Three things for better social media ads

This year I’m challenging myself to start my classes back full. That means ‘no ghost mats’. I’m also challenging you, too! If you’re not already signed up for the challenge, you can jump in here: https://bit.ly/ghostmats As a part of the challenge, I’m sharing along with everyone else how I’m tracking to my goal. Of the 36 total mats I have to sell, I have 19 sold, 17 to go. There are two places remaining in my Wednesday night class and 15 in my Tuesday night. I know I have some regulars who will still sign up. I also know I need to bring in at least six brand new (to me) students to meet the goal.

So it’s time to kick off my social media ads campaign.

If you’ve not used FB/Insta ads before, you can go back through my blogs, vlogs and podcasts for more ‘get started’ free info. In this post I’m going to share three tips to fine tune a campaign you already have running or include in the campaign you are about to launch. Again, this is exactly what I am doing in my own Yoga business.

1. When the geographic area is small, keep the demographic data broad

When it comes to in person classes you’re likely to have fewer people to show your ads to. If you’re teaching online your students could conceivably be anywhere in the world. But when you’re in person your students need to be able to get to you. While normally I would select my audience to include interests such as Yoga, meditation, wellness etc limiting the audience size by interest when I’m already limiting by distance would make the audience too small. A small audience means your ads could be very expensive and/or not effective.

For my ads, I’m choosing a radius from the studio of 25km, age range of 30 - 64 and leaving the rest (interests, gender etc) blank.

2. Let meta decide what works best

This is the spaghetti at the wall principle. Too often Yoga teachers agonise about crafting the perfect copy for their ads. This is a waste of time. Rather, ensure you have ‘dynamic creative’ turned on and then make sure you write 5 variations for the headline and another 5 for the primary text. Keep each of these to about five words. Make sure you’re using the keywords like ‘Yoga’ ‘January’ and the name of the suburb or town where you teach. Don’t bother with the description. They will feel repetitive. That’s OK. Don’t overthink it. Just get 10 slight variations up and get going!

3. Monitor but don’t be hypervigilant

As a part of the first group call for the No Ghost Mats Challenge I asked everyone to set their marketing budget. I’m planning on spending $200. Decide on your over all and then daily budget at the outset. The more Campaigns you run (‘over time) the more certainty you’ll have regarding the return on your ad spend. If you’re unaccustomed to social media paid ads, then you won’t have any data to base your budget on. Instead, determine the amount of money you are choosing to invest, regardless of the outcome. Remember, all money spent on meta yields data, even if it doesn’t yield sales. This doesn’t mean you can’t waste money or spend unwisely, of course you can. But it does mean that even if your ads don’t return as you’d hoped, if you take time to review them and learn, your campaigns will improve over time, and so will your ROI.

Ultimately, deciding your budget and checking your campaign every two days is more than sufficient to monitor the success of the campaign. And remember, if you do decide to make changes while your campaign is running, there will be a lag in delivery as it reoptimises post-editing.

OK, let’s go put up our ads! I am looking forward to hearing about your results when we have our call Thursday January 11th at 3pm, Thailand time.

How I Got My Start as a Yoga Teacher

I’m often asked what brought me to Yoga in the first place, and how I made my start as a Yoga teacher.

I was recently interviewed for the fantastic Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast by Lily Allen-Duenas. Lily is a yoga teacher, holistic healer, Reiki Master, vegan nutritionist, and meditation instructor. She has taught yoga classes and workshops in surf hostels in Sri Lanka, hotels in Bali and wellness centres in the Philippines. And she has sat at the feet of masters, monks, and gurus all along the way. Through her podcast, and all of her endeavours, she strives to serve her community in a way that is accessible, authentic, and inclusive. (She’s great. Subscribe to her podcast and follow her on Instagram.) During our chat, I opened up to Lily about the strange and serendipitous route that brought me into teaching Yoga.

Here’s an excerpt from our conversation. Enjoy!

Lily Allen-Duenas: Just to kick it off, would you like to share with us how yoga first came into your life? 

Amy McDonald: Sure. Yoga came into my life when I was eight by means of my best friend at the time having a bit of an alternative mother. My best friend was doing yoga and my mum thought it would be a good idea for me to tag along because I was an anxious and stressed-out little kid. My doctor and my parents thought maybe yoga might be more helpful than medication to manage my anxiety. So I started out doing kid’s yoga. Yeah, way back in the eighties. 

Lily Allen-Duenas: Wow. That’s fantastic. I haven’t talked to someone yet who was introduced that early to yoga. Wow.

Amy McDonald: Yeah, I was lucky. I caught a break. I think if it wasn’t for my friend, it wouldn’t have happened.

Lily Allen-Duenas: So did you just continue on and off throughout the years? Up until you’re an adult?

Amy McDonald: Yeah, I was a ‘one night a week’ sort of yoga person through my teens and early twenties. Wednesday nights was yoga night. And then after I finished university, when I was working in Melbourne, I’d go to classes on my lunch breaks. I wasn’t particularly discerning other than I liked a certain teacher. I didn’t really know much about the difference between styles or anything like that. I went to things that fit in my schedule.

After a few years of that I got more discerning with the classes I was taking and I decided to ultimately sign up for a 200-hour yoga teacher training in 2009. 

Lily Allen-Duenas: Amazing. Was that in Australia or somewhere else? 

Amy McDonald: No, that was in Thailand, in Chiang Mai. And it was a residential training, so it ran for just over a month. It was held as a very peculiar health retreat. Very peculiar. They had all sorts of new age modalities as well as our Yoga teacher training. People lived there, too. Kind of like a wacky, new age timeshare. Part of our YTT was going to some of the extra classes being offered. It was an eye-opener, to be sure! I went to something claiming to be Qi Gong that involved modifying my DNA with special, giant egg whisks. There was all sorts of wacky stuff.

It was a month of very long days. Between 12 to 14 hours a day of studying, learning and practising. It was a little bit like Survivor in that not everyone made it through to the end. Someone had a bit of a breakdown and she got kicked out and someone else had an ethical dilemma with the teacher and he got kicked out, too.

So the group shrunk over time, but I made it through. I almost didn’t, but I made it through, and I got my qualification in the middle of 2009. 

Lily Allen-Duenas: You are a survivor and I am so glad Amy, that you brought up that example of modifying DNA with egg whisks. That’s rather unique. 

Amy McDonald: Yeah, it was a weird place.

Lily Allen-Duenas: I spent a month in Chiang Mai myself doing a 180-hour Thai massage training so I’m very familiar with Chiang Mai. It’s beautiful there. 

Amy McDonald: It sure is. I have been hosting my Abundant Yoga Teacher Retreat there annually ever since. I love it.

During the training we got the weekends off as free time. We got Saturday night and all day Sunday as free time. So I would book into a little arty hotel for the Saturday night and escape the weirdness for a few hours. Eat what I wanted when I wanted to, sleep as much as I wanted, and just generally not do anything to do with yoga! I’d recharge, essentially, and then head back to the wackadoodle retreat centre.

To be clear, though, my training was very good. It was pure fortune: I ended up learning from truly some of the leading teachers at that time.

Lily Allen-Duenas: I’m glad there was that. And it certainly kicked off your path as a yoga teacher. And what made you want to shift, or actually, maybe it wasn’t a shift, maybe more of an additional modality of being a spiritual business coach as well as a yoga teacher. When did that shift happen? 

