None of It Is Wasted

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to raise daughters while running a business.

My eldest, seven years and a handful of days old, has only ever known a life where these studios exist. Where “mum working” isn’t a place I disappear to for the day, but a space she’s actually a part of. A place she feels safe enough to hang out for a few hours dressed in a cow onesie, barefoot, playing Lego behind reception.

She’s made friends with students and teachers. She’s watched people move and breathe and laugh and hang out, absorbing vibrant conversations simply by being in the same room.

Sure, she may also learn by joining classes alongside mumma. But honestly, I think she learns even more from the in‑between moments, helping set up classes, greeting people at reception, and listening to conversations with adults many decades older than her. Watching how people show up for each other. Watching how work and community can coexist.

I grew up in a household where business was just… life.

My mum owned her own businesses my entire childhood, and she still kind of does to this day (selling exotic fruit and vegetables to the Thai community on social media still counts, right?). She is an immigrant, and entrepreneurship for her wasn’t about passion projects or personal branding. 

It was survival.

When you come from a third‑world country with exceptionally limited access to education and opportunity, owning a business isn’t a privilege,  it’s necessary for you and your family to survive.

I watched her work relentlessly. Not because she loved the grind, but because there was no safety net. No fallback plan. No actual option not to.

That upbringing shaped me deeply.

And yet, my version of business looks very different.

For me, owning a business is a privilege. The privilege of choice.

I choose what my days look like. I choose what I build. I choose who I work with. And even on the hardest days (well, especially on those hardest days) I still wake up with a choice.

That’s why so many of us choose business ownership, even when it means longer hours than employment, way too much responsibility, and bucketloads more uncertainty. Because autonomy matters. It matters to our children, and it matters to us a whole bunch too.

I was inspired by my mother, even though our circumstances were wildly different. And regardless of whether my daughters ever choose to run businesses of their own one day, I feel deeply honoured to show them that it is possible, if they ever want to go down that path.

And if they have seen the life I live first hand and are like “ahhhhh, no thanks”, I get it too >.<

As long as they know that there are many ways to live a life (even as a goblin under a reception table, as pictured below).

Tomorrow, I’ll let go of the St Marys studio. Our very first studio.

It’s why the blog I promised you every week is a couple of weeks late. The news that led us down this path was very much unexpected.

We’ll host our final classes. We’ll gather for a community potluck. We’ll have a big old hug, possibly ugly cry, laugh and be total looney tunes, and say goodbye to a space that has held so much of us. And then next week, we’ll begin the very practical process of returning the building to make good and moving everything to the Penrith site.

My eldest has often asked why some studios have closed over the years (this is the 6th commercial property we will be letting go over in 8 years). I assume she asks this because she has core memories in each of these spaces.

And I try to be as honest with her as I can about why things work… and why sometimes they just don’t. About timing. About numbers. About capacity. About seasons. About letting go of control.

I tell her this not to soften reality, but to teach her one of the greatest lessons I know:

It doesn’t matter if you “fail”.

Every experience is educational.

If all the fancy business and music autobiographies I’ve read speak any truth, apparently the most successful people in life aren’t the ones who avoid failure. They’re the ones who become really freaking good at it. Who learn and move rather quickly. Who adapt or pivot. Who don’t label things as “good” or “bad”, but simply as part of the process.

This isn’t an ending. It’s a chapter.

And if my daughters learn anything from growing up in the corners of yoga studios scattered across Western Sydney, on top of a bolster and a cork yoga block forts, I hope it’s this:

You get to choose, my love.
You get to try all the paths.
You get to let go, even when it disappoints others.
And none of it is wasted.

With lots of lurveeeee
Annika xx