Deborah Kearns is a writing professor, yoga and reiki instructor and overall wonderful women. Below she shares her story of dreaming, falling, and raising again. This is part of new series on overcoming failure and fear with confidence. 

When I was a teenager my Grandmom McKelvey told me I was a natural beauty.

As evidence to prove her wrong I complained about my mass of unruly brown curls, my freckles, and the fact that at my full grown height of five foot seven I towered a good four inches over my ardent, unrequited eighth grade crush, David Neely. She blamed my crazy hair on the fact that I insisted on eating bread crusts, reassured me that the mass of freckles that spilled across my nose and pink cheeks were really beauty marks, and insisted that tall girls were just naturally more advanced. (As an almost fifty-year-old I still believe her, on all counts.)

Besides my Grandmom, however, the general consensus was that my sister Dawn, two years younger than I, was the pretty one and I was the smart one. Her hair was soft and curly, not crunchy and curly, her skin was more ivory than freckled, she had a really cool birthmark on her right cheek, like Ginger from Gilligan’s Island (this was before Cindy Crawford and her famous mole entered the public’s consciousness), took voice lessons from a lovely woman named Edwina French, performed in all sorts of musicals and plays, and was always the life of the party.

Why Dawn and I both weren’t thought of as equally pretty and smart, I don’t know. Perhaps we were, and perhaps my vision as I look back is a bit murky. Maybe I liked playing the put upon smart daughter. After all, in my mind being pretty seemed a fairly arbitrary accomplishment that didn’t require a whole lot of effort. But being smart, that was hard, and tough, and you had to do it alone. No one, in my pathological mindset, could help you do it. Smart it was then.

This pretty versus smart conundrum followed me well into adulthood as I seemed hard-wired to be tough on myself, to push, push, push, because failure, in any area, was not an option.

And for most of my life, this philosophy/pathology served me well. I excelled in high school and college, have maintained a successful marriage for over twenty-five years, raised two well-rounded children who seem to be contributing to the world in a positive manner, worked part time as an English professor for a fairly esteemed university, and created a beautiful home which I have carefully decorated to within an inch of its life.

Then, having absolutely no business or marketing experience, I decided to open a yoga studio. It turned out that my personal yoga and Pilates practices, and my professional certification as a teacher in both modalities, did not guarantee success as a business owner. Late into the game I glumly discovered that my easy-going, chatty personality and my studio uniform of a cute floral headband combined with a coordinated color tank top did not equate into a viable marketing plan. This surprised me, well, more like shell-shocked me, actually. So much so that I started reciting a line from the television show, Portlandia, in which a business owner, lamenting their lack of customers, asks her partner,

“The sign is still out front, and you remembered to unlock the door, right?”

I did what I thought yoga studio owners did: I bought yoga props, studio supplies, cute headbands and fair trade clothing to sell, came up with a clever Sanskrit name for the studio, Ananda, which means bliss, registered my business as an LLC with the state, opened up a business account with a local bank, had a graphic artist create a logo, got a web site and a Facebook page, added studio software system to the web site so clients could sign up and pay for classes on line, brought on teachers the studio could not support, and decorated the studio to within an inch of its life. Then I sat back and waited for the classes to magically fill. Waiting got kind of boring, so to distract myself I decorated some more and used what meager profits I had made to buy more merchandise and more props.

Hindsight being twenty-twenty, I now realize that while I was busily involved in doing more of what did not need done, I was actually doing less of what did need done, which was actually run the business. I told everyone that the marketing/business part of a yoga studio wasn’t all that important; it was what happened on the mat that was important. Besides, the studio would grow by word of mouth. I was going to create a business based on goals that were loftier than making money. I would not cave to discounted coupons as a promotion to lure unsuspecting clients into my space, or say, something as pedestrian as pay to advertise in local newspapers/magazines. I would succeed or fail on my own terms. Blah, blah, blah. These are just a few of the things I sputtered out to people who asked me how I felt about the fact that the studio was struggling.

Truth be told, I put myself into a situation in which I was completely unprepared to succeed. When it came to the marketing and business end of things I was stupid. This made me panic because I had never really been stupid at anything before, and even if I was, I could teach myself how to become smarter. But I was in over my head with the studio and felt like no matter what I did, it was doomed to fail, so why bother doing anything at all? I shut down about eight months in and just wanted it all to be over.

I was an epic failure, in a very public way, and I simply counted down the months, and payments, to when my twelve month lease would expire.

Expire it did, and I limped back home with my accumulated headbands, and decorative pieces, sold some props to friends, found room for the leftover props in my already over-crowded basement, and removed myself from Facebook so I wouldn’t have to answer any questions about Ananda. I spent a full month away from my yoga mat, wallowing in pity, regret, embarrassment, and Tootsie Rolls, my confidence and self-esteem crushed to what I assumed was beyond repair, and simply waited, again. This time though, I knew what I was waiting for. While I may be a slow learner in many, many ways, I am nothing if not self-aware.

What I was waiting for was my natural curiosity to fight its way through my sugar-induced brain coma. I was curious as to why when I clearly loved sharing yoga, that I failed as a yoga studio owner, and what exactly it took to succeed. I was wondering what people meant by a business plan, brand, and model, projected cash flow, and a monthly profit/loss analysis. So I began reading books on opening yoga studios specifically and on owning small businesses in general, and I started taking on-line classes in marketing. Slowly, but surely, after about three months, I recognized my mistakes, and saw how, with a little more time spent learning on my part, I might be able to, someday, try again.

And why wouldn’t I want to try again? What was the big deal, really? All that happened was that I tried at something and I failed and everyone knew I failed and for a time I felt horrible and useless and awful and stupid.

Those feelings were an enormous waste of time and energy on my part, and the only thing I regret about the entire experience. Instead of beating myself up about failing, I should have been content in knowing that I found at least one way to run a yoga studio that did not work, and so could check that way off my list possible solutions, should I decide to do it again.

Instead of viewing myself with incrimination, I should have looked back on my very earnest and naïve self with love and compassion. I should have been proud that instead of watching life pass me by, I was brave enough, and optimistic enough, and hopeful enough to try to do something I loved. I should have appreciated and valued my time at Ananda as something truly extraordinary and inspiring because I learned things about myself that I would have never learned otherwise. At its simplest, I was lucky, truly lucky enough to own a gorgeous yoga studio which, in the words of one client, was “filled with peace and joy.”

Currently I am busily making plans to open Hands to Heart Yoga studio in the fall of 2015. As I do so, I keep reminding myself of the wise words of Samuel Beckett, “Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” If Hands to Heart does not work out as I hope, I have many other things that I would like to try. Right now the list is fairly open ended as I would like to try being a professional book binder, wine sommelier, interior designer, travel writer, life coach, café owner, and official Tootsie Roll taste taster. Let the failing begin.

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