Episode 312: What You’re Really Paying For — and the ROI of Giving Yourself Space to Grow

Have you ever wondered what people are really paying for when they work with you?
In this week’s episode of Female emPOWERED, host Christa Gurka shares insights sparked by a recent VIP Day in Atlanta with Ashley Brock and a powerful group of women entrepreneurs — plus a timely reminder from Denise Duffield-Thomas’s Chill & Prosper podcast.

This episode dives deep into the real value behind your services, the transformative power of investing in mentorship, and how giving yourself space to think (not just do) can completely change the trajectory of your business.

Whether you’re a Pilates studio owner, yoga instructor, or private-pay PT, you’ll walk away with practical clarity about:

• Why your clients pay for energy, clarity, and transformation — not just time or tactics.
• The unseen ROI of investing in mentorship, masterminds, and VIP experiences.
• How to design a business that actually supports your life — not the other way around.
• Why the next level of your success starts with simply stepping into the right room.

Key Takeaways

• 💡 Your quirks are your differentiators. The traits you downplay — compassion, creativity, vision — are often what your clients value most.
• 💬 People don’t pay for information. They pay for confidence, clarity, and a container that helps them see what’s possible.
• 🧠 Growth requires space to think. True transformation happens when you step away from the day-to-day and surround yourself with high-level thinkers.
• 💸 The ROI isn’t just financial. It’s in who you become — more decisive, confident, and aligned.
• ✨ You get to design success your way. Scale or simplify, expand or refine — your version of success is valid and enough.

Timestamps

00:00 — Intro: Christa’s Atlanta VIP Day and the spark for this episode
 03:10 — Childhood patterns that shape how we view money and worth
 08:20 — What people are really paying for in your business
14:45 — The power of proximity: why stepping into the room changes everything
20:00 — The true ROI of mentorship and investing in yourself
26:00 — Permission to design your business your way
30:00 — Final takeaway: You’re already ready for your next level

Resources & Mentions

• Denise Duffield-Thomas – Chill & Prosper Podcast: “What Are You Really Charging For?”
  
  
• Learn more about Christa’s business mentorship programs at www.christagurka.com
  
  
• Follow Christa on Instagram: @ChristaGurka

Call to Action

If this episode lit a fire under you, share it on Instagram and tag @ChristaGurka
— and tell us what room you’re ready to step into next.

Ready to get the clarity and community that fuel your next level?
 👉 Explore mentorship with Christa at www.christagurka.com
.

