Thrive + Inspire: Dr. Eick Reminded of ‘Healing Power of Animals’ Amid Pandemic

AN INTERVIEW WITH Mimi Sperber, Founding Partner of Off the Wall Gallery

What were your biggest challenges of 2020? Navigating the pandemic while running a business was the challenge of a lifetime. Having to temporarily close doors for several weeks due to Houston's lockdown brought financial uncertainty and difficult decisions. Staffing and budgets were drastically cut, and it was personally hard and emotional at times. While our Main Gallery had to remain closed and unable to generate cash-flow from walk-ins, we built a brand new L'Atelier Gallery inside Galleria One by Prada, replacing our smaller Art Boutique by Neiman Marcus and Chanel. The planning had been in the works for over a year, permits issued, and construction started right when the city closed. The timing was disadvantageous, but we stayed focused and solvent in all of our financial responsibilities, and L'Atelier was finished when Houston reopened.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Henry Richardson, CEO & founder of DEFINE Body & Mind3

How did you adapt in these unprecedented times? Ahhh. Deep breath. Just thinking about those early days of the shutdown makes my heart palpitate. All of us at DEFINE had quite the shift happen in 2020, and honestly, it started off brutal. I don't think I slept for roughly 72 hours in those early days of the shutdown. In order to stay relevant, we launched both our DEFINE On-Demand service and our DEFINE Livestream classes. We wanted to move as quickly as possible to ensure our clients had the ability to take classes with their memberships.