Happy 1 Year Anniversary to Virtue Healthcare
Virtue Healthcare was born from an idea many moons ago (Christmas of 2020 to be exact). Since then, we planned and dreamed and officially launched Virtue on June 1st, 2021. Being business owners was not new (to Kate at least, having been a sole proprietor for the last 6 years), but the time had finally come to join forces with Mike so that Virtue Healthcare could exist in the world. We’ve learned so much in the last 365 days in business. Here are five major takeaways from our first year in business:
1) Embrace trial and error. It’s inevitable.
The business model changed from what Kate was used to. Previously she had worked with clients in person in the gym. Virtue Healthcare operates entirely online. With that came the task of choosing an operating platform to run the business. After 3 months of testing one platform, it was obvious we needed to change as it wasn’t serving us in the ways we needed. It felt like starting over and was a bit of a hassle switching everything over, but we couldn’t be happier with our current operating system so it was well worth it in the end.
2) Things always take longer than you think.
When we were planning the build of our dream forest studio gym, we thought based on it’s simplistic design and our eagerness that we could start and finish it in a couple months. Flash forward a year later and we are still working on it. There are things we can control and things we cannot.
Things we can control:
Effort and attitude
Patience and perspective
Problem-solving
Things we cannot control:
Mother Nature (our build was interrupted last summer by wildfire season and the smoke was too bad to work outside which set us back a whole month)
Shipping delays and out of stock materials due to the pandemic
Expensive materials
But we persevere, and that brings the next point up nicely.
3) Enjoy the process.
It’s easy to put a lot of pressure on oneself. All of us have experienced the perpetual question of, “am I doing enough?” We have a never-ending to-do list but if we never took time to enjoy the journey, it really becomes a suffer-fest. Things rarely go exactly according to plan, so being able to get over frustrations and laugh about the trials and tribulations is important. We wanted to mill roof rafters for the studio ourselves. This was a multi-step process that started with learning how to use an alaskan chainsaw mill on a tree we had felled. We were on a timeline so the pressure was real and tested our ability to enjoy the process.
4) Working with your significant other is beautiful and magical and also challenging.
We went from working opposite schedules and spending little quality time to co-owning a business and working directly with one another everyday. That’s a complete 180, which is amazing on one hand because we love spending time with each other and we have a mutual respect in terms of our professions. On the other hand, it can be challenging to work and live together 24/7. Energy levels inevitably fluctuate and sometimes collaborating on projects when not on the same page can be difficult but things still need to get done.
5) You get what you put in.
As any creative will tell you (especially if it’s their livelihood), you can’t wait until you feel inspired to create. You have to show up everyday and dedicate the time, even if nothing of use is produced. It’s about the ritual and through the process of showing up, you learn what doesn’t work and eventually something comes of the hours you put in that you can be proud of. If we want Virtue Healthcare to be what we want it to be, we have to consistently give it all we have.
Here’s to another year of growing, learning and nurturing Virtue.
