Candace Briscoe
Candace Briscoe, the owner of Fit and Fire Studios, never intended to have a career in yoga; she dreamed of becoming a medical doctor like her father when she grew older. Similar to her father, Candace was passionate about playing a role in an individual's healing process. Over the years, a medical career seemed lackluster, and she decided to study biotech instead. There began Candace's series of beautiful accidents that led to her current career. Candace sees life from a very non-resistant approach where she anecdotally described her life journey as being on a boat and not fighting the current but instead letting the boat take her to wherever she is supposed to be at that moment in time and working hard to give the best version of herself in the tasks and responsibilities that that stage in her life provides.
Candace's first task was establishing a clean lab where she created skincare products for individuals with skin hypersensitivity. She is one of the 18 people in the country contracted to develop these products, and it was in the building where her clean lab is located that she met her next task. The next task that Candace readily faced head-on was the yoga studio; she never set out to be a yoga instructor or an entrepreneur, but once again, the boat was taking Candace with the current, and she was not resisting. Paris Briscoe, Candace's husband, was contracted to work on and design a hot yoga studio in the building, and he fixed this room with state-of-the-art equipment that rivals other hot yoga studios. When the building was almost completed, the initial instructors pulled out of the project, and Candace faced the challenge of learning how to practice and teach yoga.
After her first yoga class on July 11, 2013, she fell in love with yoga and being a part of healing people. After witnessing how much of a role it played in the healing process, she ventured down the rabbit hole of expanding her practice with a particular interest in Ayurveda - an ancient form of preventative medicine that predated even Chinese medicine and was the first form of patient-doctor interaction.
Slowly but surely, Candace's practice started expanding. Starting a new business was a new path for her, so she approached the process of starting a business open-mindedly and following the path of a skeptic, believing that she knew nothing. She stumbled across the book Good to Great by James Collin, where she learned about the metaphor of the bus. She metaphorizes her experiences of expanding her business with going on a bus trip where the final destination is the achievement of the business's ultimate goal and mission statement and all the passengers on the bus are people who support that mission and are also interested in seeing it comes to fruition. These people all join the journey with their tools and expertise, thereby making the business self-sustaining and an amalgamation of unique viewpoints from like-minded individuals. This amalgamation led to the expansion of the extra parts of the business, such as the Pilates studio, aerial yoga studio, and yoga school.
Although Candace is contracted to work in her clean lab to create products for people with hypersensitivity, this formulation can become repetitive and leave no room for creativity or adaptations. So Candace also produces some of her skincare lines, one of them being a current brand, Maskihkyi, which she formulated with her Native American friend and formulated with herbs and roots from Lakota and Cree Traditions. They made sure to formulate the products with herbs and plants that are native to the land as the land is believed to know what its inhabitants need and create the healing materials.
Just like how these plants sprout to fulfill a need for their inhabitants, Candace has established herself as someone who is dedicated to serving every member of the community and being a part of their holistic wellness and self-improvement. She is dedicated to working with all people, regardless of gender, age, or body type. Through Candace's journey, we find inspiration in embracing unexpected opportunities, staying open-minded, and fostering collaboration toward a common mission of holistic well-being.
