Embracing The Great Pause: Life as a Small Business Owner During Covid

For me, I’m sure like you, this experience has been filled with many emotions. In March of 2019, I opened Squeeze, a new type of massage studio built on a better experience. We were open just shy of a year, by a week to be exact, before we made the difficult decision to temporarily shutter our doors in an effort to keep our community healthy and safe. I have ridden the frustrating and disheartening PPP roller-coaster, which ultimately led to making the heartbreaking decision to furlough my shop team, the ones who believed in Squeeze before we had walls and who helped create a beloved experience amongst the Studio City community. And I am not alone. I have seen friends who have brilliantly transformed their businesses overnight to supply essential equipment to the masses. I have friends who have thrived through this by creating innovative new products, and I have friends who had to sadly lay off more than 1,000 employees and fold their companies as the cost to re-open would have been too great a burden to bear. I have what feels like daily conversations with my fellow anxiety-ridden small business owners on what the new normal will look like when we finally get to re-open.

When I created Squeeze’s core values, affectionately called “The Feels,” I was inspired by Maya Angelou’s quote, “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” I knew early on that in order to create something with lasting value and meaning, it was important to recognize that we weren’t going to be operating in the service industry. Instead, we were in the people industry. And our greatest opportunity beyond providing incredible massages, was to put our spin on making our small but meaningful mark on this world. At Squeeze, we call this “The Feel Good Revolution,” and we have just cracked the surface on the positive impact we are going to make.

I have loved extended morning workouts in the fresh air and watching the sun set every night. I have reconnected with old friends and enjoy meaningful conversations that ground me to my roots. I feel grateful for my health, for my family’s health, and this moment of pause to reflect on what matters most. I read somewhere that someone referred to this time as The Great Pause and it really stuck with me. As a self-proclaimed workaholic who is used to working 14+ hour days with a back-to-back schedule, it’s been incredibly hard to sit still. To be forced to feel the ups and downs of what this all means and listen to my thoughts in ways I haven’t in years. Admittedly it’s both refreshing and frustrating at the same time. I have a newfound appreciation for time and a fresh perspective on things that feed my soul, but still I am desperate to get back to creating forward momentum. Mostly though, I miss people and human connection no matter how small or insignificant.

There is no doubt these are uncertain times and much of the impact of what’s transpired over the past couple of months is yet to be seen. But if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s best summarized like this:

You’ll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living breathing screaming invitation to believe better things. – Jamie Tworkowski

As we enter into our new normal, I hope we hold on to what The Great Pause has taught us: people matter most. I hope as a collective society we have the opportunity to come alongside each other, to lift each other up and brighten each other’s days. To remember we need each other most. That we matter most. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy, and be sure to Squeeze the ones you love extra tight.