Rachel Beider of The Canopy: Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second Chapter Of My Life

An Interview With Jake Frankel

“Less is more.” It’s better not to try and do too many things at once, keep it simple with offerings and be truly good in the niche you’re working on.

Many successful people reinvented themselves in a later period in their lives. Jeff Bezos worked on Wall Street before he reinvented himself and started Amazon. Sara Blakely sold office supplies before she started Spanx. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was a WWE wrestler before he became a successful actor and filmmaker. Arnold Schwarzenegger went from a bodybuilder, to an actor to a Governor. McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc was a milkshake-device salesman before starting the McDonalds franchise in his 50s.

How does one reinvent themselves? What hurdles have to be overcome to take life in a new direction? How do you overcome those challenges? How do you ignore the naysayers? How do you push through the paralyzing fear?

In this series called “Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second Chapter Of My Life “ we are interviewing successful people who reinvented themselves in a second chapter in life, to share their story and help empower others.

As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rachel Beider

Rachel Beider is a globally recognized small business expert, bestselling author, and entrepreneur. She is the proud owner of PRESS Modern Massage, a group of award-winning massage studios, and The Canopy, a play and movement space in NYC. Her work has been published in Forbes, Huffington Post, and she’s been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and the Wall St. Journal.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?

Absolutely! I grew up in a large family in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. I went to Interlochen Arts Academy for my senior year of high school and studied fine art, before moving to NYC to study photography at School of Visual Arts.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I love the quote “Remember when you wanted what you currently have”. It’s a regular practice in gratitude.

You have been blessed with much success. In your opinion, what are the top three qualities that you possess that have helped you accomplish so much? If you can, please share a story or example for each.

1) Resilience: Having a mindset of resilience has made a huge impact on my life. Asking myself the question: “what’s GOOD about this?” has helped to shift me into a space of getting over challenges and moving onto solutions so much faster, rather than getting stuck.

2) Resourcefulness: I have found it massively helpful to trust in my own ability to handle issues as they arise by calling on my resourcefulness. Being able to lean on my network for answers, to pivot quickly as needed, and to work with a scrappy budget have all been key to my success.

3) The willingness to ask for help: asking for help is a really vulnerable thing, especially as a woman. We are often socialized to be able to “do everything ourselves” but that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t get help. Delegating tasks, getting mentorship, and requesting assistance is a major part of leadership.

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about ‘Second Chapters’. Can you tell our readers about your career experience before your Second Chapter?

I grew up with scoliosis and understood first hand about chronic pain, which led me to a career as a massage therapist. After graduating from massage school, I started a private practice in 2008 which became a multi-million dollar business. I focused on clinical massage therapy in NYC and opened several locations over the span of 15 years.

And how did you “reinvent yourself” in your Second Chapter?

I had my first baby on March 24, 2020 at the start of the Covid pandemic in NYC. As a brand new mom it was a really scary and isolating time. I didn’t get to do the fun “mom and me” classes like baby dance or yoga or story hour. It was so isolating, and I really struggled with postpartum anxiety and depression. 5 months into my second pregnancy, I was determined that things would be different with my new baby — and that I would welcome him into a world with a beautiful, safe, clean play space built just for him and his community.

Can you tell us about the specific trigger that made you decide that you were going to “take the plunge” and make your huge transition?

I did a lot of research about indoor play spaces, including joining Facebook groups, looking at reddit, and exploring play spaces with my son Noah in every city that I visited. There were things I absolutely loved about these magical spaces, but also areas I could see that needed improvement or disrupting. When I decide I’m going to move forward, I take massive action to do it.

What did you do to discover that you had a new skillset inside of you that you haven’t been maximizing? How did you find that and how did you ultimately overcome the barriers to help manifest those powers?

Discovering and unlocking a new skill set within myself was transformative. Recognizing the need for change, I actively sought personal and professional growth through networking, workshops, and extensive reading. I identified a passion for creating joyful, peaceful environments, leading to the idea of an indoor play space. Overcoming internal doubts and external challenges involved seeking mentorship and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

How are things going with this new initiative? We would love to hear some specific examples or stories.

I am absolutely in love with our play space! It is bright and clean and full of warm natural light. We had our first group of babies and toddlers play this week, and it went so well! All of the kids asked to come back and play again, which really warmed my heart and soothed over my initial anxieties.

Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Absolutely! My operations manager, Sarah, has been with me every step of the way, and she’s put in both brainpower and major sweat equity helping me to form the vision, and even help to build the physical space.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started in this new direction?

I have made so many new business owner friends, mom friends, teacher friends, and amazing community members. By expressing my own desire to feel less lonely on this new journey in motherhood, I have felt very embraced by the new people around me.

Did you ever struggle with believing in yourself? If so, how did you overcome that limiting belief about yourself? Can you share a story or example?

Whenever I start a new venture, I always have moments of doubt. But I try to call hard on my resilience and resourcefulness to get me through difficult times.

In my own work I usually encourage my clients to ask for support before they embark on something new. How did you create your support system before you moved to your new chapter?

For me, support has looked a lot like building a great team and implementing structure, and organization around myself. I love keeping everything really in order, and am fortunate to have support in this both at home and at work.

Starting a new chapter usually means getting out of your comfort zone, how did you do that? Can you share a story or example of that?

All growth requires stretching oneself out of your comfort zone. I regularly journal on the following questions: “what am I tolerating?” and “what am I avoiding?” — these help to clarify for me areas that I need more support on.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started” and why?

1) “This is a marathon, not a sprint.” I definitely could have taken more breaks on this journey, and done a bit more self-care throughout the process. Being heavily pregnant and newly postpartum is a really intense journey in itself.

2) “Document more!” Our build-out and move-in happened so quickly that I didn’t take nearly enough photos of the process, which would have been fun and engaging to our audience and a good reflection to look back on. That was definitely a missed opportunity.

3) Measure and measure again: I happen to be fairly bad at spacial relations and ordered the wrong size of light fixtures not once, but twice. It was pretty funny in retrospect but this is not one of my areas of expertise.

4) “Less is more.” It’s better not to try and do too many things at once, keep it simple with offerings and be truly good in the niche you’re working on.

5) “You’ve GOT this”. There were plenty of moments where I woke in the middle of the night and worried if I was doing the wrong thing or making the wrong choice. You can always use more encouragement.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

If I could inspire a movement, it would focus on cultivating global empathy and understanding. This movement would encourage individuals to actively seek to understand perspectives different from their own, promoting compassion and unity. By embracing diversity and empathizing with others, we can collectively work towards solving global challenges, fostering inclusivity, and creating a more harmonious world for everyone.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)

I absolutely adore Sarah Blakely — her journey and company are a massive inspiration.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

We are on Instagram at @thecanopynyc and www.thecanopynyc.com

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!