Misty Lown is the founder, president, and energized force behind More Than Just Great Dancing, a licensed dance studio affiliation program that has a positive impact on over 100,000 dance students around the globe each week. She is a sought-after speaker and business leader. She has been recognized as “Teacher of the Year” by Eclipse, “Outstanding Businesswoman of the Year” by the YWCA, as well as many others. She is also the author of One Small Yes an Amazon #1 Bestseller.

Misty shares her story of how her dream of teaching dance began with one small studio and grew to what it is today with 296 studios around the world. She was a talented dancer in high school and was accepted into a prestigious dance program. But, in her heart, she knew the classroom was going to be her stage. Even when people questioned why she would give up performing for teaching, she felt called to it and knew it was the path for her. 

Misty shares with Adam about some of the pivots she made in her business to take it to the next level. She knew it had to be about more than just dance. She wanted to teach dance as a vehicle for life lessons and to have an impact on her community. Internally, she started to referring to the program as “more than just great dancing.” And that name just stuck. And as she looked to grow, she considered many options like multiple studios or franchising. But she landed on licensing which would enable her to equip existing studios and teachers with personalized tools and resources and coaches.

Misty and Adam dive into creating systems and how they empower leaders to win in business. Misty shares that the idea that we need to build everything for ourselves seems to be uniquely American. And rather than trying to do everything and create everything for themselves, businesses need to be more willing to take advantage of the wonderful resources that have already been created. Through MTJGD, Misty uses her ability to create business systems and to train people into that system and helps studios around the world. Stop searching, start executing. There’s some level of discomfort in some area. Until someone gets to that level, 

Misty also shares about the importance of getting small wins. Business owners and leaders tend to struggle in certain areas that prevent them from growing their business. Misty’s goal is to show them how to get a win in that area and getting them some breathing room to start working on the next things in their business. Then, it becomes a domino effect as they choose the next thing to work on to get another small win. 

We’re in a time of intellectual obesity where we’re consuming so much content online but not exercising what we’re learning. So Misty’s last piece of advice to business owners and leaders is to find one or two voices that you trust and go deep with those.

Order your copy of Start With A Win: Tools and Lessons to Create Personal and Business Success: