Eight years ago, Jenny Melville was teaching Pilates at multiple studios across her city, burning out, and ready to build something of her own. Her business partner backed out a year into planning for their own studio. Jenny opened the business anyway.Jenny opened West Seattle Pilates after a year of planning; alone, in a space she secured herself, with no guarantee anyone would show up. Eight years later she runs a studio that survived a pandemic, moved to a larger physical location, and built a team of instructors who stay because she endeavors to pay them fairly, considers them equals, treats them with respect, and communicates openly.In this episode of the Passion to Prominence podcast, Jenny talks about the self-doubt that followed her into the early years and the specific techniques she used to manage it. She talks about her overnight pivot to offering Zoom Pilates classes when COVID hit, how that decision reconnected her with some clients she had lost touch with, and how the relationships she had built before the pandemic were ultimately what carried her business through it.She also shares her experience with being a plus-size fitness instructor in an industry that has spent decades telling people their body is the problem, and how she built a studio where that narrative simply does not exist.This conversation is for every small business owner who has questioned the decision to start, any manager trying to build a team worth keeping, and every entrepreneur who wants to hear what eight years of "getting it right" actually looks like.