How to Get Hired as a Yoga Teacher: Building a Career That Lasts with Paul Teodo

0:00 Yeah. All these success stories and just trying to remember like throughout the years like those inspirational stories, I think it all just comes down to passion passion and if you really care and you love it and you want to help people and you want to be the best, you can be anything is possible. Yeah.

0:19 This word is really resonated with me, many years ago Dharma. What is Dharma mean? It means path or Journey. It means to follow your path. What is your Dharma? And I think if you strip this whole podcast this one down into like one thing, like if you can follow your path and understand like are you a private lesson? Person a one on one person.

0:47 Do you want to help people with eating disorders? Do you want to teach strong Power? Yoga classes in a packed? Clap act Studio, like what? Is your calling, what calls to your heart? Welcome to the going pro yoga podcast, Namaste.

1:04 My name is Paul chiodo. Joined here with Michael Henry. Most yoga teacher, trainings are becoming watered-down and mediocre. So we have created this podcast to help supplement those of you who graduated from a teacher training and don't feel confident going out into the real world. Michael.

1:22 And I are lucky to have been trained by some amazing. Using people, we've gone out into the world ourselves and had success and we want you to feel confident to protect your students and to build your career with integrity and authenticity. Welcome to our podcast today, we are going to talk about how to be an employable yoga teacher.

1:46 How to basically you get out of a teacher training and what's the next step? Like, where do you go? How do you build a career? I'm going to share some of my story Paul across the table from me. He's going to share some of his story Michael's over here.

2:05 He might chime in and also give a taste of his experience as a new yoga teacher. And yeah, we're basically going to discuss all the things we can and about 1:40 help. You get that job. What do you have to say Paul? Yeah. I always say one of the best things you can ask yourself as a yoga teacher is How can I make myself the most low maintenance person?

2:31 That my yoga studio has ever seen? And, and yoga teachers have a have a reputation for being unreliable, for being flaky for, for being difficult, to pin down. And if you can be the exact opposite of that, and to really set the intention to be low maintenance, It makes you very employable.

2:54 Hmm. Yeah, low-maintenance, I think. That's very true. There's a lot of Divas, a lot of subbing out classes, a lot of last-minute changes, a lot of leaving town, a lot of, kind of unsettled entitlement. And in the yoga world, I would say that's a very good point.

3:13 I'll give you a little peek into my experience directly. So, I finished my teacher training and 2010, I kind of forget now. Now, something like that and I was going through a business, I was basically running my own business and starting it. So I didn't have a lot of time to to, to dedicate, to starting my career.

3:35 So I actually waited for nine months, I don't think that's necessarily like always the best strategy for everyone. But for me, I kind of had to wait. So after nine months, I took a risk and I started teaching donation yoga. And I taught two classes, a week donation yoga, you actually rent the space.

3:57 So it was, you can hire yourself, essentially, it by doing this. I had no real experience yet. I subbed one class and I started teaching my regular classes after that, I was now employee abby'll by kind of lower totem studios in Los Angeles. So, just by saying, hey, I teach at Bryan kest Power. Yoga, the name was strong enough to get me. In the door.

4:23 Yeah. So then I went to a place called Alpha Venice, which had a beautiful room, but it was for like, it's like a Nike Club some sort of exercise called boot camp type fitness place and I would show up and teach maybe one person, maybe two people, they pay me $5 a person, so I'd get paid like five bucks and I would like, just do circles around this person. Yeah, that's sometimes demonstrate and like, do the poses with them but a lot of the time I Was preparing myself. For what I knew was possible at

4:56 the other Studio, which is a lot of people one day. So I just would do circles like a shark or a this person, probably causing anxiety. But I was refining my skills and how to communicate, I also got a job at a place called The Yoga nest in Venice right there on the boardwalk and they paid me like $20 a class. I was thrilled to actually make money because the donation Studio, I was not making any money, and no money was being made.

5:22 Made it was a losing money for me and then fast forward, I'll just skip to the juice here Parts fast forward about eight months and now I'm being looked at as a reliable because I'm showing up every day as a reliable teacher that people can depend on because I don't leave town and I would have some of this, some of the same students coming back at to my classes.

5:47 And I noticed I was like, this is good. I'm not making any money teaching yoga. I think it's canceling out at Point. I met a net, zero and but I have my little business on the side and it was, you know, I liked this lifestyle, I just needed to make it work financially. So, the universe started to open up some doors. The longer I was reliable.

6:08 So if they're from that discipline and hard work. Now, some of the bigger teachers started to reach out to me. Hey, you want to teach a class? Yes, I would say. And then all of a sudden I was being asked to teach classes all the time. So many classes were being Offered to me and I had I didn't have the ability to say, no yet, which is probably a good thing. So, I just built Bill, like I was teaching 20-plus classes, not even my owns, most of them a

6:34 week and then I started to Market myself in those classes and have my materials. My little, you know, 4×6 postcard me doing some yoga pose or even had one doing a big jump kick in the air like, nothing, yoga. I remember that one. It said intensify the calm.

