Women’s History Month: Teacher Q&A

At CorePower Yoga, we know that it’s the unique and diverse voices within our communities that make CorePower what it is, and we are dedicated to uplifting and amplifying these voices every day. We want to share stories that enrich the CorePower community and expand perspectives by sharing other people’s points of view. In recognition of Women’s History Month, our CEO Niki Leondakis sat down with Los Angeles South and Orange County District Manager, Taryn Pietsch.

They discuss what brought Taryn to CorePower, how she’s trying to be the female leader she never had, and the importance of resilience. Enjoy!

Niki: So nice to meet you, Taryn. I really appreciate you making time to chat with me and hopefully inspire others during Women’s History Month. You oversee eighteen CorePower Yoga studios – wow! We’re so lucky to have you.

Taryn: Hi Niki. Thank you for having me. Yes, eighteen studios. My background is in retail operations, and eighteen feels like a sweet spot for me. I’m excited to be here!

Niki: What brought you to CorePower Yoga?

Taryn: The yoga brought me. I am almost through my first 500 hours on the yoga therapy path. I came from Alo, where I ran west coast operations. As the company grew, and also was impacted by the pandemic, I felt like I lost the connection to yoga, and that was my original purpose. I made a vow to myself that I wouldn’t work somewhere where I wasn’t happy. I wanted to be surrounded by the things I cared about. It was the CorePower community and being surrounded by like-minded humans that sealed the deal for me.

Niki: The community here is unlike anywhere else, isn’t it? And I believe it really starts in our studios.

In all of the classes you’ve taken at CorePower, as a student, what’s one thing that a teacher has done from an experience standpoint that had a positive impact on you?

Taryn: Having been externally trained in yoga, but familiar with CorePower, I came in with certain perceptions – though I’d never experienced the brand directly. I thought it was going to be very corporate, very scripted, and rigid. To be honest, I was a little nervous coming in that I was going to miss the philosophy and the connection elements of yoga that are so important to me. So when I came in and took [Los Angeles and Phoenix District Manager] Kada’s class for the first time it made me realize that everything I wanted was here. That’s something that I want everyone to see. The yoga philosophy is here, the mindfulness is here. You can go deeper into your practice. You can tap into those other pieces of the experiences. We do offer a great workout, and we offer consistency, but we still offer that authentic experience. So when I took classes, I was elated by the experience.

Niki: Kada is amazing. She is such an inspiration. When I started at CorePower Yoga three years ago, one of the things I wanted to do right off the bat was spend the day with a studio manager. So I spent a day with Kada who, at the time, was the manager of the RiNo studio in the same building as the Studio Support Center in Denver. She’s something special.

Taryn: She’s the Yin to my Yang. I’m so lucky to work with her.

Niki: Ditto. I feel so lucky to work with Kada too.

We hear a lot from our members and students that the studio becomes a home away from home, and they love the feeling of community they get when they practice in the studios. How do you create a sense of community and help students feel welcome in your studios?

Taryn: As a District Manager, I believe that I am most impactful when I can create a safe and inclusive space for my team. Where they feel happy, where they feel seen, where they can be successful. I deeply believe that by focusing on the people, and first creating the sense of belonging internally within the team, that’s how we trickle it out within the community. The teachers and studio managers all act every day and every minute from their hearts and their souls. They need to be fed, so that they then can serve others.

Niki: Yes, beautiful. I love that. It does come from the heart and soul. It can’t be effective if it’s not genuine.

Taryn: Yes - a lot of heart!

Niki: As I’m sure you know, CorePower’s higher purpose is to power love from the inside out. There are many ways that can be done – and it’s happening all the time in our studios and communities. From your perspective, how can we power love in the world?

Taryn: Very similar to what I said before, I think it has to start with our internal customers. Our employees are just as important, if not more so, than our students and members. I think our goal should be to become a place where everyone wants to be, and a place that is really, really hard to leave.

Money is great, titles are great. At the end of the day, though, people will leave money, they will leave toxic bosses, they’ll leave all of that. I want CorePower to be a place that is really hard for people to leave. When we do that, it permeates into our community. You can feel it when people aren’t happy. It’s heavy and sticky. You can feel it in every interaction. If you walk in and people are smiling and welcoming, and they know your name and care about you, and they want to include you, and for you to feel safe, you know they want to be of service. I think that’s the only way to power love. And our employees have to feel it first.

Niki: I couldn't agree more, Taryn. There’s an energy or vibration we feel and it’s not always cognitive. It’s physical, emotional, it’s intangible, but you know when it’s there. And you know when it’s not.

I really believe it starts with being 100% present in that moment, in the experience. The ability to engage about whatever specifically is happening at the time. It’s so subtle, but it’s often hard to do. It’s so easy to be caught up in your thoughts, and thinking about something else. Then when someone says something to you, you’re only half engaged in your response. People feel that.

I just experienced this when I went to grab lunch today. My server was the perfect example of someone who was invested in the guest experience. It wasn’t a long interaction, but she was fully present, fully connected to me. And, I promise, my veggie wrap tasted better because of it.

Taryn: I’m starting this book called, Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, who is the former co-owner of the legendary New York restaurant, Eleven Madison Park. It’s all about how powerful it is to give people more than they expect. I’m working with the LA and OC markets on how we change the guest experience from the moment they walk in, so that’s a big focus for us.

Niki: I can’t wait to hear what you think about the book. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s been recommended to me.

