Now, I know and you know it’s been a long time since
I’ve posted a blog and I’m really sorry about that, it’s just we’ve had so much
going on that it’s been a real challenge just to sit at the computer, let alone
write and when I do, I want to make sure it’s because I have something to say.
A lot of people have come up to me in the last few weeks and told me how much they love and appreciate coming to That’s the Rub and that they refer their friends. Words cannot describe how wonderful that makes me feel! When I managed destination spas all over the country, I dreamed I would own my own spa one day and that it would have local art on the wall, it would be five-star quality services and hospitality with a comfortable atmosphere that could be enjoyed by everyone, clients and staff alike. I’m so over the moon to say that the feedback we receive says that Jim and I nailed it right on the head! Thank You so much for spending your time with us.
What have we been busy with you ask? Well, I’m so glad
you did, but don’t worry, there is NO way I will remember everything, so I’m
going to start and see how far I get.
In December (2019), just before the holiday, we graduated another cohort of students at Ivy Tech. Never a dull moment, we incorporate the students that would like to do so into The Rub to further their education in daily operations of the spa, expand on their massage techniques and to do more hands-on work with the general public who are unable to make it out to Ivy Tech for our clinics. Our student massages have been a smash hit with clients and students alike, and this semester promises even more with our new batch of senior massage students!
Over the summer (yeah, way back then) I learned how to teach and launched a class called Yomassage. Yomassage combines supported yoga postures with massage and breath and it’s amazing. It’s amazing because you don’t have to be flexible (thank goodness), you wear clothes, there is music, it’s done in a group format, AND it’s VERY relaxing. So it’s a great pick me up in the middle of the day when you need to hit the reset button or at the end of your workday to unwind and get a good night’s sleep. It’s amazing for people who’ve never had a massage (come on and get into some self-care already!), special occasions, or team building workshops. Please see our website for more details or feel free to write to me (lisa@thatstherub.com) if you want more information. This is starting to get a little too sales pitchy for my taste and that’s NOT what this post is about. I just get excited when I talk about it and I really enjoy teaching it.
Of course there were the holidays to prepare for,
which seemed to be a little crazier for me than usual; I hope all of you came
out unscathed.
That’s the Rub is proud to have donated more than
$2,000 in 2019 back to the community in goods and services this year to support
what we love and where we live.
We also want to say THANK YOU for a wonderful year! Your
patronage has sustained many therapists and their families this past year and
we couldn’t be more grateful.
Thank you for being part of The Rub family. Thank you
for your continued support. Thank you for valuing the skills that we bring to
the table. Thank you for choosing The Rub to be your partner in helping to
attain your personal healthcare goals. Thank you for referring your friends and
family. We love what we do and we’re so happy that you share that with us.
It’s Our 10th Anniversary! Join
us this year as we celebrate 10 years of That’s the Rub! In 2019 we rebranded
the business to That’s the Rub the Therapeutic Day Spa because we felt it
would say more of what we do now vs what we did when we first began. Ten years
ago, The Rub started with just me and Jim and we’ve continued to expand and
grow ever since, not just our square footage, but our service menu and our
staff as well.
So stay tuned and look for our save the date
notification (in March) for our anniversary celebration! We hope to see you
there! In the meantime, if you have questions about massage, benefits of
massage, classes we offer, etc please check out our website, www.thatstherub.com
OR you can write me directly at lisa@thatstherub.com
and I can include your question and answers in my blog. I want to ensure you
are getting the information you want about what we do here at That’s the Rub.
May your 2020 bring you light, love, and happiness.
“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given, than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” – Mohamed Ali
The above quote came out in a Sports Illustrated trifold poster sometime between 2003 – 2004, I don’t remember the exact time period because it was a time in my life when I moved quite a bit and memory is a blur. Those words still bring tears of potential to my eyes when I read them.
When I first saw the poster I was working my first Spa Director position and I felt like the odds were against me. I started that job with such high hopes, but I found out that we didn’t have front desk staff, and the “manager” at the time was EXTREMELY overwhelmed. She decided to not give me and my methods a shot to help her out and quit two days later. It would’ve been easy to throw in the towel and say that I couldn’t do it, but as was recently reaffirmed to me earlier this month Drewry (my mother’s family name) women don’t give up — we work hard and tirelessly to make things happen.
