We recently connected with Suzanne Burns and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Suzanne, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I can reflect on many moments in my life where I believe I developed resiliency, but I believe I developed much of my resilience as a kid and teenager. I’m the youngest of four kids and grew up with a single mom from the time I was a baby. Now that I have three kids of my own, I think about my mom often and just how hard she has worked to make sure that we were provided for. Our Dad didn’t contribute to help raise or support us and growing up with a strong mother like I have taught me resilience along the way. I also have learned a lot from my brother who is a two time cancer survivor. The first time he was diagnosed and underwent treatment, I was 17 and the last of my siblings to be living at home. We spent a lot of time together both in the hospital and once he was home recovering. Bearing witness to someone in a fight for their life at such an impressionable age changed me. It taught me we can’t take anything for granted and even in moments of immense challenge, there is a way through and forward.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I am an entrepreneur passionate about bringing people together living in Richmond, Virginia.
I founded Humble Haven Yoga in 2014 as a side hustle when I was working in business and product development in the world of digital advertising. I became an avid student of yoga in 2008 when I moved to Washington, DC after college. I had just lost my grandmother, Cornelia, and was unaware of how much I was struggling with her passing. Yoga became an outlet for me to process and remedy a lot of the anxiety I was feeling from the grief. My interests as a student of yoga kept developing. Going to weekly classes turned into attending monthly workshops to one teacher training to another. I taught part-time, in the mornings and evenings before and after work, for about a year and a half before I made it my full time gig and left the advertising world.
I grew up for much of my childhood and teenage years in Richmond. After my husband and I got married in 2014 and started talking about starting a family, I felt a nudge to move back to Richmond to be closer to my own family. I was also teaching about 23 yoga classes a week at the time to make ends meet in the Washington, DC area and the smaller size of Richmond and lower cost of living had its own appeal. I’d spend weekends coming to Richmond to visit my sister and visit local studios offering yoga classes to try and envision if I could make a career in teaching possible in my home city, but I felt like I couldn’t find a space or spaces where I wanted to establish roots. That’s when I got the idea of opening a brick and mortar location of Humble Haven Yoga, the LLC I had established for my solo teaching ventures.
My work in business and product development came in handy in navigating the world of business plans and financing the build out of a space. Everything else that has come with owning and operating a brick and mortar business and establishing a brand has been mostly learned along the way with the help of trusting my own gut instincts (thanks yoga for teaching me how to do that!) and an ability to recover quickly when I’ve made missteps along the way.
Humble Haven Yoga has been open for 8 years now. When I started, I had just turned 30 years old, was a newlywed who lived in a studio apartment with our dog Maple while my husband Steve was still living outside of Washington DC. I had our first son, Holt, the first year the business was open which prompted a sooner than planned move down to Richmond for Steve. Having a baby in the first year of starting a business for the first time came with its own set of unique challenges. To add to those, at 10-weeks old, Holt was diagnosed with a rare brain malformation called Dandy Walker which had subsequently caused him to develop hydrocephalus (excess fluid on the brain) that required two brain surgeries and some extended hospital stays in the first four months of his life.
Three years later, in 2019, we had our second child, our daughter June. When I was 12 weeks pregnant with June we found out she had Down syndrome.
Have you ever been on a roller coaster that immediately sends you into a turn when you get to the bottom of a downward drop? If I had to compare what the ages of 30-33 felt like, it was that. There I was a new business owner and new mom, navigating layers of unknown mixed in with enjoyment of the ride that wasn’t without some unexpected jerks and turns in the process.
My experiences have shaped the way I continue to build my business. I’ve found that it’s not common to have full-time salaried employees at single-location boutique fitness or wellness studio or to offer and partially cover health benefits for full-time employees. I also don’t often see programs to employ or provide service to people with disabilities inside yoga studio environments. But, for me to be successful as what I’ve heard others call a “wellness entrepreneur” all of these things are vital and necessary because they allow my personal life to be supported by my professional life in a holistic way.
In many ways I feel like my kids (we just had our third baby, Louis, in March of 2023) broke open my expectations and beliefs of parenthood and raising a family and I want anything I do in the professional world to have the same potential because I’ve found life outside of the ordinary to be extraordinary.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
You need warning signs and examples. This is something that one of my first yoga teachers and business mentors, Patty Ivey, said to me. Your own life experiences can be like little lights along the path you’re walking and sometimes they’ll show up as examples or something you admire and that deeply resonates with you. Those moments show you a direction you may want to go. Other experiences will be warning signs but they’re just as important because they tell us where we don’t need to travel.
Find Your Advisors. I strongly believe that we are not meant to do life alone and that goes for work life too – especially as an entrepreneur! From the beginning I’ve relied on a handful of advisors to help me along the way – peers in my industry, an amazing accountant, a trusted attorney, a former boss turned friend. It’s been important for me to have these outlets outside of my place of business and outside of my home!
Trust Your Instincts. Advisors are vital AND the best advisors will really be guides that help you gain clarity on the gut instinct you have in whatever decision you happen to be making. At the end of the day your name is going on the lease, the loan, the many contracts, and most importantly, it’s your energy that is going to carry out the vision you have each and every day. Make sure your gut is in it.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
Find time for quiet.
Many days my alarm goes off between 4-4:30am. My support and care for others usually kicks in around 6am and doesn’t stop until my head hits the pillow on most days. The hours just before the sun rises provides almost complete quiet and stillness. I use this time to meditate, gain clarity on what is most important for the day ahead, and to drink a hot cup of coffee.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.humblehavenyoga.com/
https://www.lovesuzanneburns.com/ - Instagram: https://www.humblehavenyoga.com/
https://www.instagram.com/suzburns/
Image Credits
Nick Davis Photography Kate Thompson Photography