Having come up in hospitality, I think I take for granted the level of service that comes from people who are choosing a path that’s named for what it is. It’s all about those little details that make you feel welcome, that make you feel seen, that help you realize that someone cares enough to do the extra thing. Whatever that is, and it’s just the little things. It can make such a difference.

Taryn: I will let you know how it is. This is the first hospitality-leaning book I’ve read.

Niki: Well, if you like it, I recommend Setting the Table, by Danny Meyer who is known for setting the standard of service in the hospitality industry above and beyond anything anyone had done before. I highly recommend it.

Taryn, I could talk about service and the guest experience for hours. I love that these are themes you’re reinforcing with your teams at CorePower.

In honor of Women’s History Month, can you tell me a little bit about a woman in your life you admire?

Taryn: This question is challenging for me. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. First, let me say that I greatly admire women. I’m a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister and a friend. I’m all those things. And, I’m a leader. As a leader, I think the female leaders I’ve had who stand out the most for me are the ones who exemplified behaviors I don’t want to model.

I've had leaders and managers who have directly discouraged emotion, vulnerability. Who have even discouraged me from starting a family. To be honest, I think I’ve learned the most from them because they have truly inspired me to become the boss I never had. That’s my goal.

Niki: It’s true. Sometimes we learn as much from the people who we don’t aspire to be like, as we do from those we do want to be like. I get that.

Taryn: We’re in such a different time now and it’s so interesting to see. What excites me now is to share space with the amazing women who lead, work, and teach at CorePower. We’re experiencing a cultural shift, and I believe we are all active participants in this shift.

Niki: You know, women only got a seat at the table in the eighties. That may seem so long ago, but at that time, as women leaders, the only way we were able to fit in and be accepted in a man’s world, was to lose the emotion. We were told that.

But, you’re right, things have changed. The ways women leaders survived back in the eighties aren’t relevant today. I don’t believe we should have felt we had to do those things back then either, but we did.

For me, being the boss I’ve never had, means we put the emotion back in. Humans are all about emotion. So why would we dehumanize ourselves to be effective in our jobs, when we’re interacting with humans all day long? Our employees and customers are all human. The business world is not separate from the human condition.

When we declared our higher purpose, it was about putting a stake in the ground to say that emotion – not just any emotion, but love – does belong in the business world. And inspiring people to love more is the best way to get your desired outcomes.

Taryn: Yes. Thank you!

Niki: Is there something you’d like to see in the future at CorePower Yoga? Or things we can do to power more love at the company level?

Taryn: I say this with full awareness that I’m only in my sixth month at CorePower. I think we're doing a lot of things right. I think we provide a community that gives people so much more than just a job. We offer a culture people are searching for, that they don’t even believe exists. I think it takes time to spread the word that it does exist.

I also believe that we’re human and we all have work to do. As we evolve as a company, we have to walk the walk. We have to ensure our teams feel seen and heard, and we have to provide structure and clarity on a consistent basis to build trust. CorePower is listening and I believe CorePower is open to continually evolving and improving. That’s something a lot of companies won’t do. The openness and willingness is imperative for continued success and for the sense of community that everyone is looking for.

Niki: We are listening. We listen constantly. I continue to hold local and small-group teacher chats both in person and virtually. We take all the feedback we get and it shapes our decision-making. Our Teacher Advisory Council is also integral in shaping everything we do to ensure we have the lens of the teachers in our decision-making.

The listening has very much contributed to making good decisions, and sometimes difficult decisions. It's imperative that we listen if we want to co-create CorePower into the place we all want it to be. A place that everyone can call their community.

Okay, finally, I have to ask this since you’re fairly new. At six months in, if there was one thing we could do to welcome our new employees to make them feel welcome, and like they belong, what would that be? What would you like to see?

Taryn: I think the biggest potential challenge is that when we’re hiring externally, hiring people who come from careers outside of CorePower, there is the idea that yoga and business do not blend. I think there is an understandable fear that business will come in and change everything, and that fear can create ripples in the company and can make onboarding challenging.

I think it all comes back to taking care of our humans. It’s about creating stability and trust. Erasing the fear of letting new perspectives in, trusting that your leaders have good intentions. Trusting that you are safe. Trusting that you can have an open dialogue and you won’t be punished or judged. If employees feel safe, we remove the fear.

Niki: That’s really poignant and excellent food for thought. How do we ensure change doesn’t create fear. Great feedback.

Is there anything else you’d like to share, Taryn? Any hopes and dreams you have for CorePower Yoga? Or for women, in honor of Women’s History Month?

Taryn: The only thing I would say to women reading this, is to be resilient. The capacity is there. Resilience is sometimes hard to find, especially with the last three years we’ve all had. It’s a mix of trusting your gut, and also being resilient to change and challenges. There is so much potential for everyone within CorePower. Whenever someone asks me, where do I go from here, or what is my growth path? I’m very happy to say, wherever you want. Because I truly believe that our job as leaders is to prepare people for the world, whether that’s with CorePower or somewhere else. I want to help them become better humans than when they started.

Niki: I agree, Taryn. That is my hope for women at CorePower Yoga. That when they go out into the world, they’ve gained new skills. That they’ve developed the resilience to navigate the realities of life. As we know, everything is impermanent. Change is the only constant. Being resilient requires the intentional build-up of that muscle. We learn from change and adversity. Be more resilient, yes. Thank you for that.

Thank you so much, Taryn. I really appreciate you. I look forward to meeting you in person when I come to Los Angeles. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. Your perspective is invaluable.