Amy McDonald: I came back from that training and I opened a small studio, just a home studio, and taught from there for a while. I was also working as a freelance writer and editor. Then about a year later I moved to the country to the little house that I have now and I studied to become a life coach.

I had a couple of different qualifications under my belt, and I started combining the yoga teaching and the life coaching in retreats I ran in Bali. I ran the first few with a friend and then began teaching them solo.   

Like most yoga teachers, I wanted to develop my teaching skills so I signed up to do a 300-hour yoga teacher training and some more coaching qualifications. The YTT was in Jakarta and the coaching training was in Paris, Florence, Miami and Majorca. Each time I’d attend a training I’d connect with my friends who would quiz me about growing their businesses. I would just give them informal business advice based on my writing qualification, project management skills, life coaching stuff.

Over time my friends started advising me to make this my actual business. To stop just helping them and start calling myself a ‘Yoga business coach’ and seeking out paying clients.

So I started developing a business around those lines in about 2014. Within the year things were starting to feel promising so at the beginning of 2016 I decided to just go all in. I quit my very safe, very reliable, very well-paid corporate job and became a yogipreneur!

These days the majority of my work time, if you like, is in the business coaching space. But I also still teach some classes here and there to make sure I don’t get too rusty. It’s important to me that I’m practicing what I preach. 

Lily Allen-Duenas: No. Yeah. I think that time on the mat is always going to be valuable.

So what is some of the advice that you would usually give a new yoga teacher on how to kick start their journey as a yoga teacher? That’s one of the questions I get most frequently. I’ve had a couple of listeners actually write in about it saying, ‘Can we talk more about what you do for new yoga teachers?’

So I’d love to hear your thoughts. 

Amy McDonald: Sure. As far as the craft of being a yoga teacher, I really believe that there is an apprenticeship phase that is super important and mustn’t be skipped. It doesn’t have to last for too long. Sometimes it’s maybe only even six months, but sometimes it’s two years where you just want to teach your heart out. Where you just say yes to everything—paid stuff, I mean. Don’t say yes to lots of unpaid stuff!

Say yes to all the gigs you can get. Say yes to teaching at gyms. Say yes to subbing at studios for maybe not a whole bunch of money to the degree that you can afford to. Say yes to teaching groups of your friends in the park. Teach as much as you can, because you will get exponentially better, quickly, the more you teach. Once you get that experience under your belt, you can start to be more discerning. But don’t miss the ‘teach everything’ apprenticeship!

I know when I first started, I taught classes in what was my lounge room, but it became my ‘yoga studio’. I taught classes at a women’s gym, just to the trainers who would clear all the machines out of the way during the lunch break. And I would play these God-awful Buddha Bar CDs at their request. It was like teaching yoga to the whale music and pan pipes and wolves howling. It was horrific. But I did that twice a week. I taught yoga at a Hen’s brunches where they are all drunk on mimosas. (No wonder you can’t do Sirsasana, you can’t even stand up!) I would teach whatever I could get my hands on.

I taught at a terrible weekend retreat. I did everything—taught the yoga, made the food, drove the participants around—and I nearly killed myself as a result. Horrific, I’d never do that again. But I’m so glad I did it then. It was a weekend full of powerful lessons.

For brand new teachers, just teach as much as you can.

Also, don’t worry about sucking. I always say I got a ‘cat’ and ‘cow’ backwards for a good, I don’t know, 18 months, like I got them the wrong way around. I was terrible when I was brand new. It’s normal. It’s OK. You’re learning a new skill and it will take time to become proficient, let alone masterful. You will get your lefts and rights mixed up. Don’t stress. Laugh. Improve. Remember, it’s just yoga. It’s just a yoga class.

This is the first instalment from my convo with Lily. Be on the lookout for more from us over the coming weeks.

Want to hang out in person?

Join me on my National Tour this August and September. All of the details are here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/immersions

These 1-Day Abundant Yoga Teacher Immersions are a full day of Yoga biz trainings, warm and welcoming support, guidance, inspiration and encouragement. And you can save yourself a place for only $97!

I’ll be visiting Canberra, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth. Come say hello!

Here’s the link again: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/immersions

Using the Act of Tirodhāna in Your Yoga Business: An Inquiry

Siva Nataraja, Lord of Dance, is a well-known murti often found in Yoga studios. It’s the statue of Siva dancing, balancing on one foot, dreadlocks flying and his four arms extended, each holding an item or a mudra. Often he is surrounded by a ring of flames. This particular representation of Siva is depicting ‘the 5 Acts’ or the Panca-Krtyas, the five ways the divine takes action.

The 5 Divine Acts are:

• Srsti: creation, emission, or the flowing forth of Self-expression.

• Sthiti: holding, preservation, stasis, or maintenance.

• Samhara: dissolution, resorption, or destruction.

• Tirodhana: concealment, occlusion, or forgetting.

• Anugraha: revelation, remembering, or the bestowal of grace.

As Christopher Wallace writes in his 2012 text Tantra Illuminated, ‘The five divine Acts are not only what God/ess does, in fact, they are all S/He ever does. So, everything that is happening in the universe expresses one or more of these Acts.’[i] Swami Shantananda, in his 2003 book The Splendor of Recognition, writes, ‘With these five Acts…the Lord carries out everything that happens in the universe. If we pay attention, we can see the Panca-Krtya in the cycles of life that occur all around us: in taking birth, in living, in dying, as well as in the suffering that comes from ignorance of the Self and the delight that follows true knowledge.’[ii] As well as at the larger level, these Acts are also always taking place—simultaneously—on smaller levels, down to the cellular, cognitive and energetic levels.

This week I’ve been offering a daily training to my Patreon supporters considering each of these 5 Acts in turn and using the teachings as an inquiry into our Yoga businesses. Today we turned our focus to the Fourth Act, Tirodhāna, the state of concealing, forgetting, blindness, ignorance, forgetfulness or being veiled to our essence: to our ultimate nature[iii]. We discussed how this Act may come to bear in our businesses, especially at this mid-point in the year.

During the triaing we used Tirodhāna as an inquiry prompt in several ways. For today, let’s consider this: where have we turned away from our true hearts’ desires and how can we return to them? Let’s explore this question in the context of supporting you in reclaiming your Yoga business vision for 2022, despite any meandering the route may have taken to date.

***

Returning to Our Heart’s Desire

Remember the Siva Nataraja murti? In this icon, the concept of Tirodhāna is represented by the arm that crosses Siva’s chest, crosses his heart. This is a powerful symbol: Siva is showing us the power of occluding the heart, something that happens all too often in Yoga business.

Many Yoga teachers over the years, when coached by me on how they can grow their Yoga businesses lament, ‘But I didn’t become a Yoga teacher to sit all day at my computer!’ I can understand completely how they feel.

For many of us we decided to train as Yoga teachers because it felt like our true heart’s desire. Sharing Yoga—something that had healed and transformed us all in some way—became a calling that we simply had to heed. And yet now in the day-to-day pattern of being a Yoga teacher we may feel very far removed from that original calling.

Maybe you’re teaching for a studio that doesn’t actually align with your values, and you’re feeling underpaid and starting to resent being asked to undertake duties outside the scope of your role.

Maybe you’ve been teaching retreats for an international touring company, meeting your students the very same day you start teaching them and unable to keep in touch after the retreat is over.