6:52 Yeah. I remember that it was badass but nothing yoga related and I would just leave it out, you know, the front. And next thing, you know, people are coming. That's how it all got started. For me, I'll pause there. Paul, you take it over?

7:07 Yeah, I very similar. I had my class at Bryan, kest Power Yoga, which was the respected studio, and being that Bryan, kest, gave me a shot and an opportunity. Other places hired me and I had a studio called the Hub that I would teach chat in West Los Angeles and same thing to people would show up 477, would feel like a big class and then and then I'd have one and then four and then 10 and then, you know, but it grew, but it wasn't the type of place that was ever

7:41 going to have 20 30 people in it. But it was great. And I think one way you can make yourself employable as when you're a new teacher, find a studio, like You can be a beginner where you can be a beginning teacher and you can teach to 45 people, and you can get confident and you can get good.

8:01 And you can find your voice and you can deal with obstacles and hardships and you'll know if this works, this didn't work. This is the type of teacher that I am, these are the sequences that I like, this is the difference between a level one class and a level 2 class. You want to find a place.

8:18 That's kind of not well-known where you can do that. And really and really Li like, I call it a safe place to fail, you don't see it as failing or you do. If you don't, if you're not that hard on yourself, you could see it as failing, it's okay. Because when you're beginner a beginning teacher, I hate to break it to you, but you're going to teach some shitty classes.

8:38 Hmm. As a new teacher and you're going to need to learn how to how to get up and go teach another class. You know, a good class the next day and I think having that safe place like the Lesser Own Studio but still well run with good owners that are just they know that you're a beginner and they're compassionate towards it and you just find your, you find your stride and saying, yes, to everything. Your first few months is a very good idea. Your first year.

9:09 I would say maybe even your first two years, you say yes to as many things as you can make yourself available. When you get asked to Sub sub, don'ts about your own classes, unless you really We have an emergency or sick or you have a family emergency. Don't take a lot of vacations, your first two years because you need to ground down at a place and you need to and to hone your craft.

9:35 Yeah. The Ritz in baldy or Sydney, Australia or London or wherever you're living, find your place teaches many classes as possible, build up your craft and be reliable, be on time, show up deliver a consistent. Variance. So your class doesn't need to be the same but if it's a power yoga class it's the same type of level of difficulty, same type of intensity every time.

10:06 And then people will know what to expect and you can change the sequence, you can change the playlist, you can change the theme, you can change the peak poses, but it's the same type of experience day in and day out that consistency will create more employability. For you.

10:23 Yeah, I wanted to bring up the compulsive Behavior because a lot of yoga is teaching you to acknowledge any compulsive behavior that you have bring attention to these kind of erratic. Movements or energies are breathing patterns and this is the first part of your yoga career is the hardest. It's really the hardest.

10:44 You said, when you find your stride and that's very true when you find your stride, it's easy. Yeah, people are coming to class, there's a rhythm. There's a momentum. The ten people all the sudden, doesn't go back to 4, it goes to 11, 10 11 10, 11 13, 1013 1015 1017 to next thing you know it's easy to show up because you're developing type of almost like a community. Yeah, you know and once that happens gosh, you know it's wonderful.

11:16 So that compulsive nature that people have to just jump off the ship. This isn't for me. Yeah. Is. Yeah, it's just you know, sometimes it's too soon. You gotta persevere. Yeah, you got to pull you, you really do. The other thing I was thinking about I mentioned it briefly is the marketing aspect and this is obviously like a part that is changing and evolving all the time and we have social media and of course, social media we're not dinosaurs here. You know, we had social media to

11:47 10 years ago when we started teaching. But like be smart about using it, you know? Like if you have a class the next day, post a simple thing that you're teaching the next day. You might get two people this year income as two more people, you didn't have. That's two more mouths, it talked to two more friends, that duplicates, the four more people that's over one year, 12 more people potentially.

12:11 And like I said, having some sort of ref way for people to find you easily. So that they're not just showing up to a yoga class that day, they're showing up to your Yoga class that day. Yeah. And they know it and they know where to find you and.

12:27 Yeah. Some people are really good at this naturally. I thought you're really good at this. So you just let people know like, where to find you. And there's no shame in that, you know? Yeah. So I've Loved definitely learned some of that like through watching other people because some of us have like a tendency to kind of want to just, we don't want to sell ourselves.

12:45 We want to give a yoga experience and like, just let him go without that, but there's nothing to be ashamed of like this. Is a business for yourself too. Yeah, yeah. So, and you don't even see it necessarily even as a business, I see it as like, I love what I do. And, and, and I believe in myself. And and if you want to come two more classes, this is how you come two more classes kind of how I see, how I see it. You know, I used to feel a little bit uncomfortable with that too.

13:12 But then yeah, I think just over time, I think, you know, when I felt uncomfortable about it it was really because I didn't On my craft because I hadn't taught enough classes to be like yeah, you know what, I do have something to offer and I have worked really hard at this and I am pretty good teacher and you know what I mean? Says as those thousands of hours of teaching and repetition as they started to become more and more ingrained in me, I think I became more open to at the end

13:45 of class. Talk about it, you know. Yeah. And then you know, just a evolved the conversation so once You have all these classes and you found your stride. Then what's next? Well potentially, if you'd like to do yoga retreats, if you want to travel, this is something you could start to to line up as like almost like to diversify your portfolio as a yoga teacher trainings could be in the future, you don't want to rush it but trainings could be something in the future.

14:14 I'd probably start with workshops first like if you like to do in an immersion of sorts or an Variants like oh I want to teach a live music. Yin yoga class. For instance like this is a great immersion. You can do a three-hour one-day thing.

14:31 So these are things to start you know, kind of planting into your weekly monthly schedule, whatever kind of makes sense for you. And then I think, The the the Turning Point here is that a lot of people don't have the resources to teach a big studios, you know, like we've had many students come into our trainings that are from small places and when they leave their, I've had somebody today.

15:03 When I taught the class for this top for another yoga teacher training today. Yeah, and one of the students was like, how can I take your class online when I leave here because I don't have this kind of yoga where I live?

15:14 Yeah. This is a very common question. Absolutely. So, even more what if she wants to teach yoga and her small town, like, where can we help her? How can we give her add some advice? Well, that's why we created going pro. The podcast, I have the platform that not even a to sell our souls, but that's exactly why we created, what we've been creating, you know.

15:36 So there are tons of people that don't have access to high-quality teachers, and they don't have the ability to travel or the ability to To invest, you know, let's say they took a bad training and they don't have the ability to spend another four or five thousand dollars in a second training.

15:53 Well study with us study study with us online and that's and that's what we tried to do because we're seeing that happen, we're seeing, you know, some some of yoga getting watered down and and it's becoming more The types of programs that really teach people how to be employable are Getting Thinner and thinner and and that's because they're being led by people who haven't actually done the grunt work.

16:27 Yes, sir. So let's talk about our one of our students art who lives in Thunder Bay Ontario. Shout out to uart if you're listening proud of you, super proud. Yeah, you know this is a guy Who took our training. It's really quiet had to ask but when he did ask the questions, they're all the right questions.

16:49 Absorbing the information not in his ego and he took the mentorship that we gave him and that training like the connections, the information, the strategies, the business aspects, all this stuff took it to Thunder Bay where there's not a lot of people and basically started his own yoga studio out of his home. Yeah.

17:11 It started in his Garage and it just became a thing. You know, he willed it into existence. I think he taught before that. Probably, he got some experience teaching at the local Studio. I might be, you know, if he's listening he's like how this isn't exactly how it went.

17:28 The the point of it is is that you can make it work, wherever you are, it might not be the same path as teaching at this, you know, big fancy studio, in a big city, could Very much just be teaching to your friends and family at first in go ahead.

17:47 Yeah, absolutely. And and I think you just, you just have to really love yoga and you have to really want to be a teacher like you really like you want to to teach as much as possible. You want to become the best teacher you can possibly you want to continue studying with Master Teachers. Every time you teach a class you go through like okay, what worked, what didn't work like that commitment? and one thing I remember about art is Art and when he was in our teacher training, We had

18:19 just gotten done doing a bunch of practice teaching and everybody want to take a break in our cart came up to me and he goes, I want you to be really hard on me. Hmm, I go what he goes. No. He's like, seriously. He's like, you're not dead.

18:32 Don't do me any favors. He's like, I want to be a great teacher. And I want you to be really like, really challenged me to be my best. He's like, be hard on me. I was like, cool done, and that's the type of guy that goes back to his hometown and starts his own Studio. You know, very much true.

18:50 Yeah. Shoutouts you like Riza who just finished our training to and she's out in. She's somewhere in Germany. What city is she and I forget either way. Hold on scene. Clone. That's right. We've had a couple of teachers go teach their in the studios and yeah, they have a good Market.

19:05 Therefore yoga. Yeah. And big enough of a city to implement these same strategies that you and I used. And she's having success at like, how old like 20 years old. Yeah, but no year old teacher just like teaching multiple classes a week.

19:19 Following her dream. There is no set age as far as when you can start to do this. Yep, sure. There might be a recommended age. You don't want to get too far ahead of yourself but everyone is different but yeah. All these success stories and just trying to remember like throughout the years like those inspirational stories, I think it all just comes down to passion passion and if you really care and you love it and you want to help people and you want to be the best you can be

19:48 Anything is possible? Yeah, this word is really resonated with me many years ago. Dharma, what is Dharma mean, it means path or Journey. It means to follow your path. What is your Dharma? And I think if you strip this whole podcast this one down into like one thing like if you can follow your path and understand like are you a private lesson? Person a one on one person.

20:18 Do you want to help people with eating disorders? Do you want to teach strong Power, Yoga classes in a packed? Clap act Studio? Like, what is your calling, what calls to your heart? And, and I say this to not exclude, the people who want to work one-on-one, and I think this is a magical experience. So many people are intimidated of classes. They're injured, they're old, they're out of shape, maybe they're just rich, and don't want to leave their house, whatever the case is, there's a

20:48 Huge market for the one on ones that you could tap into, if that's your thing, if it calls to you, but you don't want to also sell yourself short like if that's not calling to you and you keep doing it, you're gonna drain yourself to the point of compulsive quitting and you know, so I think finding that alignment with your path and what calls to you.

21:11 It's a really important for yoga teaching to sustain the career. Yeah. Absolutely. I have a thought. Hey, what's your thought? Good to see you. Yeah, as I was listening attentively. So this is really, really helpful. The thing that came up for me when you guys were talking is what?

21:29 Because some people, I feel like they'll they have a passion, they have a drive, they have a desire, they want to go for it. But there's something that gets in the way, and some of those things that get in the way, our is self-talk or not getting becoming successful right away or, you know, being worried about what people think or having a couple bad reviews or a couple bad, you know, speaking to what you were saying is like, I don't know exactly how he said, but basically quitting a

21:56 little too early. So the variables are the factors that affect someone from actually chasing their passions or their dreams or their desires. There's a lot of them. Probably right. Because like all of what you guys are saying I was like this is really really awesome because like what happens if there's a roadblock that gets thrown in the mix of that and then all of a sudden your passion you feel like you can't tackle your passion anywhere. You feel like you can't move

22:17 towards it anymore because this one thing happened and it kind of broke you down, or yeah. It just, it was something that came up for me and I was empathizing with the fact that maybe there is someone that has gone through that with their like, I really want to go for it but like, you know, I'm having a hard time moving. I'm having a hard time taking a Action because of this thing that happened or this event or the scenario, or this person or something like that.

22:40 So I just wanted to bring that up to the conversation. I thought it was interesting. Yeah I would say that is why you need to be surround yourself with people who support your dreams and part of supporting someone's dream is saying get up off your ass, take that risk or jump off that Cliff or whatever it is. There's there's there's Hand-holding and compassion and there's also like you said you were going to do this thing. Like so go do it and I think

23:11 that that having a mentor, your first couple years is really important. Having people who aren't afraid to tell you the truth. What even if the truth stings? Like, a lot of times within like spiritual Community, people are afraid to to sting each other and to say the truth, even if the truth is what might set you free, hearing it.

23:32 And I think also Having staying in touch with other people within your teacher training Community or other people that are kind of at your level that are experiencing. The same thing is super important. I think that there's like I listen to The Joe Rogan podcast and he talks so much about stand-up comedians and stand-up comedians in yoga. Teachers are very different but the career path is kind of similar because it's like you're building your own thing and in it's just you but your So you

24:05 want to be surrounded by other comedians or do you want to be surrounded by other yoga teachers people that are really good and people that have good attitudes and people that have been through the things that you're going through, or maybe they're going through it one week and then, you know, like by mental, pick me up and then like three weeks later he's having a bad day and I'll pick him up or you know what I mean.

24:26 So I think that's really important is to have like a community a community of other teachers, I'll add to that. Yeah. And you know, if you run into this roadblock and you whatever take it personally or whatever reason, it takes you off of your path, you can always go back into your yoga practice to especially if you don't have the community. If you don't have the support of family and these people around you, I didn't have unsupportive people, but I remember just speak yoga spoke to me so deeply

25:00 that I had a lot to share when it came time to finally teach it. But if you're putting the cart in front of the horse a little too soon, you might have jumped the gun, a little prematurely. It is possible. Started your career a little too soon.

25:16 So, in that case, go back onto your mat. Meditate, do practice yoga. Go inward. Don't just use it as a safe place to hide from what you really want to be doing. But at the same time, like regulate yourself your system and see what's Real and True and authentic. Attic and then leave all the fear that you know is an illusion behind and then maybe you can we step into that? And then do that.

25:40 You'll attract. I think you're going to attract the right people as well. Absolutely. Well, that about wraps it up, you guys you have anything else you'd like to add on how to become an employable yoga teacher now get out there and go after your dreams.

25:59 Carpe Diem perfect yes. Seize the Day. Alright, Seize the Day, Namaste, we'll see you on the next one. Bye.