How to Build a Yoga Teaching Career, with John Quirk

0:00 Hey there, Before we get started on this week's episode, I would love to ask for your support by reviewing this podcast. We want to share yoga with as many people as possible and this free resource. This podcast is one of the ways that we can do that. And the best way that you can help support us is by giving us a review.

0:16 So if you go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use, Scroll down until you find that star review and then give us some love. Thank you so much, and let's get started with this week's episode. I think the comparison game is a really easy one, especially in our current environment. Like you have, you know, social media showing you how great everybody wants you to think their life is. So you get a lot of that if you so choose to partake in those things.

0:43 I mean, even in the yoga world, when I walked into auditions, you know, early on, I mean I was not like the fittest, most flexible person in the room. And I mean there was like literal gymnasts and contortionists. And I mean, New York's like filled with models and actors and these people who are like super attractive, athletic.

0:59 And I'm like, OK, here I go, you know what I mean? But it's that authenticity piece that really allowed me to manifest the right opportunities for me with a healthy balance of like, get off your ass and fucking hustle, you know, like get some shit done, like, you know.

1:14 But yeah, it's it's such an interesting dilemma, I think, for all of us to be able to balance what we love with also living of a world that still has demands on us. Welcome to the Going Pro Yoga Podcast. If you love yoga as much as I do, then this podcast is for you. We talk all things yoga related for teachers in order to supplement and complement and even support after a 200 hour Yoga teacher training.

1:47 Or if you've never done a training before, this podcast is all about just learning more about yoga in an authentic way. Together with Paul Tioto and Byron De Marseille, we put together this podcast to provide you with a free resource to learn more about yoga. Whether you want to share yoga or teach yoga or just practice yoga, this podcast is talking all things yoga related and we're trying to talk from the teacher's perspective and also the students perspective to make

2:11 sure we get a full 360° angle on what yoga is all about and how it's evolved in the modern world. Welcome to our podcast. Welcome back to the Going Pro Yoga podcast. Here we are again, continuation from last week. We have John Quirk with us.

2:28 And if you didn't know or if you don't know who John Quirk is, then go back and listen. He tells you all about who he is and he's a special guest that we're having to tell him. Tell us, excuse me, about his yoga journey, going from corporate to yoga, taking yoga, teacher training, moving into teaching yoga, and then eventually progressing to retreats and more. And the storyline we are basically at is the teaching yoga part.

2:57 So, hi John, How are you? Well, I'm Michael. I'm well. Welcome back to the podcast. Delicious smoothie in my belly. I'm ready to go I. Mean. I'm trying to make my guests happy, you know. This is. I mean, I've not done a bunch of podcasts.

3:11 I've done some, but this is the this is the best one I've ever done. It's easy to say that. Maybe we should like use that as a highlight so that everybody knows. 100% sound. Bite sound. Clip it. Kids say clip it. Hit a clip. Cool.

3:26 So yeah, if you're just tuning in and you're just stumbled on this episode because you like the title, the the, the previous episode kind of gives a bit of a foundation. John explains who he is. He's from America. In New York was a journalist corporate job which ended up getting fired. But also probably he may have manifested that subconsciously. We're always manifesting everything, Michael, whether we like it or not.

3:51 No, there you go. And then had already you know who's familiar with yoga and wanted to do know yoga teacher training knew he wanted to teach yoga and you know there's things in between as well. But that's kind of the the nuts and bolts of it. So now I'm, I'm very much interested in like what it was like to start actually teaching yoga. And I think our audience would also be very interested to know like, yeah, how did that go?

4:13 Like how did it start? Like you you mentioned your first gig was in the actual training itself. You were able, you had the opportunity to sub and you put your hand up. Did anyone else put their hand up when they asked who? Who's ready to teach?

4:28 I don't think so. And it was also just like very clear that I just really wanted to do it. I think maybe one or two other people did. But I I also think I'd kind of separated myself a little bit in terms of just my confidence level.

4:42 Like we had already done some like, you know, practice teaching and stuff. And just my confidence and coming from a journalism background and being able to, you know, stand on the stage or to be a reporter or like to, you know, yeah, public speaking, 100%, yeah, it was already kind of there. So I think it was a pretty natural transition. Yeah, for sure.

5:03 OK, cool. So that first experience, it went well. How did it go? How many people were in the class? I'm curious. 2 two people. Oh, OK, Well, that's. Guy in a gal. I had a playlist that didn't fit the studio at all, which actually a lot of the classes there wouldn't even have music, 'cause it was a very like, kind of serious, like Ashtanga studio.

5:23 And then I built a playlist that had like alt rock and like, you know, Led Zeppelin on it and all this stuff, 'cause that's what my teacher had always done. So it was really weird to be kind of in this like, more static sequence with like, you know, Jimmy Page rocking on a Gibson guitar.

5:38 But I knew like, right away I just, I didn't have any fear. I like, I mean definitely some butterflies, but I like, walked right up and was just like, hey, you know, how are you guys doing? I'm John, Like, I'm leading you through practice. And again, having the set sequence creates, you know, I think a, a familiarity and a comfort, right. For you.

5:57 But yeah, I just, like, immediately was like, I'm good at this. Like I can do this no problem, yeah. And how was the feedback, if at all? Or just like energetically. Well, I mentioned it a little bit, but on the last one, but no, I didn't have it was in the conversation that we had.

6:12 But yeah, there was a the lady that was in the class like years ago, years later, rather I was teaching in New Jersey, like way far away from where this class was in New York. And she said, I think I was in your very first yoga class at this little studio in Abananda. And I was like, yeah.

6:29 And she's like, I would have never known that you had never talked before. And I was like, well, nice, not bad. Little ego boost right there. Yeah, not. Bad. It was one of those things like I tell the story sometimes of, you know, the movie Goodwill Hunting, of course.

6:43 And in that scene where the his love interest is asking him like, how do you know how to do this math? That's like incredibly complicated and very hard for me to do. And he's like, well, I can't hit a baseball out of Fenway. And if I look at a piano, it's just, you know, wood and ivory. He's like, but when I look at the math, I could just play, you know, and something about yoga teaching was like that for me. Like I I just kind of had an inherent knack for it. I had an athletic background.

7:12 I had the public speaking element. I think there was just a comfort level for me also like being like a pretty heavy empath like just wanting to help and care for people was there. So like, all this like stuff was just mixed together. That was just perfect for me, that I knew that this was going to be something I can do and do at a pretty high level, you know?

7:33 So you came in with a good kit? Yeah. Good tool or tools, let's just say. And even something like that I get a lot of feedback on now with retreats is like I just brought all the parts of myself to the table. I didn't try to be this like super spiritual person. Like I never felt comfortable like wearing mala beads or you know dressing a certain way.

7:51 Like, I liked like my like athletic shorts and my tank top I used to wear, Like I used to have long hair and I used to wear this like cut off sleeve of AT shirt as like a headband and it was kind of like a calling card. So you're like a proper yoga teacher, hippie looking.

8:04 No, that's a thing. Like, I kind of wasn't like, I was more like, like, like even before, like Lululemon was like a big thing. That's kind of more how I dressed, was more like athletic wear, not so much of like the, you know, I can like the, yeah, like the mala beads or like, you know like the kind of outfits of the Yogi kind of thing.

8:23 Like, but I'm not wearing my mala bead right now. I mean, listen to each his own I I just think it's it's cool if you can teach in a way that still brings your own essence and still brings your own style. And that's one of the things I also struggled with early though was trying to teach like other teachers. Like yeah, you're going to say things may be similar to your teacher.

8:42 You might cue something like a way that you've heard it a bunch of times, but trying not to be somebody else, you know, which of course we all deal with and potentially struggle with at some point, I think, no matter who we are and what we're doing.

8:56 But yeah, it was, it was really cool for me to like, have my own, like, style. And then like, I would even teach, like, in the Hamptons during the summer. And so I'd go out and there'd be like all these like, super rich people. I had like Jennifer Lopez would come to my class and like, the Olsen twins would come to my class and like, Russell Simmons was in my class, who I've run into here in Bali. And, you know, he's like, yeah, he's like, you know, you were just like cool man.

9:20 Like, you were kind of different. But he's like everybody liked it. And you know, I just, and I would like kind of talk smack sometimes like these, like rich people. Like they'd like want to come in late and I'd just be like, Nope, like glass is closed. Like, this is like, we're we're rock'n'roll. So I think there was an, again, like a punk rock kind of element to me that even in that like high echelon of these are some of the most rich, powerful

9:42 people in the world. I just was myself and they loved it. Like a lot of people really loved and appreciated that. I think that is a big point to not overstep, that is, authenticity is very attractive. In all aspects. In all aspects our lives, yeah.

10:00 Not just in yoga, yoga, teaching authenticity, just being yourself. But you know what? I think it's really hard to be yourself if you don't necessarily entirely love yourself. You could do a whole podcast list on that. Which we could so last year of my life so.

10:19 How do I love myself again? Yeah, so teaching yoga and helping other people possibly love themselves is obviously a a gift to be able to to help people with at least getting a perspective of that. But also in in You know, we talk about this a lot in this podcast, but like doing your own yoga while you also share yoga or teach yoga.

10:38 Which we mentioned the last one can look a lot of different ways, right? It doesn't have to look like, awesome enough. It can look like meditation, being kind, you know, being, accepting, being non judgmental. All of these beautiful things. Yeah, forgiveness.

10:51 Patience. Exactly, for sure. Great. So OK, so from that class, let's just say what happened after that. Like give me a. Yeah, so. You felt good, I assume. 100%, yeah. It was like, you know, probably the first time you ever picked up a paintbrush, if you're a painter or, you know, whatever.

11:11 The thing is that you love, like, I knew I was going to love this. And so, you know, we graduated probably a few weeks after that. And I did pick up some some gigs at the studio I was at and I was very lucky at the time.

11:25 I lived in Hoboken, NJ, which is like, oh, they call it the Square Mile City. So it's a collection of brownstones and it's a very walkable kind of city. It's like Brooklyn, It's like kind of the 6th borough of Manhattan if you've never been there.

11:38 It reminds you a lot of Brooklyn. It's just on the opposite side, so it's across the Hudson River rather than than from the East River. But you can still see Manhattan and had a very amazing yoga community, like a density of yogis and studios.

11:55 And so even though I love New York City and I would also go to Brooklyn sometimes to teach classes with like 2, you know, rivers away and a lot of trains, I was very fortunate that New Jersey, specifically Hoboken and then also like the north part of Jersey, just had a ton of yoga and opportunities.

12:11 So at first it was mostly just like word of mouth, like, you know, working from the people that I went to teacher training with. But then I just started handing out resumes. And I think a big thing that was important for me too is to physically go to the studio that you're trying to pitch yourself to, right.

12:26 So if you, you know, are listening to this and you're wanting to pick up gigs, don't just write them an e-mail and tell them how much you'd love to teach at their studio, right? Like, go to their studio. And here's a really easy one, like, figure out who the manager is at the studio, which a lot of times the manager will also be a teacher or even the owner will be a teacher. Not always, but most of those, you know, is the case most of the times and go take their

12:50 class. You know, like the person who's gonna make the decision about putting you on the schedule, go take their class. You know, go take it and take it often. And so that's what I did. I just, I identified who kind of the gatekeepers were in this community. And I started taking lots of classes and just immersing myself and coming early, staying late, just that little 1015 minute window asking them questions about their sequencing and their music and, you know,

13:11 just really picking their brain, which was equal parts. Yes. Building a rapport eventually get through the door. But also was really like my extra like 100 hours of education, right. Where I was just learning tips and tricks about auditioning and you know, what sort of they valued in studios and then, like, how they taught classes and how they were successful.

13:29 And then once I started teaching out those studios, I already knew a lot of the students because I was practicing next to them, you know, So it was like a really easy way to assimilate into those communities. And then that created more word of mouth. I started going into North Jersey, but I've taught at, like studios.

13:43 I've taught at gyms. And my first, like, teaching gigs were like at CrossFit gyms. I taught at a Jewish Community Center, which was like actually one of my best gigs. It was like super fun, motivated community. I would get to take like spin classes for free, like I would get to like use their pool. They paid me really well.

13:59 They'd give me free food. The lady was like so lovely that like ran the place. And then another thing that I did too is I just started. I mean it it was just a hustle. But I I started like looking for places that didn't have yoga, that maybe would want yoga. So like, the lady that lived above me in my apartment ran a, like, a soul Cycle type place, like a, you know, a spin class place.

14:21 And I said, do you ever have any stretching? And she's like, oh, we do like 10 minutes before and after class, I'm like let's put like a 30 minute stretch class on this guy and boom, like people loved it, 'cause they were so tight from all the spin. And I created this class that was like one of those popular classes there.

14:34 Right, 'cause they just didn't have it anymore or before. So I would teach yoga in the park. I would teach, you know, to my hockey friends. I like anywhere I could teach yoga. I was just like dealing yoga, you know, I felt like a drug dealer for yoga. I was just like, where can I push my thing, you know? Like where can I sell my thing, you know, and I just, I had a lot of outside of the box places and things that, yeah, I just created a market for it in some

14:56 ways, you know? Yeah. I love it. You're obviously there was the passion there. There was the lifestyle you loved. You knew, you knew that you wanted to do it. So you had a you had a full commitment, it seems. For sure, Yeah.

15:06 I think it's similar to anybody who's got a good product or service. Just like putting on the entrepreneur hat for a second, but like if you have something that you know has made an indelible impact on your life, right? Like that's kind of step one is to get really proficient or expert at it.

15:19 It's a thing I talk about a lot with people who are coming into the world of teaching or wanting to do retreats. It's like we kind of do the reverse, especially in the West where we think about what's the thing we could monetize the most and then we kind of learn how to try to find joy in it.

15:32 Second right. Whereas, like, if you find the thing that you love the most 1st and then you just get good enough at it so that you're relatively masterful in it and then you find a way to teach it, right, then you'll be able to monetize it in a way that feels amazing.

15:48 Because it's not like you're going to have to, like be like grinding to do it. You'll want to do it because you'll know how much it means to you and how much you love it. And so why wouldn't you want to share that with people you know, and advocate for people to do that?

16:00 I mean, marketing for me, even with retreats, is super fun because it's like people are like, you know, why should I come on this retreat? I'm like because it'll change your life. Like easy. I'm like, it changes my, it changed my life.

16:10 It will change your life if you put put some effort in and you come and you show up for it. And I can say that because it has and it does continually, every time I do it, you know? And you can say it confidently and authentically, which is.

16:23 100% felt, yeah. Versus actually trying to sell in desperation and stuff like this, right? Yeah, which never feels fun, as anybody's ever done. Like door to door. I used to sell coffee machines in college. I used to stand in like like a you know, like a mall. Like, you know and like, hand out free coffee and then try to get people to buy these like $3000 coffee machines. Cold selling, walking traffic.

16:44 3000. Dollar coffee stuff. Yeah, these like Swiss made coffee machines. I did not sell one in any whole year. That I'm no kidding. But my college, like basically I lived in like a frat house. It was like me and five of my friends, we had the nicest coffee machine of anybody that I I knew at that time. I would think so.

17:01 Yeah, we had like this dingy house where we'd throw like red solo cup parties, you know? But like we also had this like $3000 coffee, 'cause they gave me it to practice on, so that's great. I don't know why I went down that. Rabbit hole but oh.

17:13 Because of the whole selling thing, I was trying to sell something I wasn't really that passionate about, right? Yeah. Well, I'm gonna just add a little caveat, you know, into that or or similar story, I guess, 'cause I used to sell gym memberships.

17:25 I used to work at a gym, Good Life Fitness in Canada, so whenever I graduated from my Human Kinetics degree, kinesiology degree, I didn't really know what I I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to do physical therapy and I applied to schools and I didn't get in right away.

17:40 I have a whole podcast on this story, so I'm not going to go into that too much. But my intermediate job, while I was applying for schools and improving my grades, was to do something in my field, which was all go work at the gym, gym, fitness, exercise, you know, makes sense.

17:56 So I just, you know, I got a job in Toronto. One of the good life Fitness is in like the downtown centre, like Bay and Bloor, kind of like prime location. And I thought I was going to be like a personal trainer or I was going to be like something to do with the actual exercise.

18:11 Now they put me in sales and I had to sell memberships and I had to, like, fucking convince people to join the gym. And I don't know if you've seen like Friends episodes of like, you know, I want to quit the gym. Exactly. So I was the guy I I hated.

18:26 I hated it from the moment I started the job. And I was like, I'm going to at least give it a shot. So I stayed with it for six weeks. But there was just, this reminds me of your coffee story. There was moments where I was standing on the corner of Bay and Bloor where it's like, you know, if there was a walk walking right, there was just like crowds of people, right?

18:44 And I'm I'm sitting out there with these like little Flyers, like join a Good life Fitness or whatever, Literally. Going from your hand to a garbage. Can oh immediately. And I was just like, I was like, I fucking hate my life. I hate my life right now.

18:58 True story, true story. I eventually just was like, I went to a point where I just would go to the bathroom into a stall and I would just hide in there and pretend I was going to the bathroom for like an hour and then like throw away some of the things 'cause I was like, I fucking no one, no one wants to join. No one cares that I'm there.

19:16 Like this is just a waste of my time And eventually got to a point where I just went to my boss and I was like, I'm sorry but this is not working out clearly. You and I were talking about waiting tables earlier. It's fun to, like, think about all the like, I used to carry golf bags. I also worked in a gym at the front desk for a while. It's like it's really fun to think about all the steps that you have to kind of take to learn what you want to do, more importantly, learn what you

19:42 don't want to do, right? But that passion and authenticity element that we keep talking about I think is, is so important. And that's what's so cool about. Like the time with yoga, right, is because it's really not a practice in sticking your foot behind your head or standing on your hands. It's really a practice in self discovery, right? It's it's really finding out who you are so that you can be a better version of you, right?

20:03 And so if we apply that logic to just about anything that we do. We don't really have to worry that we're not in the right or wrong place. We can kind of feel it, you know. But then it's the the strength element, the confidence to jump, you know, which the awesome of practice, the meditation, the self-discipline part of it I think is that that balance cause the woo, woo world can kind of tell us like, oh it's all just manifesting your dreams.

20:32 And like, yeah, but you also gotta get out of bed and you gotta do some stuff that's hard too. Yeah, you gotta, you gotta hand out the Flyers. You gotta, you know, like I've gone to festivals and like handed out things like for my business, you know, And even like I, you know, teaching all those, I used to undercut all the other yoga teachers in New York.

20:48 So I would figure out how much people were charging for privates and I would just price myself like 20-30 dollars less. And you know I picked up a lot of clients, but I picked up some like really shady clients too, you know, like really tough clients. And I was like trekking through the snow to you know, go teach like a $55 private for an hour at some, you know, person's ten floor walk up, you know, apartment. And so it's like it takes those steps too. And that's the part I think is

21:13 fun to talk about because people, when they listen to podcasts like this, are like, oh, these guys have like, you know, you look at, like you're in this, like, really cool house. You live in Bali. You're doing all these teacher trainings.

21:22 I'm about to do a retreat here. It's like, yeah, that looks awesome and it's really cool And like, I'm really proud of us, you know, But also like, there's so many steps like to like hustle and grind and and really do some things or maybe you don't want to do and, you know, kind of push yourself.

21:38 And I think it's important to remember that, you know, you're not going to just get the like Friday, you know, 5:00 PM, fifty person class right off the bat. You're going to, you know, you're gonna teach some, You're gonna teach some small groups, You're gonna teach places where the speakers don't work well or, you know, they're like, yeah, it's you're.

21:56 Gonna teach where there's 120 people. Yeah. And you're gonna have to just sit with that and not take it as a personal thing and for sure, all that stuff. And then think of alternative ways, which is what I liked you said.

22:09 I mean, you, you rifle through a whole bunch of different ways in which you did it, but you said teaching yoga in the park. You know, teaching yoga in your backyard. You know, I don't know if you ever taught online, but that's some of the things that people do nowadays, yeah.

22:21 That wasn't my jam. I just, I like I couldn't resonate. I even tried it during COVID. It just wasn't for me, like like talking to my phone felt really I'm like an in person person, you know? But I was like sneaking off to people's backyards during COVID when everything was locked down. I that's why I say I was like a yoga drug dealer because I would like sneak into people's backyards and it'd be like 20 people there.

22:39 We'd all like kind of quiet, do our yoga together. And then like, you know, like I was, yeah, I wish it was like making more money doing that than I was teaching in studios because it was all coming to me, you know, And they were just so grateful for it. And I was like getting Venmos from people, you know? But again, it was like the hustle element because I would like, find the people who were like, who are like the students that really love my class.

22:59 I'm like, all right, let me write them and like, see if I can ban five of them, ten of them together. And then, like, pick a day, pick a time, pick a location, you know, so like, I can make it like 2-3 hundred dollars, like teaching a class, you know? But I had to, like, hustle it and put it together. It didn't just come sitting on the couch, you know what I mean? So.

23:14 I thought you just sit on the couch and manifest it. Just think it. Want it? Yeah, I could do we could do a whole episode of manifestation. I just I feel like it's the whole vision board error of manifestation where people just like slap stuff against the board and they feel like it's just going to come true.

23:28 It's like yeah, you know there's no, it's I mean it's very yogic, right. It's like the the the Stirum Sukumasam, right. Like the the the yoga is the balance of effort and ease, right. Like you need to have both. You need to have struggle.

23:41 You need to have challenge. You need to have the young part of it you know too. And so I always tell people like, yes, have very clear intentions, like know like vibrationally how you want to feel, right. So you can match that and you can start to attract that.

23:55 And there is manifestation powers. I totally, totally agree with that. But the the whole issue with like the vision board is you're popping all these things up there, but you don't really understand how they make you feel, right.

24:06 You're so disconnected with the feeling of it. You just built a construct analytically of like, well, if I get that stuff, then I'll be happy, right? And so that was where, again, we talked a little bit about as I started teaching more and more, I became a little more fixated on the money. And I was really kind of like, well, I don't want to live in this like 20 classes a week sort of flow. And and that feels overwhelming.

24:28 And I feel like I'm giving so much and I'm getting so little and I started to lose the love and it started to lose the reverence for it. And so, you know, that burnout was real. And I had to get back into like that first class where I was just so happy just to be getting the opportunity to teach. Right.

24:42 And so that created a new vibration, created a new sort of GPS coordinates, you know, from a feeling standpoint that then when like trips and retreats started to become a thing, I'm. I knew right away that that was the match that I was looking for. It was like the next evolution of what I wanted to do. But we all do that.

24:59 We all stray off the path of our of our feeling, you know, because we start doing all the thinking of how it's going to work out. And you know, that person's got that and I don't have that. And, you know, and that's the blessing in the curse of the analytical mind, right?

25:14 It's like, yeah, it can play little tricks on us. Yeah, lots of tricks in the comparison game is never a good game. Yeah, which is easy in the yoga. World, too. It's good to it, yeah. It's good to be inspired by but not judge yourself for not being or getting there yet or not being as good yet or whatever story or words of story that come through.

25:38 Yeah. But, you know, seeing other people with their success shouldn't seem like a threat. It should be more of an inspiration. Like, you know, whether they did it in a way, hopefully where they actually put in the work to get it and then you can learn from that person. Maybe there's a mentorship there. Yeah, right.

25:53 Because, yeah, it just doesn't come like. It just doesn't. I mean, very rarely, very rarely. Because I'm sure in some situations that you know can just fall into your. Lap Well, I think it falls into your lap again when you have a very clear idea of how you want to feel, right?

26:07 When you start to do things or interact with the world, interact with people that feel really good. And then we could do a whole thing on, like what the construct of even good means in that sense. But when you're like doing something that brings you joy, right? Whether you're walking your dog, painting a picture or whatever, like there's a feeling of flow.

26:24 There's a feeling of ease, there's a feeling of joy playing with your kids, whatever that is. If you can find that in more of the things that you do and kind of move to the side, you know, the money part or the, you know, the accolades or all that that will create the environment where then more of that starts to come into your life.

26:43 And I mean there's so many amazing teachers of this like Bob Proctor, Joe Dispenza, Gene Houston, Quantum physicist. You can look at it through spiritual lens. You could look through scientific lens. But it's very much a law, right, That when you feel good, it starts to attract more of that to you.

26:58 I think the comparison game is a really easy one, especially in our current environment, like you have, you know, social media showing you how great everybody wants you to think their life is. So you get a lot of that if you so choose to partake in those things.

27:12 I mean, even in the yoga world, when I walked into auditions, you know, early on, I mean, I was not like the fittest, most flexible person in the room. And I mean, there was like literal gymnasts and contortionists. And I mean, New York's like filled with models and actors and these people who are like super attractive, athletic.

27:28 And I'm like, OK, here I go, you know what I mean? But it's that authenticity piece that really allowed me to manifest the right opportunities for me with a healthy balance of like get off your ass and fucking hustle, you know, like get some shit done, like, you know, But yeah, it's it's such an interesting dilemma, I think, for all of us to be able to balance what we love with also living of a world that still has demands on us from, you know, we have our kids, our spouses, our

28:02 jobs or you know, all these other things that call our attention as well, you know. But I don't think the living in a cave thing is necessarily the answer either. Not there's anything wrong with that. But you know, go enjoy the world, Be a bit, you know, have nice things you know you can. Go into a cave for a little bit if that helps. I think a balance.

28:21 That's why I got so into retreats, 'cause I think extricating yourself from your normal day-to-day, I mean neurologically, does amazing things for you. It's a reboot for your spirit. It's obviously like an energy kind of cleanse, a reset, if you will.

28:37 But yeah, we still have. We got duties and we got jobs and we got, you know, responsibilities. Yeah, 100% people. We, you know, that depend on us and you know, things that we're invested in. And yeah, I think there's a way to find a really beautiful, healthy balance with it all. But again, it's like when I teach to people, now I I teach very much in a way of everything comes back to self-awareness. Everything comes back to being a better version of you. More self inquiry, more self

29:06 discovery. Meditation's a great tool. Breathwork's an amazing tool. Awesome is a great tool. But like going for a walk and just not listening to anything or not doing anything can be a great tool. You know, having just down time for your brain to kind of go into the deeper recesses of yourself, you know, and I teach this like the neuroscience of this, but it's it's really not anything that's new. You know, when we talk about retreats or, you know, things where people leave, they're sort

29:32 of normal. I mean, that's been going on for thousands and thousands of years, right? And it's, it's such an integral part of being a balanced sort of human because even teaching, you know, became a burnout. Teaching 20 plus classes a week was no good, You know, It was too much of a good thing, you know.

29:51 And that's actually the impetus. Like, when I ran my first retreat, I wasn't really planning on running a retreat. I was planning on going to Costa Rica, like how to take a vacation, like check it. Like I'd never been on a vacation in my whole adult life. Like I left college or high school, went to college, college, went to work.

30:06 And never, like, went on any kind of break. Like, I just kept going, going, going. So I was like, I'm just going to go to. It was in New York. It was cold as hell. It was like, you know, winter months. And I was like, I just want to go somewhere warm, tropical, beautiful. And I was like watching, like, National Geographic one night. And it was like, you know, they did this whole thing on Costa Rica.

30:22 And I was like, cool, I'll go there, you know? And then like, literally a week later, I was teaching out in the Hamptons. And this lady Angie came up to me and was an Aussie. But she had, like, connections to retreat centers all around the world.

30:33 And she said, hey, like, you know, check out this place, you know, in, in Nosara, Costa Rica. And I didn't do any of the research. I was like, OK, just put me in touch. I'll book it, you know? And so I booked it. And then I just started telling people I had no website. I had no e-commerce.

30:46 I had no nothing. I was literally taking checks and cash from people. And people were like asking me like, where where's your retreat? What's this retreat that you're going? Like, what the Hell's a retreat? I don't even know what that is.

30:56 I'm like, we're just going to go down there and do yoga and like, you know, some of the ocean and and then totally winged it. But again, it was like, I opened the void right for now, this new way of being to be possible. And as soon as I felt good about it, the universe, God, whatever you want to call it, opened up all the doors and arranged all the parts that it just, you know, was easy and perfect. So you basically went from teaching so many classes that you needed a break and that's

31:20 kind of what transitioned into what will be the next phase, A. 100% of the retreats. Yeah, it was. I had to do it like when we talked in the last episode of, like, I needed to teach that many classes because I literally needed to make a living doing this.

31:33 So it was like necessity drove me to that and then necessity drove me to, you know, doing the retreats. Now I've been able to soften in my older years of like understanding. You don't always need to push to extremes to find the answers. A lot of it is more the self inquiry piece that will allow you to get there, you know.

31:49 But discipline and pushing yourself helps too, you know, like it does open those doorways too you. Don't want to be complacent? Absolutely. 100%, yeah, but there's a way to do it in a more balanced way. And again, like meditation practices going inward, I think you really find those answers with a lot less physical doing in the world and more just a feeling and more of an intuition, you know, to it. So that's been more of how I kind of operate now. And it's definitely a lot more

32:18 fun. I mean, it's still like I said before, it's like there's a lot of months where like, you know, like we have a retreat next month and it's like there's five people signed up and I need like at least twice that, right?

32:28 Or I need quote, UN quote. But it's like I can watch my analytical brain play all the games of what happens if nobody else signs up. And then I can just sit back and trust that it's going to be perfect. And every month that I every time that I do that, it ends up being that way. Like the right people show up, the money shows up, you know, it just arranges in such a way.

32:47 But it's the feeling that attracts that. It's not the I could run a million ads and I could, you know, hand out Flyers, you know, I could do all those things and maybe I'll get a couple. But the right, you know, fits will come through the feeling, you know, it's great, yeah.

33:03 So where do we go now? I feel like we could jump into the retreat stuff, or I feel a little unsure about the yoga teaching thing. I feel like you got more stories or possibly maybe lessons that we could pull from your yoga teaching years. Beyond just the burnout, of course. But one of some of the things that I really liked is just the fact that you, you put your head down and said, I'm going to do this.

33:29 Like, how do I need to do this? Like I'm going to go try things that are different. I'm not going to just, you know, send emails to yoga studios and hope for my best, cross my fingers and then go scroll on Instagram. You actually was like, OK, I'm going to, like, plan and think, like what can I do, you know, and strategize a little bit.

33:46 Backyard yoga, park yoga, Jewish center yoga, whatever it is, right? Going to the one, the spin class. That was actually an interesting one, like going to areas of well. Like think about places they don't have yoga, where they can use it and honestly, the more you do to take the burden of of formalizing it or formulating it, I should say out of their hands. Like if you walk in and say, hey, do you want some yoga, right.

34:10 They might be like, I don't know, like maybe. But if you walk in and say, hey, you're a CrossFit gym, you're a blah, blah blah, you're a whatever, you know you're. I mean, you can walk into a new university, right? Like go to your local university and be like, hey, do your sports teams, you know, they're lifting weights, they're running, they're doing all these calisthenics, whatever.

34:29 Like, wouldn't it be nice to have something that can help them to recover and to make them more calm and present in the moment of, you know, the game being its most intense? Or, I mean literally if you package it and put it together and formulate an idea of how it could benefit them with the pricing, with the schedule, Like the more you can do to think it out for them, the harder it's going to be for them to say no, Exactly. I mean, I know a lady from

34:54 Canada who built an entire business off of, she literally just has corporate clients. So she works with like, Microsoft and Amazon and all these huge companies. And she just built an entire, you know, deck of, like, here's what yoga and meditation is. The only two things she's got yoga and meditation could do for your employees.

35:12 And she did research. She, like, looked at like what their healthcare costs were and how meditation and the latest science around mindfulness reduces stress and how stresses the comorbidity to all of these, you know, sicknesses.

35:24 And then how if they are sick, they're going to miss this amount of days and it's going to cost you this amount of. And it's like, so she was like, you could pay me $10,000 for a year of yoga or you could pay an extra $250,000 in healthcare costs and lose this amount of productivity with your staff.

35:40 I mean, smart, right? So it doesn't have to be your local studio for, you know, 30 bucks a pop. I mean, you can really think outside the box of, like, other ways that you could deliver this to places that maybe don't have it or need it. That's great, you know?

36:00 Yeah. And then you'll be you'll be in a a fresh pond instead of competing with. Them make your own rules, right? Like, and now she doesn't even. I mean, I don't know. Her name's Lynn. I don't know if Lynn. Her company's called energy corporate yoga, but I don't know if she even teaches much yoga anymore. I think she's just teaching other people her system and they're getting clients.

36:20 And then a lot of them aren't even teaching the yoga either. They're just enrolling the teachers and then taking a, you know, a cut of it. So I mean, I think for a lot of us, we still want the hands on experience. I think we still want to make the physical impact.

36:33 But if you're thinking as like an entrepreneur, as a business person, again, there's like, where there's a will, there's a way to find little nooks and crannies. I mean, it's it's so substantiated now, right? There's so much good science, there's so much good research.

36:46 There's so many examples of people knowing this stuff makes a difference that you just have to put that together and present it to somebody you know and be persistent. You know, like sometimes it takes two or three or four or five calls, you know? But it's like, again, it's like how bad do you, you know, want to do this?

37:06 How many times you gonna knock on the door, right. You know, kind of thing. Yeah. Where's your energy going towards? Yeah, it makes me think of a guy who I'm eventually gonna get on the podcast and his name is Akshay. He's from India. First met him probably like 6 months ago, came to Bali, I assume from India, and he just came up to me and introduced himself and I don't know why, maybe 'cause he saw me talking to Byron.

37:32 Or maybe it was after one of the half the classes where I was assisting and was a facilitator and just introduced who he was and just said like, yeah, I'm a yoga teacher, I teach philosophy and yeah, I just, I love, I love teaching yoga.

37:44 If if there's any anything that you need from me or if I can help support, like just let me know. And I was like, oh this this kids keen. He's like he's a young kid. I was like he's a keen kid. I was like, yeah, he's like if you have any tips for me let me know. I said well, you know, just, you know, keep showing up is what I said just keep showing up.

38:00 And he did. He just kept showing up And I, you know, I'd come to a class, I'd be practicing or I'd be you know Co facilitating or something like that and he would just be there, right. And then all of a sudden, you know, a month or two later, we needed somebody to teach something like Sanskrit or something like that in our training. So we're like, oh, let's get Akshay in here. Why not?

38:19 He's he's always around. Yeah, right. He's always around. He seems like a keen, we'll give him an opportunity, Why not? Right, 'cause he kept showing up, Kept showing up, right. As opposed to sending us an e-mail and be like, and I actually, you know what, I received an e-mail yesterday from somebody to the podcast saying, hey, I'm a yoga teacher from India.

38:39 I've done my 300 hour teaching or 500 hour or whatever I'd love for. I'd love to, to get involved in teaching somehow. And that was the message. Guess what I did with it? I just deleted it, 'cause I was like, well, that's it. Yeah, you know, like maybe if she sends me like 3-4 more than maybe I'll consider it.

38:57 Or you know, if there's a little bit more energy put into it. But to me, I'm like, this is a quick throwaway. I get messages and stuff like this all the time. Yeah, I I, you know I'm I'm from New York. I I, I credit a lot of I think my tenacity and my kind of go getterness to, you know, my parents, definitely.

39:16 My my dad was the kind of guy we'd get up at like 4:00 in the morning. He would pride himself on being the first car in the parking lot of the train. Every morning. He would take like the five, I don't know, 40 train into Manhattan.

39:26 He would beat everybody to the office. So, like, this work ethic was definitely a thing that was instilled in me. But there's so much to be said. I think the key point of what you just said is just to show up. You know, I think there's a lot of tendency to sort of ask before there's like a real worthiness to receive, you know, and that's partially your own energy and partially your own work that you're doing.

39:50 But I think I'm the same way I I've people cold emailing me, calling me all the time, hey, I'm a digital whatever or can I help at your retreats or whatever. And sometimes, like if the pitch is good, like I'll at least offer them like you know, 15 minutes on my calendar and.

40:07 But then, like, sometimes, like, they'll show up like a couple minutes later. Sometimes I'm just like immediately, like, turned off and like, because if you couldn't just show up at the time that we said, like, I had a lady like a month ago and and she, you know, wanted to pick my brain about retreats. And she was recommended by a friend. So it was like, you know, it was kind of a bridge. And the friend owned a retreat center that I'd worked with several times.

40:29 There was some good ties there. But, you know, it's like, hey, let's go to lunch and, you know, we'll sit down and, you know, I got there and sat down, ordered food. 20 minutes later, like 20 minutes late shows up. And then like half the time I was like, looking at the front, I'm like, there's no way I would ever think about working with you or not even just helping you. But, like, I can't refer people to you. You know what I mean?

40:55 Like, it's just you didn't even show up. You didn't even show up. So yeah, I think that's such a huge thing. Like when you do decide that if you're gonna teach, if you're gonna, you know, kind of go this path, like you gotta show up. Like you gotta show up, same way you show up to your mat for yourself, you know, And that will eventually open all the doors that are that are meant for you. Yeah.

41:20 If you stay with it. Yeah. Punctuality and professionalism. Oh my God, please do that. Like, please. Like, arrive 15 minutes early to your class. Settle yourself. Like, make sure you're ready to really be the person. Like, I literally just had a call with a girl like a a few minutes ago who took a class on Nchanggu today.

41:38 And she said the lady who taught the class walked in and didn't even introduce herself and just started teaching. And she said So the whole class experience for her was basically ruined from that point for her because she didn't feel any kind of connection to this woman and look like we're all human, man.

41:53 Like, there's traffic, Like you have bad days, you're not feeling good, you didn't eat something that was good, whatever. Like, I totally get that. But you always have a decision to make. Like, like when I teach people on retreats, like really high achieving people too. To people who's like you look at their calendar, everything's scheduled out like down to the minute. And I asked them about meditating for 20 minutes and they're like, I don't have 20

42:14 minutes. I'm like, OK, take out your phone. Let me take out the phone, open up your screen time, open up their screen time. Facebook, 47 minutes a day, Instagram hour and 37 minutes a day. You know, it's like we all got some time, you know, there's some time to be had for the things that matter to you, you know, just like, where are you putting your attention? Where are you putting your priorities, You know? But if you're going to do this and really do it right, first battles.

42:40 Just showing up, Showing up. It's good advice. Yeah. So before we wrap this up, I want to know about your if you, if you must, have like a story, like your favorite story or your favorite student or something that happened at one point in time, maybe in a class which could be obscured or it could be beautiful.

43:03 What comes to mind in your yoga teaching career when you're teaching? Maybe public classes where you might just get some interesting situations. I mean, there's like there's so many memories. Like more. It's like the people, you know, like the connections to certain people and how certain people just stand out over time. And one of the feedbacks that I often used to get was like people used to love.

43:30 I would always tell like bad jokes or I would self deprecate or I would, you know, kind of make fun of, you know, yoga. Not fun of it, but I would make fun out of it. And people always said that they remembered that. And I always really, they didn't say, hey, you taught the most challenging class to the most, you know, well articulated class. They always said it seemed like you had the most fun. And that was something that was always really stood out to me. You know, I think teaching in

43:56 the Hamptons was totally a trip. The the way it kind of manifested was I met a girl on match.com and there wasn't a romantic connection there, but she was connected to all these studios out in the East End of Long Island.

44:10 So she said, hey, come out, I'll introduce you to Lynette. She owns this hot studio and it's kind of right in the middle of Southampton, and she's got one in Bridgehampton and you could, you know, see. And she also had another one in Montauk. So I auditioned and she really loved me and put me on the schedule.

44:26 And then there I was, like teaching to all these, like, crazy affluent people and like the Jlo thing. Like having Jennifer Lopez. Like, I'm like this all started as, like, you know, I'm just going to be a yoga teacher. You know, Like, I'm just going to start, like, doing this thing that I love a lot. And now here I am, like, telling Jennifer Lopez to, like, you know, bend her knees and, you know, turn this way. And she was with a rod at the time, too. And he was like the most

44:50 inflexible person. And I just remember the juxtaposition of her, like, moving her body so beautifully and being so graceful. And then him just like, struggling, like sweating so. And he's like this superhuman athlete, right? He can hit a baseball 500 feet.

45:06 But like to watch him try to like coordinate, like doing warrior poses or twisting was just like you would have thought I was asking him to like, you know, stand on his head on the moon or something. You know, it was just like it was so far into him. So that was a really, really fascinating time and an interesting experience.

45:24 Just to be able to see kind of through the lens of like these really high achieving people in this like steamy hot room, watching them just like and then just being the person who's in charge of it. Like I'm the one that's telling you when it's time to leave the pose.

45:38 I'm the one that's like dictate. I'm the orchestrator, you know, So as much as these people probably order people around, you know, all the time, like they have their staff and their, you know, their servants and their, you know, companies and all these people that work for them, it's like now it's time to listen to John for, you know, an hour.

45:55 John's gonna tell you what to do for an hour. But I didn't shy away from it. Like I wasn't afraid of it. I wasn't intimidated by the moment or the gravity of it. I just, I really embraced it. And I think that was such an important, integral time for me to really find confidence and find my voice. And if you're going to teach, you're going to have moments where you'll be given an opportunity there. Stand in front of a big group, you know, or I think that's the other big one is I used to teach

46:22 these 6070 eighty person classes Like that's that's a lot. It's a lot of moving bodies. It's a lot of different levels. But again, like that was where I really cut my chops to be able to trust myself to do all the public speaking and all the presentations that I, I do now, you know?

46:40 So I think those are the things that really stick out the most is like, it's kind of like before a big sports game, you know, like you're in the locker room and there's butterflies and you know, this is like momentous, this is big, you know, and you're either going to rise to the moment or you're going to, you know, you're going to struggle and you're going to falter. And I struggled in corporate life. You know, when I had that last job, there was so much pressure on me and there was so many

47:06 moments where, you know, I had big responsibilities for a segment of you know, something we were filming or graphics needed to get done or. And it was a lot of pressure and you know, most of the time it would go well, but the times that it didn't, I took it so hard.

47:22 I took it so personally and I really felt that failure hard. And when I got to teaching yoga, I was like, you know, I was like, if I can just continue to have fun with this, whether it's, you know, two people at the Jewish Community Center or is Jennifer Lopez coming in with her bodyguards.

47:40 I was like, if I can still just have fun with this and be me, I was like, I'll be all right, you know? And it was such a key in the lock moment that yoga gave that to me. And I still hold it, like, very dear that I can just be me. And, like, that's OK Don't have to be the best one, the most flexible one.

47:59 I can tell silly jokes. I could still play Led Zeppelin in a class if I want to, you know? Like, yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. That's great. Thank you for sharing all that. It's very inspiring. Thanks motivating as well. Yeah.

48:15 So, and I hope that is for the listeners as well, I'm sure it is for someone. They're hearing what they need to hear if they're listening to us. Yeah. So it's been a journey. Yeah, it's been a journey. And and you know what?

48:27 We're not even done. We still got another episode to. Yeah, I'm gonna jump into retreats and talk about that journey, 'cause that's. That's another stage. It totally is. Right. And you know whether you're there or not there yet or you're thinking that you know we'll we'll let John fill you in on that. Yeah, I wanna share the the retreats in the Entrepreneur Journey, 'cause there's yeah, there's so many good layers and learnings and that too.

48:51 And I mean, look, coming to Bali was, you know, one of the most amazing things that ever happened to me because of the people like you that I had an opportunity to meet. But also first doing my first retreats here because it was so far and it was so different. It was so just like wild to think that I was going to like bring people to this like super far in place. That was definitely like a super light bulb moment and just gave me permission that I could do

49:17 some like pretty cool radical things. Got me to move to California. Yeah, so so many things down that rabbit hole. But great. I'm excited to hear about that. Yeah, cool. And that's, that'll be next week. Yep. We'll talk about retreats, going from yoga teaching to retreats, which is the general progression, I'd say for not everyone, but for some people and definitely for John. So he'll again share a lot of his strategies, tips, tricks, what he learned, what he didn't

49:41 learn, what he shouldn't have done, what he did do, all the good stuff and in between. So, yeah, thanks John for. This for today? Yeah. Thanks. Michael and thank you to all of you who've listened and tuned in for this week's episode.

49:54 I didn't mention this on the last one, but if you do have any questions, of course you can reach out to us at podcast@goingproyoga.com and we'll put John's contact in there. If you have any questions. I'm sure for sure he'd be happy to support.

50:07 But otherwise, TuneIn for next week as we continue this conversation and we'll finalize John's stay with us. Yeah. On talking about retreats. Cool. Thanks, Michael. You're welcome. And have a beautiful day. Take care. All right.

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