Maybe you’re offering 10 classes a week at your home studio, all of them under-attended and only barely making you any money.

Sure, you’re still teaching. And maybe you’re even almost doing exactly what you wanted back when you heard the call. But is it your true heart’s desire? Or have you fallen into a day-to-day rut of ‘almost right’?

***

This morning I worked with this inquiry in my journal. For a few months now I’ve been craving more time for my morning practice. I’ve been a devotee of Julia Cameron’s ‘morning pages’ for about 15 years now. Every morning, over a steaming cup of coffee (#nocoffeenoprana), I write out three pages of Svādhyāya. Prior to that I sit in bed and take a So Hum meditation. But I want to add Asana to my mornings, rather than having all of my movement practice later in the day. I’ve started setting my alarm half an hour earlier, but it still doesn’t give me the spaciousness I’ve been craving.

I’ve started work at 7am for the past four years. I have clients all over the world and so need to make sure I’m available at times that suit their time zones as well as mine. So, I start work early and take a longer lunch break. 7am is just the way it’s done.

But here’s the thing: 7am was almost doing exactly what I wanted. When the insight arose this morning to start work an hour later my initial thought was, ‘But what about my clients?’ Challenging myself further, I did an audit of my calendar, checking the last month and the coming month’s client appointment bookings.

Guess what? Only ONE of my clients chooses the 7am spot, and she often selects 8am instead.

Boom! In this small way, I realised where my heart’s true desire wasn’t being met and took action to meet it. My scheduler is now changed. Now I have the time I long for to be on my mat before it gets light outside. AND my clients aren’t going to be impacted at all. In fact, having their coach show up AFTER practise might work rather well in their favour.

Do you journal? Maybe give it a try, writing whatever comes to mind (and not censoring yourself in any way… I mean it!) when you ponder this question:

Where have I turned away from my true heart’s desire and how can I return to it?

***

If you’d like to watch the replays of all of the trainings from this week, you can sign up as a Patreon subscriber for just $5 here: https://www.patreon.com/AmyMcDonald

As well as accessing all 5 of the ‘Reimagining Business in 2022: The 5 Acts of Siva’ replays, you’ll also get access to bonus episodes of the Abundant Yoga Teacher Podcast as well as my monthly Book and Film Club! Come hang out with us!

[i] Wallis, Christopher D (2012) Tantra Illuminated: The Philosophy, History, and Practice of a Timeless Tradition, Anusara Press, The Woodlands, TX

[ii] Swami Shantananda (2003) The Splendor of Recognition: an Exploration of the Pratyabhijñā-hṛdayam: a Text on the Ancient Science of the Soul, SYDA Foundation, South Fallsburg, NY

[iii] http://www.jamesboagyoga.com/blog-articles/inquiry-five-acts, accessed 7 July, 2022

The Swan and the Peacock: Some Business Considerations from Saraswati’s Birds Part 1

Recently I helped my lover hang some pictures of Hindu icons in her practice space. As we were looking at each of the images she had chosen—shipped over from India and resplendent with silver paint and glitter—I was sharing some stories about each of the deities. We began to speak about Ishta-devata and who we both felt an affinity for. I proposed that perhaps Saraswati, with her veena, might have a magnetism for my musician partner.

As well as being a patron for the arts, Saraswati, the ‘Flowing One’, the goddess of speech, represents the union of power and intelligence from which organized creation arises[1].

‘Saraswati is depicted as a graceful woman, white in colour, sitting on a lotus with a slender crescent on her brow. She is shown with either two or eight arms. In the latter case her attributes are a lute, a book, a rosary, and an elephant hook…’[2]

For me, the particular component of Saraswati’s imagery isn’t her choice of musical instrument but her choice of feathered companions and the powerful teachings these symbols hold for us as business owners committed to our spiritual paths.

Goddess Saraswati is closely associated with two birds: a swan and a peacock. Individually they hold great meaning and opportunity for reflection. Combined they provide great insight about polarity and difference. In part one of this series we’ll be taking a closer look at Saraswati’s swan. In part two, her peacock.

***

Sarswati’s vehicle of choice is a swan, Hamsa. This is why she is also known as Hamsavāhini.

Symbolically, Hamsa represents transcendence, purity and the capacity to rise about earthly ties. However, my most favourite teaching we can draw from Hamsa is its talented beak. According to folklore, when offered a dish of milk and water, the swan can discern the difference between the two and use its beak to drink only the milk, leaving the water behind.

Commonly, this capacity for discernment is discussed in terms of being able to distinguish ‘good’ from ‘bad’ and ‘right’ from wrong’. This is a somewhat blunt or gross way of interpreting the power of discernment that Hamsa represents. A more nuanced interpretation is the capacity to discern between knowledge and wisdom.

Ram Dass is often quoted as saying, ‘Information is just bits of data. Knowledge is putting them together. Wisdom is transcending them.’

In one of my most favourite Yoga resources, the recorded lectures from the then fledgling Naropa Institute in Boulder in 1974, ‘Love, Service, Devotion and the Ultimate Surrender’, Ram Dass speaks eloquently on this idea. As Jnana Yogis, enticed by the pursuit of knowledge, we can become side-tracked with accumulating facts, addicted to ‘knowing’ more but failing to give ourselves the time and space to truly assimilate this information into wisdom, into true Vidya. (You can get these lectures on Audible. The jokes are fantastic. The music in between lectures less so.)

Around the two our mark, he says:

 

"One of the routes through is the route of the intellect. But the problem is that we often get very seduced by our intellect into knowing things. And we go outward rather than inward and we just keep collecting more and more worldly knowledge.

 

"You can know knowledge but you can only be wise... knowledge is really groovy and you can flash it. 'Well, I know this! Well, can you quote this?...' It's all so exquisite how much we know... but there is often a considerable discrepancy between knowing it and being it. Knowledge is despair if it's all by itself without wisdom."

 

If you’re anything like me, reading new books, collecting new trainings, signing up for new ‘quick fix’ webinars is incredibly seductive. If I only knew a bit more… And yet how far does all of this accumulated knowledge actually get us in business?

As business owners, how to we not get addicted to learning more and more and more, while never truly assimilating and digesting this knowledge to bring about actual change?

This is the important meaning I believe Saraswati’s Hamsa conveys to us.

 

***

When I was starting my coaching business I would sign up to any free training I could get my hands on. I signed up for branding, marketing, copy writing, sales webinars. I’d watch the first sixty minutes of these knowing I was going to be sold something at the end, and also knowing I would never buy anything.

I signed up for week-long telesummits, 5-day challenges, list growth seminars, social media bootcamps. I’d buy the latest books from influential business coaches. I also bought a few of those ‘I’ll give you the book for free, you just pay for the shipping’ books, too.

I was ravenous for ALL the information I could get my hands on.

Maybe you’ve had a stage like this, too? Or maybe you’re still in a stage like this. I get it, if you are.

But for me there came a time when I realised that all the busyness of consuming all the information was distracting me from actually getting real work done in my business. Moreover, much of the free info I was collecting from all of these business influencers was contradictory.

Use 20 hashtags!

No, only use 5!

Focus on growing your mailing list!

No, reach out individually to people with DMs!

Launch an online training program!

No, sell VIP events at high prices.

Gah! It was confusing, contradictory and—as I began to see—was getting my nowhere!

