CEO SPOTLIGHT
Thinking Bigger Allowed One Small Business Owner to Achieve Her Dream
By: Meredith Flory
Part of healthy leadership is being healthy in other areas of your life. Setting boundaries and reasonable expectations, creating a healthy work environment, and fostering other important aspects of leadership are easier to model when you are taking care of your own well-being outside of work.
Christy Miu is the owner of Healing Hippies at Creekside in McMinn County, Tennessee, where she not only practices healthy leadership as the head of a small business but also helps her customers find their best wellness practices. Miu is a licensed massage therapist, Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT) 500 and meditation teacher, Reiki master and teacher, Warrior Goddess Facilitator, and personal wellness coach. She is also a mother, grandmother, and member of the community where her business is based. After she had started her own yoga journey to help herself, she shares, “I saw the need in the community for what I had to offer.”
She explains that while there are many places to do yoga as an exercise, “There is more than stretching our muscles. We need to learn to breathe correctly and how to come out of our toxic headspace.” As she looked to start her business, she was not sure a yoga studio would survive on its own in her location, so she started brainstorming what other services she could offer that paired well with yoga. She says, “I had wanted to be a massage therapist when I was younger, and I thought they would work well together.”