Lisa Schoenholt, Founder of Brooklyn Embodied Pilates
Name: Lisa Schoenholt
Founder: Brooklyn Embodied Pilates
Who is Lisa Schoenholt?
I'm the owner of a female founded virtual pilates company, focusing on every stage of womanhood. I'm also the founder of the Control D method: The Art of Diastasis Repair. I've been teaching pilates for 25 years, and am also a birth doula and certified movement analyst.
In less than three sentences tell us about your company and what you do.
We specialize in prenatal/postnatal and menopausal pilates. Our instructors include birth and postpartum doulas, fitness trainers, and certified prenatal and postnatal pilates specialists. We help women prepare and recover from childbirth as well as do rehab and diastasis recti repair. Our services are virtual and are extremely tailored to each client and their needs.
What does BEING a FoundHer mean to you?
Well, things go so fast, I've never thought about it until now. For me, it means really thinking about what I want for my life and trying to create the life that I want. It means thinking about the type of impact I want to put out in the world and what type of role model I want to be for my kids.
How do you support other female founders and women in business?
I try and connect with other women in business and love creating a non-competitive environment. I have the mindset that there are enough clients for everyone so I don't feel like I'm in competition with others, which really helps. It's so important to find others whose businesses complement mine so I can refer out to them. It often takes a a village to help clients reach their goals.
At what point did you make your company a full time gig? How did you know the time was right?
I used to be a NYC public school teacher and taught pilates part-time on nights and weekends. After I had my first baby, I went back to teaching and within two weeks, I knew I wanted to create a life where I could be home with my baby more. I realized that if I was going back to work, I wanted to do my dream job and create what I was excited and passionate about. The same day I realized that, I went home and moved all our furniture out of our living room and made it a pilates studio.
What is something you do differently from the industry standard?
We really invest and connect with all of our clients. Doing things virtually, we tailor our classes to the people in it for each class and their bodies. We often know everyone's kids, their dogs name, who has been sick, who is trying to conceive, pairing up clients who live in the same area, and even virtually, we try and create community.
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