“Growing up in Freeland, I would go to my grandparents' house, take out all the toys I didn't want, and throw a giant garage sale. I'd bake cookies, go out with my mom to pick up water, price things out, and put them out on the table. I was always trying to sell things to my friends and my sisters, and I think I had entrepreneurship in my bones. My dad’s got it in his bones, too: he had a private pilot business, and now he owns a blackberry farm out in Freeland called Flying Dutchman Farm. I love entrepreneurship because it gives you freedom, and the freedom to say, ‘Okay, this doesn't work. Let's try this instead.’
I was going to a workout class at Skyfit while working as an employee there. They said the instructor didn’t show up and asked me, ‘Do you want to teach the class?’ It was so much fun, and from there, I knew that was what I was going to do.
While I was going to college over at Delta, I would walk around downtown Bay City and think, ‘Oh, this would be a really cool space for a fitness studio.’ I had a vision for a fitness studio that wasn’t just about working out. In the health and fitness industry, I've seen so many people exercising to look a certain way and get burned out. I was getting burned out.
I kept thinking, ‘What if we had something that wasn't just focused on that?’ I knew that when I worked out, I felt really good, so I wanted a place where people went to work out but to feel good, too. Maybe they meet some new people, and are just surrounded by a lot of positivity.
That's when I started stumbling on the vision for Soul Fit.
We opened in 2023 and that vision is happening. As a fitness studio, we just had a big backpacking trip to Pictured Rocks and it was so fun. Everyone connected so well and was so happy. No drama or comparison: just women having fun.
I think group fitness is the best way to get into exercise. I have a Peloton at home and I've been doing that. I am all for using it and for people working out at home. But it feels good to be in the studio with other people, like you belong to a community. It’s a way to decompress, or the one time people have to themselves to just feel really good.”
– Anna Bebow, Soul Fit
“I grew up in Tampa and lived there until I was 18. I went to the University of Chicago for comparative human development and everyone thought I was crazy. I wanted to be a psychologist, but without all of the math and statistics.
During school, I started working as a cocktail waitress and then moved into bartending…and I loved it. I loved running the bar. I loved making drinks, but bartending isn’t really about making drinks: it’s about making connections. It’s about having fun. I loved talking to people and was delighted by my customers.
I thought I would work there forever. It was great money, had great benefits, and I loved the work. But then COVID happened, and shortly after, I realized that I based a lot of my personality on being a bartender. I immediately gained 20 pounds because I wasn't walking 20,000 steps a day and that’s what got me into fitness. I realized I had some pretty bad habits and here was a chance for me to address them.
My husband and I didn't love lockdown in the big city, our landlord passed away, and we were looking to move. He’s from this area and his aunt offered us her house in Caro, so we lived there for a while before settling in Bay City.
I own a business, Katie Volk Mind, Body, and Soul, where I do one-on-one life coaching, along with teaching yoga at Soul Fit.
Life coaching is a safe space with the support of someone while learning different skills and tools for dealing with life. An important part of my coaching is that I want people to have breakthroughs—awareness of where they can change or shift something. I'm not a therapist, although there is some overlap. Coaching is more about asking, how does what has happened affect you moving forward? Where do you want to go and what has been getting in the way of that? It's about gaining clarity by holding up a mirror to what you have been doing and asking, is that what you want to be doing? We all have certain behaviors that might be dysfunctional. I have them myself.
Coaching is a way to shine a light on those, changing them, and creating the vision of what you want in your life.”
– Katie Volk, Katie Volk Coaching
“I try to make everything I do at Soul Fit really intentional. When you walk in, the lights are low. You smell the oils and read the quotes on the board. I love really good music.
I love when the class is going well, everyone feels really good, and is smiling. I love coming there on a busy evening when there's back-to-back classes because everyone’s having fun and the energy's so good. It's just a lot of fun for me and it doesn't feel like work. It literally feels like a hobby. Of course, there is stress sometimes running a business, especially when it comes to managing the business side of things and making sure that all of that runs well. At one point, I remember crying and being like, ‘Okay, is this actually going to work?’
But this was the whole mission, so it’s cool to put in the hard work to get it to where it's at. I like to teach classes, but I think it’s important to tap into your strengths and what you're good at, and I think I'm good at managing and figuring out where other people's strengths are. For example, Katie is really good at doing certain classes. There's some instructors that might be better at the more high-energy classes. So I put them in classes where their strengths are.
I think when you do that and you give people trust, things succeed.”
– Anna Bebow, Soul Fit
“We all act a certain way because of beliefs we hold. Think about people-pleasing or controlling behaviors. When I worked as a bartender, I tried to control my coworkers because I wanted everything to be fine because if everything wasn't fine, then it would look like I didn't know what I was doing. The more I tried to control them, the less they wanted to do what I wanted them to do. I had their respect, but I wasn't using it and squandered an opportunity to be a leader.
When I was getting into fitness, I knew there had to be some sort of mental coaching component, because that's such a big part of success. There's the knowledge of what exercises to do and how to do them, but it's also about building discipline.
The body can help make the mind feel better. Exercise can quiet your mind, but you need your mind to get on board.”
– Katie Volk, Katie Volk Coaching