You see, my Aunt Fran passed away in late June. Fran was the one constant in my life who believed in me, especially when I didn’t know how to believe in myself. She taught me the philosophies I use as the foundation of my business: hard work and perseverance will pay off, keep your eye on the prize, switch gears when necessary, and believe anyway. She encouraged me to embrace my life, get an education, travel, don’t be afraid, and never let anything or anyone hold you back. Fran taught me about myself in ways I will probably still be unraveling when I’m 85. She was stubborn, smart, and strong. At her funeral, some of the last words said about her was she was a hard worker, but she was so much more than that. She lived her life on her terms and no one else’s and she taught me to do the same. Fran taught me I had the knowhow and the drive to accomplish anything.
So, in that first spa, I worked 12-14 hour days, conducted front desk interviews for staff, while working on the front desk because there was no one else but me to do it. I managed treatment staff, booked appointments, conducted interviews for even more staff, and trained treatment staff in the services they needed to be able to perform, all while working full time at that front desk. I learned a lot about myself in that first directing job, there were days where I felt like all I did was walk back and forth from the human resources department to pick up my next interviewee — I put a lot of steps in before anyone was ever counting them. I built a world class spa out of that property, I hired and trained over 20 people while I was there, I redeveloped the service menu, chose and nurtured fresh product lines, amplified and the expectations, increased the bottom line, and radically changed how my boss thought the spa was (just an amenity to the guests) by turning it in to its own destination. I added a café to serve food because my guests wanted to stay longer and the restaurant delivered gourmet it to the spa. I redecorated it with the company interior designer which gave it a unique look and feel from the rest of the resort. Ah, it was the worst of times and it was the best of times. There were days so hard I didn’t know if I wanted to go back, but I couldn’t bring myself to quit until I felt that I had succeeded in doing all I could and I had nothing left to give.
Last year, I visited the spa for the first time in over a decade. I was astounded and delighted to find at least three of the treatment staff I hired and trained are still there (I just checked, it’s been 17 years). Not much had changed, until the following week when they were to begin breaking ground on building a fresh, new spa, updating it to this century, no small task I assure you. I can’t wait to see what they do!
Why do I bring this up you ask? Because if I truly believed I couldn’t do the impossible, I wouldn’t be sitting in front of you today writing this blog. I went on to become known (and recognized by Conde-Nast – ed.), The Spa Fixer (cue ominous music – your humble editor). Every spa I directed from then on needed some kind of triage help. They were bleeding, damaged, and needed to be staunched. Each task required yet another level of increasing stick-to-itiveness to get the job done, not only to succeed, but to always exceed the expectations of what the spas were capable of doing in the right hands.
If I had believed these tasks and contracts were impossible I wouldn’t be sitting at my own desk, in my own business (10 years and counting), writing this blog, mentoring the next wave of therapists, training my own front desk staff, teaching massage school, and being a boss. There are days just as hard as when I first started as a director, but now I call my own shots, work as much or as little as necessary to get the job done without someone else’s judgment, change things that aren’t working, and embrace all the things that do.
I am the owner, director, daily operations manager, massage therapist, and lead shot caller of That’s the Rub, The Therapeutic Day Spa and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Impossible is NOTHING! I have the power to change my world and I own it! Thank you Aunt Fran for showing me the way, I will be forever grateful.
The Herald-Times Reader’s Choice Award Winner for Best Massage in Bloomington!!!
YOU are AMAZING!!!
There’s no way I could let this slide by and not make a big deal out of it: For the 9th year in a row, That’s the Rub was nominated and once again has won the coveted BEST MASSAGE IN BLOOMINGTON from The Herald-Times Reader’s Choice Award! Of course, YOU know that already, didn’t you? We are honored and humbled by your love for us and we will continue to work every single day to prove you right! So, as a thank you…
CUSTOMER APPRECIATION MONTH
Throughout the Month of May, we will be thank you in the most That’s the Rub way possible: FREE UPGRADES to your choice of three different aromatherapy options! You don’t have to book it in any special way, you just have to let us know when you check in that you want your FREE UPGRADE (at least a $10 value) — heck, we’re likely to ask you anyway, but just in case be sure to let us know. This is for ANY massage style or length…period. It’s our way of saying THANK YOU for making us part of your life! This is good for ALL of your massages in May…it’s not just once, so if you’ve been wanting to see what the fuss is about, NOW is the time!