Transcript

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies: 0:51

Hey there everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Female Empowered Podcast. I'm your host, Christa Gurka, and I just wrapped up an incredible VIP day in Atlanta with Ashley Brock, win with paid ads as her program. she's a paid ads coach for Google Meta, all things Pinterest, YouTube, all the stuff. I think at the time this airs, it will probably be almost a month or at least a couple weeks. This was back in October, but it was so amazing between Ashley, her team, the four other amazing women business owners that shared the room with me. My brain is like buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing ever since. And you know, have you ever had those experiences where something this. Shakes you loose and you get all inspired again and you re, you're reminded when you started and also like who you're becoming and how exciting it is, where all the paths you have to go down. Well this is exactly what this day for was for me. It, it was, and I wanna share with you some takeaways that I had.'cause they're much more than. Takeaways, like how to optimize my Instagram bio, which I did, and how to optimize my YouTube channel. But the bigger takeaways are what, where the real transformation happens. So since I sold Pilates in the Grove, it's given me the space to really dive into my new company, which is fitness strategies. it's my business mentorship coaching program for women in. Fitness, wellness, and healthcare. And I've really now been able to go all in on this business. And even though it's a budding business, it's a baby business, I am fusing everything that I learned while growing and crawling through the muck, getting Pilates in the grove to a seven figure business that, you know, was a valuable asset that I was able to sell. So I'm learning, I'm really trying to, from the beginning. Systematize the business. Get clear on my messaging, learn to delegate, create better processes from the front end and the back end, and grow with intention. So while. For the end of my Pilates and growth career, what I wanted was, you know, multiple seven figures, multiple locations, and an eventual exit. I don't want that, at least right now, for Fitbit Strategies, I wanna create a business that affords me the lifestyle with a great salary. And the flexibility to now be able to travel to see my kids and, you know, travel to see my family. I'm done with the hustle and even though I'm, I'm such a high achiever, I will never be able to just sit and do nothing. I have two modes. I'm like, go, go, go or sit and binge and watch Netflix for 18 hours a day and not get outta my pajamas. I wish I could find some middle ground. If anyone out there has help, advice for me, share it with me. I'm all ears, but let me not veer off track. While I was coming back from the VIP day, I think I got up at five in the morning and on the whole plane ride back, I was going through my notes and I was really excited to dive into. I, I'm so excited to share with you. I have two new programs that I'm gonna be launching in 2026. I'm really, really excited. I will be, Announcing them at the summit in a couple weeks. So those of you that are coming to the summit, you'll get to hear all about them. But while I was on the plan coming back, I listened to this podcast, who's another podcast, host that I listened to. Denise Def. Phil Thomas, who has Chill and Prosper. I love this podcast. It's, she's also the author of the book Get Rich, lucky Bitch. I love it. and her podcast episode was called, what are you Really Charging for? And I listened to it on the plane and then it like hit me. I was like, this is exactly what I witnessed and what I got out of the VIP room when I was there, that I spent five figures on for eight hours. It was amazing, and I just wanna share it with you. So this is what I wanted to come to the episode with and share with you because what people are actually paying for when they work with you is not necessarily what they're getting in that one hour. Sometimes it's the bigger ROI comes from simply stepping into the right room where they feel valued, where they feel supported, whether that's in their health journey, in their recovery journey, in some sort of wellness or something, whatever that is. Or for you as a business owner, why investing in your own growth is always worth it. Because how you come out of the rooms you put yourself in. Is truly, truly where the valuable ROI is. So part of what happens, and I think this was part of what she was saying in the podcast that really resonated with me. A lot of us get labeled certain things as kids or we. Here are things as kids like for example, I've shared the story a lot. I was raised by a single mom. There was three of us. My parents got divorced when I was seven. My brother was five and my sister was three, I think. So seven, six and three, something like that. Very young. So my mom was in her early thirties and one of the things we heard a lot also, I'm a kid of the eighties, so like we can't afford that. That's too expensive. You don't need that. And again, if you're a Gen X kid, you definitely heard money doesn't grow in trees. What are you trying to give electricity to the whole neighborhood? Right? Do you live in a barn? All of these crazy things. So, or maybe you were. Someone who was very caring and nurturing, or maybe you were somebody that always had good ideas but changed your mind all the time and somebody told you things like you change your mind too often. You've gotta stick with something or you're being too much or you are being bossy. And so we internalize that and then we take that with us into adulthood because most of us think that's how everyone lives. Right? Especially when we hear that as a child. But one of the things I'd love to invite you to do that I've learned over the last Eight years is maybe that's where your magic lives. So are there lots of Pilate Studios? Yes. Especially now they're opening on every corner. They're like more popular than Starbucks. But I don't worry, I never worried about other people, the competition coming in because nobody can replicate me. Believe me when I tell you I'm one in a million, you do not want another one of me. But. I've leaned into that rather than can somebody teach Pilates better than me? Yeah. Maybe. Can somebody run a business the same as me? Yeah. But they cannot take what I have my attention to detail, my customer service, my, you know, going above and beyond and my perspective that I have on business. I think one of my strengths is I can kind of see. Ahead. I'm very much probably'cause I'm such an overthinker, because I can anticipate other people's needs. Before they even sometimes anticipated. And so I see this every single day in the women and the business owners that I mentor. the studio owner who is always the caretaker. maybe she now runs a business that is built deep on connection and communication and community, and that's really important for her. Or the visionary Me. Maybe raise your hand if that's you who can't stop brainstorming. That's me. I'm the one that. leads with team innovation and evolution and how can we make this better and optimize it, right? Or the perfectionist who is afraid of wa people watching her fail, that becomes the people pleaser or the one who really has to make everything perfect before they launch those little quirks. Those things are the things that people pay for. Okay. Compassion, creativity, empathy. Your vision often are the exact qualities that people are looking for and that your clients value most. I just had a coaching call with a woman, a really successful pt, who is in my inner circle. At least a year ago, maybe even two, I can't remember now, but I haven't been working with her for a year. She actually leveled up into another program that I'm super excited for and she called and asked me if she could have a coaching call with me'cause she wanted to brainstorm ideas and we got through the call and even when I'm doing it and thinking, thinking through it, I was like, is this even valuable for her? it's stuff I don't know. I seem I can telling her stuff that maybe she already knows and at the end of the call she said. You are so good at brainstorming ideas and then also giving a real good execution plan because I have this ideas, but I can't get them on paper and I can't figure out how to make them work for me. you are really good at this brainstorming thing, and I was like, huh, maybe she is valuing that, right? And so I invite you, I encourage you to think about. W you may not feel you may oh, I don't know. Is this really valuable for people? And that's exactly what they're paying for. So the next time you find yourself thinking, oh, I don't know. What am I bringing to the table is enough, be like, what is the actual differentiator that I'm bringing to the table? Right? Maybe I'm giving this person space to move in a comfortable way or heal in a timeline that is comfortable for them. Alright, so I want you, they're not buying hours or worksheets or strategy or a specific outcome. They're buying the whole transformation. And one of the, the first business coaches I ever had used to say, the transformation starts with a transaction. So that starts with people opting in to pay you for your services. Right. Clients don't come to your studio because you are the only one teaching Pilates or doing physical therapy in your town. No, there's lots of them. They come because of how you make them feel, how you make them feel, seen, how you make them feel safe, how you make them feel supported, how you make them feel strong. They don't necessarily pay you for a workout. They're paying for the belief and for the feeling and the gratitude in themselves. That they can move in a certain way. So when I run a VIP day or a strategy or retreat, more of them are coming in 2026 because I really love them. Yes, we do talk about numbers. We do talk about systems. We do talk about operations. But more often than not, what people walk away from is permission to lean into the thing that they already wanna do, permission to raise their prices, permission to simplify their operations, permission to let someone go, permission to build the business that they actually want, not the ones that they think they should have. I want that for you too, my friends. I want you to gain this information, to gain this feeling'cause it really is transformational. And how do you do that? You put yourself in the room. Where the conversations are different, you put yourself in the room to think and grow. And when you're paying to be in that room, you belong there regardless of who else is in the room. When I first joined the boutique fitness, coaching group, the Masterminds, it was for seven 80 figure business owners, and while I was a seven figure business owner, some of the businesses in that room were massive. Businesses that I admired for so long, and I was like, no, I paid to be in this room the same as they all did. And I provided insight to some of them. I asked the questions that I wanted answers to, and it was in that room. And I've said this a lot of times, it was in that room that I learned what was available to me in growth. In scalability, in salary, in exit. And it was where I learned I belong here. I deserve a place at the table. So when, especially in our industry, in wellness, fitness, healthcare, we are in constant motion. We are treating clients, teaching classes, managing schedules. answering emails may be putting on fire, solving everyone's problems. We're always in the doing mode, but growth, I can tell you, doesn't come from doing more. It comes from giving yourself the space to recognize what you should be working on instead, so it's not doing more. I tell this to people all the time. You're focused on the wrong shit. All right. If you have people that are not accountable on your team and you're like, well, I just need to hire more people. No, I would say you're focused on, what you should focus on is you're hiring an onboarding process. Your onboarding process. Maybe you're not training them properly. Okay. I have attended conferences before, summits before where. I didn't necessarily learn a lot. I maybe had that information already, but it was where I could just sit and listen and absorb. And even times where they were like, okay, we're just gonna rest now. And was that hard for me? And I was like, wait, I can't just rest. I'm supposed to be productive. Yeah. But it was also a hundred percent. What's the word I'm looking for? transformational. it was a win because what I learned was I can rest and be productive. I can rest and be successful. I can put myself in the room to have the space to think clearly with clarity and ask questions because we all, we all have access to unlimited information. We do. We can Google our way to a new marketing plan. We can watch a webinar on leadership or growth or pricing. What you cannot Google. Is your perspective. What you cannot Google is how to transform your nervous system to respond instead of relax. react. What you can't replicate is what happens when you sit in a room full of other women who are playing at the level that you aspire to be at. So that's what happened when I put myself in the room, in the VIP room with Ashley, or in my boutique fitness room, those were the women I aspire to be one day, and I achieved it. I got there. It was amazing and it's a great feeling. So when you hear their stories, when you hear their issues, by the way, they're all the same. When you hear their challenges, you realize, oh, it's not just me. Right? That's what you get from a valuable VIP day, from a business retreat, from a live event, from a mastermind, from coming to things like the Business summit, from joining the Inner Circle or my community group. It's not more information. It is the ability to take the important information and implement when you're in proximity to women who you wanna be, like, you will become the next one. They say like, look at your circle of friends. If you're around five smokers, you're gonna become the six. If you're five around five high achievers, you're gonna become the six. So choose your rooms widely when you. When you step into those rooms, something different happens. You become a different person. if I'm being totally, totally honest, I've gotten some of my biggest breakthroughs, not behind my laptop, but sitting. In a room with 2, 3, 4 other entrepreneurs or having coffee, just talking, reflecting and dreaming what could be possible, and that kind of space changes everything. Every single time I've invested in myself and in my own mentorship, whether it was joining, EOS Entrepreneurial Operating System, paid probably$75,000 for that. Joining BFS joining Ashley Brock's mastermind, joining James Wedmore's Mastermind, joining Get Paid Marketing Mastermind with Claire Powells. I was in Geisha Hawks Mastermind. Every single one of them, I took something. It allowed me to transform not only who I am, but what my business looked like, what my business did for me. It paid off tenfold, not necessarily financially, which for a lot of it it has, but in gaining clarity, confidence, and alignment, and the more I grow and step into a new version of myself as a business owner, it's allowed me who. The kind of person I want to be, the kind of business owner I want to be. When we put ourselves in a container that has accountability, community inspiration, motivation, we think, act and behave differently, we start making decisions faster. We start responding versus reacting. We limit the second guessing. Action creates clarity. It does. That's what I mean when I said I paid five figures to be in this VIP day. Not because I needed more information, but because I needed accountability structure and time to open my mind to listen to other opinions and then move in a direction faster. One of the biggest takeaways I took away from the VIP day was I get to build the business that I want. Okay. As I said before, I don't want a. Three, four,$5 million business right now, because maybe in a year it may, it'll be different. I don't know. But I don't, I wanna keep my team lean. One of the hardest challenging things for me when I was running Pilates and Grove was managing people. It was a lot for me, and it's a lot for a lot of you. I recognize that. And right now I don't want to lean into that, but I can still build the business the way I structure my offers, the way I structure my time, to create the life that I. I can design a business that supports my life, not the other way around. And it's one of the biggest things I teach to everyone, whether you're in my community membership or the Inner Circle, or the these new programs that I'm gonna be launching. It's Design a Business with you in mind. It's literally the first module in my training. What do you want? Outta your business, You don't need to say yes to every single opportunity. You don't have to scale or grow at all costs just because you think that's what you should be doing, right? You might want multiple locations and leader and to be a leader of a big team, or you might not, and you might want to be a solopreneur in a studio studio that's profitable and you don't have to work on Fridays. The point is you get to decide. You get to make that decision. And if you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling like you're wondering whether investments are worth it, I encourage you to think not just about the legitimate ROI, if I spend$20,000, am I gonna get$20,000 out, but I want. You to think of it, who is the person that I'm gonna become being in the room with these type of people being in the room with those types of people forces us to pause, to reflect, and to realign with our vision. Whether that's through a mastermind, a mentorship program, a VIP day, a retreat, a live event, or simply one day a week, or one day a month, where you have these clarity breaks where you're letting yourself think instead of react. That kind of space is the most valuable investment we can make. The most valuable because what we're really charging for. With our services and what people are really paying for when they choose to work with us isn't necessarily our time or our skill. Sometimes it's the energy, the clarity, the confidence, the leadership we bring to the situation, to the client, and those things grow seriously exponentially when we give ourselves the space to grow. I can tell you for sure that. If you're in reaction mode in your business, if you are unable to sit clearly and think and focus and be aligned with what you are, you'll have a business that always is dependent on you. You need to become a different person to have the business that you're dreaming of. That's the hard work and that's what pays off the most, and that's what when people are ready to be done with my inner circle group is with my high ticket mentorship, they learn those skills and then they pay off in perpetuity in the future forever and ever. They literally become a different person and then in which case, their business is a whole new transformation for that. So what do you think? That was a lot. If anything, I want you to open your mind to thinking, if this is gonna cost me$10,000, am I gonna get$10,000 off? No. Be like, this is gonna cost me$10,000 and I am committed to becoming the person I need to become. And using the information, the relationships, the structure of putting yourself in that type of a container to win on the backend. So what do you think? I'd love to hear what you think. I'd love to hear if this resonated with you, if you agree. If you don't agree, I'd love to hear what you think your next level of growth looks like. If you think another business owner could benefit from listening to this, I would love, love, love, love if you shared this on Instagram and tag me at Christa Gurka and then maybe DM me. I know this is a lot of things and I say you shouldn't do too many CTAs, but I would love if you shared it, tag me and then maybe DM me and tell me what room are you gonna step into. Whether it be at the end of 2025 or looking into 2026, what room are you gonna put yourself in so that you can grow into the woman you wanna become and ultimately have the business that you dream of? Alright, that's all I got for you today. That was a lot. That was a lot of do, do, do, do, do. I know. I was like quick. I was very animated about this, but thanks for tuning in. I look forward to seeing you on next week's episode. Until next time. Bye for now.