As Ram Dass says, and Hamsa shows, being addicted to knowledge without taking the time to BE it, means we are continuing to muddy the waters, often drinking more water than milk! Moreover, my business bottom line was confirming what he said: ‘Knowledge is despair if it's all by itself without wisdom.’

***

If you recognise some of your own patterns or beliefs in the anecdote I’ve shared about my own scattergun approach to learning about business, here’s some things I’ve implemented in my own work that might help you too to get out of it:

1.     Read widely then discern

While it is important to read widely about your business at the start, continuing to do so may limit your ability to focus. Read widely, and read reviews of those you read, until you settle on a limited number of sources that you are sure are legitimate, trustworthy and knowledgeable.  Then focus your attention there and follow those instructions and recipes.

2.     Implement fully then evaluate

Once you’ve settled on the right teacher (or a VERY small number of teachers) follow their coaching or training fully. I’ve worked with enough clients at this point in my business to have experienced people abandoning a strategy before its complete. ‘Bright shiny object’ syndrome has never been more of an issue than it is now, with all of our feeds filled up with new ideas, hacks and ‘opportunities’. Discipline yourself to see a strategy through to the end and plan time to go back over what you’ve done and the results you’ve achieved. This is the assimilation part. This is turning your knowledge into wisdom.

3.     More milk, less water

The final component to becoming more like Saraswati’s Hamsa in your business is choosing more milk and rejecting more water. In business this means that after completing your evaluation in step 2, above, you replicate the strategy doing more of what was successful and leaving behind the parts that didn’t give you the results you were after.

For example, if you implemented a strategy to sell your retreat that involved Instagram ads, an info session and a letterbox drop, and you found you had enrolments from the first two initiatives but not the last, next time forget the postcards and double-down on the ads.

If you’d like more Yoga-inspired business coaching, here are three options:

Join me on Retreat in Thailand here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/retreats

Consider hiring me as your coach here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/coaching

Tune in to my weekly Yoga biz training podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/abundant-yoga-teacher-podcast/id1085413029

[1] Danielou, Alain (1991) The Myths and Gods of India, Inner Traditions International, Rochester, Vermont.

[2] Ibid, p260

Project and Plans Feeling Scattered? Try this!

“The scattering of plans and projects, as if by the wind, occurs when a woman attempts to organize a creative idea and it just somehow keeps being blown away, becoming more and more confused and disordered. She is not tracking it in any concrete way because, again, she doesn’t have time to write it all down and organize it, or she is called by so many other things, that she loses her place and cannot pick it up again.”

Pinkola Estes, Phd, Clarissa (1992) Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, Ballantine Books, New York.⁠

This week I was welcoming a new coaching client into my business. We were spending time working through her on-boarding packet where she had listed out her goals, marketing techniques, offers, assistance and support, software systems and so on.

One of the questions on that comprehensive intake form is ‘Describe yourself as a Business Owner’. My new client described herself as ‘organised chaos’, adding that she has a lot of ideas but she is never sure about implementation.

(The reason I feel confident sharing this here and maintaining client confidentiality is that so many of my clients have shared almost identical sentiments with me!)

Perhaps you also feel like my new client?

Loads of great ideas. Some projects that have been lingering in the background for a while. Maybe the odd notebook or three of bullet points, quotes, hashtags and possibilities.

And yet on the day-to-day level it feels like you’re only getting through the ‘must do’s’ and the dream projects—where the true creativity lies—just never get any time to progress.

Last week I was sharing with another client that I had been paging over The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock and reflecting on the wild women in my life and the lasting impact they’ve left. (I later turned this reflection into a podcast episode which you can listen to here.) This client reminded me about Women Who Run with The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes Ph.D. as the seminal text on the topic.

I pulled the tome from my bookcase, boiled the kettle and snuggled in for a read. When I came to the passage quoted above there was something so powerful about it, I had to jot it down. And then today I had the ‘organised chaos’ conversation with my new clients…

Shazam!

This topic needs to be discussed!

***

If you also identify as being a little bit like organised chaos in your business, or at least like you never seem to get the headspace to think strategically or creatively about a new inspiration or concept, read on! I’m going to break down what Clarissa has to say about our busy-ness and propose some useful, and loving, interventions.

Part 1: Scattered Plans and Projects

“The scattering of plans and projects, as if by the wind, occurs when a woman attempts to organize a creative idea and it just somehow keeps being blown away, becoming more and more confused and disordered.”

Creative ideas do have a tendency to blow in at random times. For me, it’s often in the shower or walking my dog… and NOT listening to a podcast. Capturing them in a consistent way and place is really important so that when the time does come to consolidate them (and we will get to that in a minute) you’ve got them all together and ready.

Perhaps you have ONE journal where things are kept. Perhaps you record memos to yourself and email them via an app like Otter, saving those emails in just ONE folder. For me, I like to keep a draft email where I jot down ideas as they arise.

Figure out your system then stick to it.

Remember: ONE place for all of your creative ideas.

Part 2: Being Called by So Many Things

“She is not tracking it in any concrete way because, again, she doesn’t have time to write it all down and organize it, or she is called by so many other things, that she loses her place and cannot pick it up again.”

The reality is you’re simply never going to have enough time to do everything. There is always going to be more to do than you have time for. Not only is that OK, it’s totally normal. If you know anything about me at all, you know I’m a fan for doing the least amount of computer time for the maximum amount of impact. After all, wouldn’t we all prefer to be on our mat/cushion or in our garden/bath than in our office?

While it can seem counter-intuitive, making time for creative projects is essential for the longevity of your business, not to mention your love of Yoga. This may mean that sometimes some of the 'must do's' might get missed... and that really is OK.

There is a wild difference between skipping a week of social media content so you can plan your retreat and stopping social media posting altogether.

There is a wild difference between not sending out a newsletter this week so you can submit the final module of your next accreditation and not emailing your people for a month.

To be able to access, consolidate and progress all those disparate and amazing ideas, you may need to NOT do a few other things. If you’re being pulled in different directions, drop the cord on a couple of them.

It’s OK to let some of your business ‘normals’ slip to indulge a business ‘exception(al)’.

***

Earlier in the week I was coaching with a client. She was sharing that she was concerned that her class numbers were slipping and she had ‘dropped the ball’ on recruiting new students. I asked her what in particular bothered her about this situation. Ultimately, she said, she was concerned about the drop in revenue.

We picked at this a little further. How much money she felt she was short and how that made her feel. Next I asked her, ‘What would be the most pleasurable way to make that money?’ Instantly she said, ‘Retreats!’. This client has a proven track record of offering gorgeous retreats that fill up in a heartbeat. I was fully on board.

‘But,’ she said ‘What if the venue isn’t available? And what do I do about my classes in the meantime?’ I challenged her to contact the venue. Yep, they’d had a cancelation and could accommodate her group in just a few months.

And what about filling up her classes?

Here’s the thing: this client knows how to welcome new students into her classes. She knows the weekly strategies and actions to take to make that happen. And right now those things aren’t filling up her creative cup. Pursuing that component of her business has been leaving her feeling worn out and deflated.

But putting that on hold to lean into a new creative project? One that will be more lucrative and easy to implement?

Now that felt fantastic.

I’m sure you can imagine the course of action she chose to take.

Ultimately the success of your business—and your level of happiness as a teacher and a Yogi—depends on taking these creativity breaks. You deserve time to order your ideas, to write things down, to prevent them scattering and blowing away, as Clarissa so beautifully says.

Are you making this time for yourself?

How?

If you're craving the time to truly slow down, be cared for, well-rested, fed and supported so you can drop deeply into your creative space, please consider joining me on my Abundant Yoga Teacher Retreat in Thailand this January.

Learn more about the retreat here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/retreats

4 Steps to Maintain Momentum in Your Yoga Business

For many of us, deciding to go ‘full time’ as a Yoga teacher is our first foray into small business, being self-employed and being our own boss. Unlike working for someone else (or a paycheck!) as ‘Yogipreneurs’ we are the ones to keep ourselves motivated, even when we don’t feel like it.

In this article I’m sharing four tips that made a REAL difference for me at the start of my Yoga business journey when I realized I was ‘underperforming’ as my own employee.

1.    Get Clear on The Goal: You Must Have a Destination

Alright, I know this might not be rocket science. Not a divine insight. Probably something you’ve heard so many times before that you might overlook it. But it is really important, and so please indulge me a moment to consider how and why.

I remember teaching an immersion a few years ago. On the day a Yoga teacher was sharing with me that she taught six classes a week and that over the previous six months she estimated she’d made $2500 in total. The math just didn't make sense to me. How can you be teaching six classes a week and have only earned $2500 in six months?

I suspected that what was going on was that all of her classes were undersubscribed. Working this hard for such little financial exchange is really demotivating in the medium to long term. Worse, we can become accustomed to it. Without clear, quantifiable goals we can settle for less than we are meant for. We can become used to underearning, serving fewer students than we desire and falling short of our dharma.

Goals—while perhaps not new and exciting—are still critical.

⁠

2.    Create an Accountability System: Who Else Are You Answerable To?

When you have a boss it’s likely they take an interest in your progress. Perhaps they help you set ‘key performance indicators’ or ‘quarterly targets’. Perhaps you have sales or clearance goals. All of these things are known by you AND at least one other person. And that someone else helps you stay accountable.

So what happens when you work for yourself? Who else is aware of your goals and helping steer you towards them? Who are you telling about your progress? Who is checking in to make sure you’re sticking to your plan?

As a coach, I’m obsessed with accountability. I have seen again and again the difference telling someone else about your goals makes to the likelihood of achieving those goals. In my Keep Growing Mastermind I have a comprehensive accountability system to make sure everyone is clear on their targets (both weekly and overall for the month) and is reporting in on their progress at the start and end of every work week. This ‘accountability tracker’ is powerful for a number of reasons:

·      It gives me an up-to-date account of my clients’ progress, so we don’t have to waste time in our coaching sessions with ‘updates’

·      It ensures everyone is clear on their monthly and weekly goals and is never wondering what they should do next

·      It creates a more realistic understanding of the amount of work any one teacher is capable of over the course of a week (Too often Yoginis beat themselves up for not getting everything done, when in fact they just ‘overstuffed’ the container!)

·      It gives all of the Keep Growing Mastermind members access to each other’s workplans so they can reach out, network, share resources and ask questions when they’re working on similar projects!

See? I’m not kidding: I LOVE accountability!

Learn more about the Keep Growing Mastermind here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/keepgrowing

Not ready to invest in professional accountability? Find someone in the Abundant Yoga Teacher Facebook Group! Post something like this in the group:

“Hey, I'm looking for an accountability buddy. I want to stay motivated, and I want to support someone else staying motivated. Who's interested?”

Remember to connect with interested teachers for a ‘first date’ before you commit to supporting each other. Things to consider and discuss before agreeing to be an accountability buddy for someone are time zones, availability, desired meeting frequency and whether you have skills that would complement each other’s.

3.    ALWAYS Celebrate Your Wins: It’s Too Easy to Skip This Step!

When we take the leap of faith to become Yoga business owners, we also accept a full to do-list… that never seems to clear. Despite how much we get done, there is always more (which is why the accountability tracker in KGM is so amazing!)

One of the symptoms of a never-ending list of things to do is that we can achieve a goal or take great steps forward but because there is always something else to get done, we just keep moving ahead without taking the time to pause and congratulate ourselves.

Celebrating your successes is key for staying motivated.

Celebrate all of your successes, not just the ‘big ones’. Someone you don’t know books a casual class? Celebrate! You finally submit your last case study for your qualification? Celebrate! You land a corporate gig teaching meditation… You guessed it, CELEBRATE!

Celebrate in whatever way works for you. Maybe it’s taking the afternoon off, buying yourself some flowers, DMing your coach or calling your accountability buddy, just make sure you take the time to congratulate yourself for great work done.

Remember, you're in this by yourself and the work that you're doing is so important. The world needs you right now and if you're not taking that time to high five yourself business becomes a hard slog. It becomes the “Oh, God, not again, no! I can't post anything else on Facebook, I'm going to avoid it. I know I need to send a newsletter, but it's actually three weeks that I should have done it because I've been putting it off because I feel so demotivated in my Yoga business” etc etc.

You've got to celebrate your success. Make it a habit.  

You don't have to go buy yourself a new diamond encrusted Yoga mala each time but making a ritual of congratulating yourself for success is key. If you're only ever looking at the ‘didn't get enough of this, haven't got enough of that, don't know what to do here, frightened about that, worried that someone this, freaking out that someone that’… if you are stuck in that energy how the heck do you expect to be excited about going to work?

Tell your partner, “Hey, look what I did!” Tell your dog! Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. It's not indulgent and it's not being lazy and it's not skiving off, it's actually essential for your business!

4.    Know The Props You Need to Shift Things Up!

During the first year I quit my ‘real’ job and went full out in my Yoga business, I hit Funky Town hard. Think dark chocolate, red wine and long mournful walks in the woods. I indulged in this behavior for about a month… then I started to bore myself.

I knew I had this one 20-minute audio recording about abundance and mindset shifts by a woman that I was following at the time. I decided to put it to work. I listened to that same recording every morning before I got up just to summon the courage to open my laptop. On days where things were particularly rotten, I’d listen to it three or four times. I remember having it on repeat ALL DAY once, when someone requested a refund I simply didn’t have the funds to cover.

I know if I went back and re-listened to that thing I’d cringe. I’m sure it’s full of all sorts of Prosperity Gospel and ‘The Secret’ stuff that I can’t stomach these days. But back then, when I simply didn’t have it in me to motivate myself, it was the prop I needed to get me up and going.

. 

What prop do you know will work for you when everything else seems to be failing? Do you have a TED talk, a book, a meditation or a visualisation that works for you? A girlfriend who always knows just what to say to get your mood up and your enthusiasm rekindled?

Importantly, don’t judge the tool! Like I said, the audio I relied on for a good month would make me either shudder or chuckle now. But then? It was golden.

Identify the props you know are going to be useful and keep them nearby should you need them. The sooner you can take them out and use them, the sooner you’ll shift your energy and get back to feeling motivated and meeting your goals!

Looking for my support to help you achieve your goals in 2022?

Check out the Keep Growing Mastermind here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/keepgrowing

Working With Adbhuta Rasa and The Inner Critic

In Yoga, the nine Rasas (or ‘flavors’, ‘nectars’, ‘essences’ or ‘tastes’) can be used to describe the essential human emotions. The Navarasa (or Nine Rasas) are: Shringara (love or beauty), Hasya (laughter), Karuna (sorrow), Raudra (anger), Veera (heroism or courage), Bhayanaka (terror or fear), Bibhatsa (disgust), Adbhuta (awe or wonder) and Shantha (peace or tranquility) (source).

In this article we are going to specifically explore the qualities of Adbhuta Rasa and how we can bring this nectar to bear on any negative self-talk in a way that leads to greater personal insight, awareness and clarity.

What is Adbhuta Rasa?

At its heart, this particular Rasa is the flavor of wonder or awe. It can be the feeling that arises in the presence of the beauty of another, it can arise when looking at a piece of art, it might manifest as the sublime thing that happens when consumed by moving music, it can occur when watching your children play.

The other day I was reading an article in a magazine and there was one particular paragraph where the prose was just so exquisite, I had to read it three times and I sobbed the entire time. On my lunch break at a Yoga Festival, bawling my eyes out over a perfectly constructed piece of prose. This is what can happen when we experience Adbhuta Rasa.

Adbhuta Rasa has a sub component which is a more common way of us encountering this flavor on a day-to-day level. Rather than full awe—the kind that makes you sob, for example—Adbhuta Rasa can also show up as curiosity. Rather than ‘wonderment’, Adbhuta Rasa can also be experienced as intrigue; wondering about something, rather than wonder itself. It’s the ‘off the rack’ version of Adbhuta Rasa’s haute couture.

When we consciously choose to access this version of the nectar we open ourselves up to new information and ways of seeing the world.

The Inner Critic in a Paragraph (Or Two)

Essentially, the inner critic is one of the terms used to describe the voice in your mind that criticises and second-guesses your ideas and intentions as well as your sense of self.

“A person’s inner critic can play a significant role in shaping one’s identity and sense of self. This inner critic can be like a nagging voice that questions each decision and undermines each accomplishment, and it can leave a person with difficult feelings such as shame, inadequacy, or guilt.”

(Source)

Our inner critic is the voice in the mind that essentially wants tell us how shit we are, and unless we know how to work with it, our inner critic can take us out of the game. 

It can mean that:

·      We play small

·      We give up on ourselves

·      We self-abandon

·      We collapse formally healthy boundaries

·      We never go for what we really want

·      We people-please

·      We stay hiding

·      We never achieve our vision or our goals

·      We never stick up for ourselves…

All of these things and then some become more likely if we actually believe the inner critic’s trash talk.  

But here’s the twist. Your inner critic is not your enemy. It's not something that you need to fight or look to block, or to be really militant about silencing or ignoring. When engaged with mindfully, your inner critic can be super useful.

Why Your Inner Critic Can Be Super Useful

Here is the thing. You have an inner critic for a reason. Not to give you heartache, not to

make you feel like shit, not to convince you of all the yucky things about yourself you might believe when you are having a low-vibe day.

Believe it or not, your inner critic is designed to keep you safe. That’s right! It can actually be a safety net to encourage more full consideration of the process and implications of encountering thinking, believing or doing something new.

Take this scenario: you want to teach a workshop about something that is new to you. Maybe you want to teach a headstanding workshop, and maybe your headstands are fairly new in your own practice. So, you plan your workshop, you launch it and start selling tickets. And all the while your inner critic says, ‘You can’t teach a headstand workshop because your headstands are rubbish! Who are you to even imagine doing that, you loser?’

Consider for a moment that this isn’t your inner critic simply trying to undermine your efforts. Imagine that this inner critic voice was a resource you could access to make your workshop EVEN better!

Bringing the Flavor of Wonder to Your Inner Critic

Once we understand that we do not need to fight with our inner critic, it’s trash talk can become really useful information. This is where Adbhuta Rasa comes into play.

Rather than taking the messaging on its face (‘You can’t teach a headstand workshop because your headstands are rubbish! Who are you to even imagine doing that, you loser?’) let’s bring curiosity to it and see if there are hidden meanings within the trashy talk.

Approaching it with Abhuta Rasa, we can wonder, what else can I take from this voice?

·      Perhaps I need to simplify what I am going to teach so it is manageable for me and where I’m at in my own practice.

·      Perhaps I am going to incorporate the elements of the workshop into my own daily practice for the next three weeks to make sure I’ve got it down when it comes time to teach it.

·      Perhaps I’m going to workshop some ideas with a colleague to make sure my inversion cues are on point and safe.

·      Perhaps I’m going to watch some senior teachers workshop inversions online to expand my teaching skills and feel more proficient.

Or

·      Perhaps I’m going to delay my workshop two months so I feel rock solid in my own practice before I teach it.

Rather than fighting against our inner critic, we can say, ‘Thanks, friend. You're that familiar voice and even though I don’t always like the way you talk to me, I get where you’re coming from. I’m going to get curious about what your trashy talk could mean for me in a way that’s empowering and useful.’

In her book ‘One Degree Revolution: How Small Shifts Can Lead to Big Changes’, Yoga educator and leadership coach Coby Kozlowski writes, ‘Yoga remains a powerful and compelling way to look at your life, think about change and see the small shifts you can make so that you can skillfully engage.’

When we bring the Rasa of curiosity and wonderment to the inner critic's voice, it actually becomes an incredibly powerful tool that we can use for personal and, dare I say it, professional development. Rather than enabling the inner critic to foster self-doubt, we can say, ‘Oh wow! It's so curious that my inner critic is really kicking up a fuss about this topic. I wonder what's actually going on here?"  

Want more business support that comes infused with the teachings of Yoga? Learn more about my Keep Growing Mastermind here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/keepgrowing

The Keep Growing Mastermind is where you can receive elite personal attention and expert guidance from a powerful Yoga business coach—me!—who has worked with hundreds of teachers from all over the world, supporting them to step more fully into their Yoga business Dharma.

The Mastermind is also where you’ll find your next-level Yoga business peers, your allies, the colleagues you’ve been craving but never managed to find. Isn’t it time you stepped into a warm, authentic and fiercely supportive Kula?

Here’s the link to check it out: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/keepgrowing

Yoga Teachers: Four Preparation Tips and 50 Ideas for Going Live on Social Media Video!

Going live on video on your social media platforms is one of the BEST ways to engage your audience and invite new people into your classes, workshops and events.

And yet so many Yoga teachers I speak to are terrified about doing it.

Why?

The two most common reasons I hear from people in the Abundant Yoga Teacher Community is that they are worried they won’t have anything to say, and that when they do say something, they’ll look silly.

In this brief article I’m addressing both of these concerns with some simple, no-nonsense tips and ideas.

Before we jump in, if you’re looking for some really high-quality social media training—that has everything you need and thing you don’t—my famous training program, ‘Social Media Confidence for Yoga Teachers’ is now available to stream for FREE. (I used to charge $200 for it). You can get it here: http://eepurl.com/h1Fo2L

***

I believe that the true measure of ‘successful’ social media is engagement. The more genuine, meaningful interactions you can have with people, the better. I’d prefer one great DM exchange than 50 likes. And I’d certainly prefer one insightful comment exchange than 1000 people watching your reel.

If you’re anything like me and you use social media to spread the word of Yoga and encourage more people to take it up, chances are you’d prefer to be authentic rather than fake and be real rather than impressive. Excellent. You’re the perfect candidate for engaging and meaningful live video.

So now on to the tips.

A mistake I see newbies make when it comes to going live on video is overpreparing. Often scripting your content can lead to wooden ‘performance’. These days people crave authenticity. So rather than over-preparing to combat your ingénue nerves, try these super simple steps to get going!

Before pressing the ‘go live’ button, jot down your answers to these 5 points:

1.What is the title of the video you're going to create?

Knowing the topic will help you start strong, stay on point, and be succinct and clear.

2. What are your three sub points?

Jot down three subheadings so you don’t forget things to say, run too short or get too waffly.

3. What are 5 engagement questions you can ask as your video plays?

Encouraging people to interact with you while watching you live OR on replay will help build connection and give you an algorithm boost. Think ‘Where are you watching in from?’ ‘Have you done Yoga before?’ ‘What’s your favourite pose’ etc.

4. What is your call to action?

What is the action you’re going to ask your viewers to take after watching your vid? Sign up for your workshop? Follow your account? Buy a membership? Know this in advance and have any URLs you want to mention handy.

***

Now it’s time to address the other common concern newbie live video Yoga teachers share with me: what should we talk about?

The good news here is that Yoga is SO full of ideas that you’re never actually going to run out of options. To help, I’ve come up with 50. There’s sure to be a couple in this list that will work for you and your Yoga biz!

1.     What to expect at your first Yoga class

2.     Three stretches for mountain bike riders

3.     Meditation for sleep

4.     Meditation for a job interview

5.     Chakras 101

6.     Who was Patanjali, really?

7.     Ujayi Pranayama

8.     What is Sattva?

9.     How to use books to create a bolster at home

10.  The best pose for jet lag

11.  Four Yoga asana you can do in bed

12.  Why Hanuman went to Lanka

13.  How Ganesha got an elephant head

14.  My current favourite Yoga book

15.  My current favourite yoga album

16.  A recipe for DIY chai

17.  How to cook kitchari

18.  Adapting your practice with the seasons

19.  A gentle menstruation sequence

20.  Three tips for pressing up to handstand

21.  Yoga nidra

22.  Chanting 108 recitations of the Gayatri mantra

23.  The muscles of the core and how to work them

24.  How to stay comfortable in seated meditation

25.  What are the Gunas?

26.  What are the Indreyas?

27.  Who was Yogananda?

28.  What to do if you feel light headed in Yoga

29.  Three stretches for people who golf

30.  Four Yoga asana to help with power lifting

31.  How Yoga helps with bone density

32.  Why Yoga is/isn't all you need to stay fit and active

33.  The eight limbs of Yoga

34.  Avoiding common Yoga injuries

35.  Yoga to cool you down in summer

36.  Yoga to warm you up in winter

37.  How to start a home practice

38.  Yoga at your desk!

39.  Three fun Asana for kids

40.  The meaning of 'Asteya'

41.  How Hanuman broke his jaw

42.  Beginners guide to simple arm balances

43.  How to improve your posture with Yoga

44.  Partner Yoga

45.  Yoga to do with your kids

46.  Bhastrika pranayama

47.  How to strengthen your hamstrings

48.  Important modifications for lower back pain

49.  What's happening at the studio this week!

50.  Behind the scenes of my retreat

Now that you’ve got some simple tips to feel more confident before you start the video and you’ve got a load of topic ideas to get you going, you’re all set to meet new people online, engage with them in meaningful ways and invite them to sign up for your classes, workshops and events.

Before we finish, five final tips so you’re truly ready to go:

1.     Start strong! (No 'ums' or 'Hi guys, I'm jumping on quickly now because I just wanted...' (ARGH!))

2.     Speak clearly, slowly and with authority

3.     Talk WITH people: interact If no one is watching, imagine they are

4.     If something goes sideways, it's OK! Gaffs are most often simply endearing. Keep going!

5.     If it's REALLY bad, stop and delete the video. Start over.

You’ve got this!

Remember, get ALL my Yoga-specific social media training for FREE by accessing ‘Social Media Confidence for Yoga Teachers’, my 4-part video training program, here: http://eepurl.com/h1Fo2L

Three boundary considerations when choosing your Yoga Photographer

My first Yoga photoshoot was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had in my business. In fact, it’s probably on the ‘Top 10 shittiest days of my life’ list to this day.

These days I love a photoshoot. I work with great people who understand my brand. I’m clear on what I need and know what to wear to convey the image I’m going for. I’m really good at selecting props and accessories to take along with me and can work with the photographer to get the images I need.

While it still makes for a long and tiring day, the output is consistently very useful and I always feel great about my investment.

How I can have shoots that go so smoothly and yield such great results will be the material for a series of ‘Yoga Photoshoot’ blog posts coming out over the next few weeks.

In this article I want to focus on the major learnings I received from my first, horrific shoot as they became the foundation for knowing, asking for and getting what I want not only in a Yoga photoshoot, but in my business more broadly.

This is an article about boundaries: how I compromised ALL of them the first time and how I now lovingly reinforce them EVERY time.

***

Let’s go back in time about eight years or so. I was working a very stressful corporate job, paying off a mortgage and trying to make a go of my coaching business on the side. I’d invested heavily in a coaching program myself and was mixing with a group of ‘boss babes’ who seemed to have cracked the code on the ‘follow your bliss, girl boss’ lifestyle. It was the era of watercolor fonts and gold pineapple paperweights. Pre ‘Girl Wash Your Face’.

Instagram influencers didn’t exist and personal branding was only just beginning to emerge as a service. My boss babe/crushing it peers were working with an LA-based photographer who was making them look like rock stars. I decided I needed to find my own version of that.

Where to turn?

Google, of course!

After much searching, scrolling, reading and agonising, a made a few calls and unknowingly placed myself into an aggressive and relentless sales funnel with each of the businesses I contacted. For the next month or so I was emailed, text and called by sales reps from each of these photography companies giving me the hard sell, the up sell and the down sell.

Finally, I relented and chose a company.

A week or so before the shoot I was contacted by the same sales rep who advised me she was now my ‘stylist’. She instructed me on what clothing to bring on the shoot day based on the content of my wardrobe, the extensive ‘client questionnaire’ I’d filled out in advance and the brief she put together during the conversation. It seemed odd that she didn’t suggest any Yoga clothing, but I trusted she knew what she was talking about.

On the day of the photoshoot my high-end, personalised AND bespoke (yes, both) experience started with being given a glass of cheap sparkling wine and being sat in front of a mirror to have my hair and makeup done. I was in a makeover queue, with two women on either side of me also having their personalised and bespoke experiences. The woman doing hair and makeup was buzzing up and down along the line being personal and bespoke with all five of us at once.

Then it was my time with the photographer.

I was ushered into another room and we came face to face for the first time. She promptly explained to me that she knew exactly what she was doing, she’d been doing it for 20 years, and that my questionnaire and my stylist’s brief were of no use to her. She was ‘the artist.’

We got going.

I did exactly what she asked me to do. I didn’t see any of the shots as we progressed through her obviously well-worn list of poses and set ups. The instructions and the poses felt rigid and just, well, not like me. But I wasn’t a confident person and she reassured me repeatedly that she would be able to make me look great. Again, she had the experience and I was brand new.

After about 40 minutes she informed me the shoot was complete and I was to wait in a loungeroom-like space featuring a massive TV. After another 40 minutes the sales rep/stylist came into the room and loaded all the photos up on the massive screen.

And that’s when things really took a turn for the worse.

