand new business owners. Right. And so very often their first obstacle or their first hard part, they want to throw in the towel. It's not how it works. Like you're going to have so many towels that soon you'll have a towel. Like you don't throw them in and you just keep, I don't know, I don't know what metaphor I was building there, but you just keep getting stronger. The more you grow, like you do, you grow through all of it. And so that mindset has really helped me so that I don't go into a dark place when something, and it is like the, my dad is a psychologist and he said, bigger kids, bigger problems. The same is true for business. The bigger your business, the bigger weight of the problems, whether it's lawsuits or yeah. And so that's the key. Building that resilience and building that mind is so important. And what we teach our moms in our classes is to put your own oxygen mask on first. In order to be the best mom you want to be, you have to take care of yourself. That is true for all of us entrepreneurs in order for us to be the best leader we want to be, we've got to take care of ourselves. We've got to lead by example. Yeah. It's so true. Like when we work with people right away, when they get excited, when they see some results, they say, Oh, I want to teach my husband. I want to teach my kids. I said, no, you don't want to do that. You've got to fill your cup first. You got to get to a place where you are the product first, and then you can transfer it. So that's great. And you mentioned about success and success is like a very personal thing. I think some people's success is creating a nationwide franchise. Some is being a billionaire, a lot of money. Some is doing service to the mass amount of people in the world. Building schools, that's a success. So it really depends on the person, what they think success is. And also you mentioned about the belief as your superpower, your inner superpower and the law. Basically, when you have that belief that anything is possible, you're automatically vibing at a higher frequency, like you're up there. So when you have that state that anything is possible, you are connected to more than just the struggle at the surface level. So those good things start happening. You don't have to actually visualize going on the show. Good things start happening because you are elevated. Absolutely. That's so amazing. Love this, Lisa. Really appreciate that you took the time to come on our show and spread your message. It was wonderful speaking to you. And also we appreciate that you guys agreed to help us promote this episode on your network, it really helps us make a bigger impact together. Of course. Thank you. And audience, thanks again for joining us for another episode. Lisa's information will be in the show notes. If you're a mom and you're looking for a business, there's an opportunity here. You can see Lisa is great. You can sense from her conversation, from her vibration, how she represents herself. So it's something that you would definitely want to look into if you're looking to create another source of income that could take over the one that you do not like, you want to spend the time that you have on this earth in a very pleasant frame of mind. So appreciate you guys. Thank you so much once again, and thank you so much, Lisa. Thank you.