Book Today By Clicking RIGHT HERE and Don’t forget your FREE UPGRADE to AROMA THERAPY!!!
I don’t know how many of you know what goes into hiring of a That’s the Rub massage therapist. It occurred to me that in case you were sitting on the fence about how to choose your massage therapist above and beyond our biographies that it might give you great confidence to know that I have pre-selected for you. What does this mean? This means that I have taken my years of expertise in hiring and training well over 300 massage therapists for many of the top resort spas in the country, and working with many of the best therapists in the field, to good use.
We don’t hire just anyone at The Rub. Each potential new hire goes through two interviews: first with Jim, other staff members, and even the occasional client who happen to be coming by (we hold these in the Relax Lounge, so if you ever see and interview going on, PLEASE feel free to join in), then with me. At which point they come back again for a technical (or practicum interview) to show me their skills and how they might fit into The Rub culture. No matter who they are or how much experience they have, if they don’t fit what we do to some benefit of themselves and The Rub, I don’t hire them. That means they will also provide the most benefit to YOU, the client. We have many different therapists that cover a spectacular range of specialties and what people need, because people’s needs are different. We customize the massage for you and what your body needs at the time. We don’t do cookie cutter massage, you deserve better than that. You deserve to have a therapist who will look at your body as being unique to only you and work with you towards your healthcare goals.
I once did a massage therapy practicum with an interview candidate which was the most unique version of massage I’ve ever had and nothing like I expected. When she first began I was wondering what she was doing (and I’ve been a therapist for 18 years). I tell you this because you need to know that all massages are NOT alike. For every person on the planet there is a different interpretation of how that massage therapist will treat your body. I always think about how we are going to market this massage, this therapist…but this one was so different, so strange. Adopting Steven Covey’s first seek to understand, I asked her what technique she was doing and she said “Trigger Point and Myofacial Release, done in a way that I’ve interpreted it.” Now I’ve NEVER had this interpretation before, but while I lay there trying to figure out how this would fit with The Rub paradigm I realized my back had released and no longer felt tense in areas that I had felt all day. As she was following the fascial lines I could feel little crackles of release and how they correlated to other areas of my body (it’s all connected) in twitches and sighs of letting go. She ended the massage with a little cranial sacral and I felt relaxed yet energized at the same time. After she left I had an epiphany of how she fit into The Rub, we are always about unique massage techniques that give way to results. More than relaxed, I slept deeper than I had in over week and I woke up ready to seize the day and another opportunity to bring something special to someone else. That’s what massage is, something special — not everyone can do it and it brings something to everyone who experiences it. Of course, I hired her immediately.
Every person’s massage is different based on the needs of the individual’s body, as well as the techniques and the skills of the individual therapist, but our message remains the same: The Rub continues to bring the best bodywork to Bloomington, one body at a time. Welcome to The Rub!
Only a few short weeks after receiving the title BEST DAY SPA in Bloomington from the Reader’s Choice Awards, YOU have chosen us again: In South-Central Indiana you have lots of choices where to get your massage and spa services, andHome & Lifestyles Magazine has agreed with you and named That’s the Rub THE BEST MASSAGE IN SOUTH-CENTRAL INDIANA — we are truly, deeply honored!
In October, 2009, That’s the Rub opened it’s doors with one massage therapist (Lisa), one room, and one computer geek (Jim). Just over five years later, Lisa and Jim are still around, but That’s the Rub has grown a bit: We’re proud to be home to the 10 (TEN!) best massage therapists ever assembled, a spectacular tarot reader, the finest front desk team you could ask for, six unique treatment rooms decked out with local art, a brand-new Body Boutique!
We’re only as good as our clients and customers, and YOU are the BEST in the World!