Most of the pics were black and white (not my brief). I looked pained in many of them, pensive in the rest. Certainly not the ‘warm and engaging’ I’d required during my preparation session with the stylist. Despite bringing loads of clothes, most of the images featured me wearing a god-awful snakeskin patterned polyester shirt that I’d only thrown in as an afterthought at the last minute. Everything—EVERYTHING—was ‘off brand’.

Then the hard sales pitch began.

It became apparent that the sales rep/stylist was receiving a commission based on the number of shots I was going to buy. My stomach dropped. I didn’t want to buy ANY!

I started to feel ill. Sweat. The more uncomfortable I got trying to come up with a short list, the faster the stylist seemed to scroll through the shots. My face—three times life-size—looking awkward yet judgy at the same time dizzyingly panning across the screen.

I can’t remember exactly how it ended, but I do know that I was crying a lot as the stylist walked me out to my car. I can’t remember what I agreed to buy but I suspect I chose a couple simply because I felt SO rotten that my stylist wasn’t going to get paid.

Over the course of the 90-minute drive home I consoled myself.

No, I didn’t really have the money to waste but I did have a job and would be able to pay for the (awful) pics.

No one would ever have to see them.

I’d never need to speak to the photographer or any of her team ever again.

And I was throwing that fucking snakeskin shirt the hell away.

I would be alright.

***

That night I received a call from an unknown number. I answered.

It was the photographer.

There’d been an emergency meeting between her and her team. They were worried about me. They weren’t going to let me buy any of the pics as I’d had such a strong, adverse reaction to them. And she thought it would be a good idea if I had the number of the suicide hotline handy.

I pretended to write it down as she read it to me.

We never spoke again.

Why did this happen? Why was this high-end, personalised and bespoke experience such a total shit show?

With hindsight the reason it happened is because I transgressed ALL of my boundaries:

·      I said YES when I wanted to say NO.

·      I did things to be liked rather than things I liked.

·      I made choices that didn’t feel right when I made them.

·      I didn’t speak up for myself, even though I knew better.

I never want that to happen to you!

So here are three boundary considerations to think about when choosing your photographer. (Over the coming weeks I’ll add more articles dealing with shoot prep and shoot day so you’re feeling confident and grounded ahead of time and you’re ready to get the results you want.)

Boundary Consideration #1

Make the Money Decision that Feels Safe for You.

Back when I booked that photoshoot, the financial outlay was considerable. In fact, other than my Yoga teacher training itself, the shoot was the most money I had spent on my Yoga business to that point and I'd been teaching for seven years by then.  

The price per se wasn’t the boundary breaker. It was the pressure for everything to be perfect that came along with the financial investment that was where things fell apart.

Any emotional plaque that you have around spending the money is going to encourage you to make poor decisions during the photoshoot and in the lead up to it. That is absolutely what happened to me in my ‘Here’s the suicide hotline number’ situation.  

You have got to feel great about your investment, whatever that takes. If you need to go out and make yourself extra money so that you feel really clean and clear about spending it on photos, great! Go sell some private class packages. If you need to find a photographer that fits your budget rather the one you go back when you are even more prosperous in your business, great. Start there.  

After my colossal fuck up photoshoot, the next woman I hired she was a photography student and one of my yoga students. She charged me $70. It was such a low risk investment I put zero pressure on myself for the pics to be perfect. They weren’t perfect, but they were good enough for what I needed and I never second-guessed me, her or the investment.

Boundary Consideration #2

Remember Who’s the Boss!

Sometimes we give our power away to people that we perceive to be the authority. In my case, the combination of my people-pleasing tendencies and the photographer’s abrasive efficiency led to a situation where I let her call all the shots.

Despite her business being the service provider and my business being the client, she managed the entire process to the detriment of the outcome.

Even though she asked me at the start if I wanted half black and white and half colour, and I strongly informed her I didn’t want ANY black and white, at the end I had half black and white and half color because she told me she'd ‘been doing this for 20 years and knew better’.  

Remember, YOU are the client. You are the person in charge. Yes, the photographer is the expert with the camera and ‘getting the shot’. But you are the expert in your brand, the Bhava of your business and the reason you need the pics in the first place. You've got to own what you are buying. Don’t give your power away.

Boundary Consideration #3

Choose Your Photographer Like You Choose Your Friends

The last point on knowing your boundaries is really trusting your intuition and loving yourself enough to hire a photographer that excites and comforts you. These days there are so many people looking for fun clients with interesting projects and enticing brands (hint: YOU!) that you don’t need to settle for someone you don’t really like. Take your time to find someone that feels trustworthy, someone who feels to you like they know what they are doing, and also someone who can put you at ease.  

After hiring my student for some inexpensive ‘recovery’ shots, I invested another couple of thousand hiring a ‘personal branding photographer’. I hired her because when we spoke on the phone I trusted that she would keep me safe, that she knew what she was talking about, that she had the capacity to adopt my visions, and that she was going to be fun to work with.

When I told her about my earlier experience not only was she horrified, she assured me that it would be nothing like that, working with her. She let me know that I could check in with the pics along the way to make sure I was feeling good about how things were turning out. That we’d have another couple of calls before the shoot so we had an even clearer shared vision. And that there would never be any hard sells or manipulative sales techniques.

There wasn’t. The shoot was fun and the results were great. So much so that I continued to work with that photographer, as well as have her train my mastermind members, for a few years to follow.

***

So, when hiring your first Yoga photographer, remember healthy, lovingly maintained boundaries are essential. Specifically:

1.     Make the Money Decision that Feels Safe for You.

2.     Remember Who’s the Boss!

3.     Choose Your Photographer Like You Choose Your Friends

I hope these three points are useful and mean that you’re never in a place where I found myself eight years ago!

If you’re looking for more advice and support like this, subscribe to my podcast, Abundant Yoga Teacher, wherever you get your pods.

And if you’d like to work more closely with me, check out my ‘Keep Growing Mastermind’ program here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/keepgrowing

Three Ways to Keep Your Yoga Classes Interesting

Often people reach out and ask me, ‘I'm worried that my students are going to get bored. I'm worried that I'm teaching the same old stuff, that maybe people aren't coming anymore because I'm not being interesting enough. How can I keep my classes interesting?’

Last week I published a short piece setting some context and perspective before answering this question. If you haven’t read it yet, check it out here.

Today I’ve got three tips to help you keep things interesting for you AND your students.

Tip 1: Deeper vs. Wider

When people tell me that they're worried their classes are getting boring or they want to know how to make their classes more interesting, one of the things I like to recommend is to go ‘deeper versus wider’. You don't need to get through ‘all of yoga’ in an hour to make your classes interesting. Choose instead to get specific, dive in to the detail and explore the nuance, rather than offering the full yoga asana buffet in every class.

When you’re planning your sequence, think, ‘How can I take something to a deeper level or how can I continue to repeat something?’ If you teach a peak pose class usually, try coming back to the peak pose four times instead of one with a different variation or entry point each time. If you teach a standard sequence, try teaching just a segment of it, but increase the repetitions or the holds. Or try teaching the same pose—basic things like Adho Mukha Svanasana work well here—with a different anatomy focus each time, exploring how the change in focus shifts the experience for the student.

If you want your people to come back, if retention is something that you're working on, giving people the onslaught, like the confetti of yoga asana, might have the opposite effect you’re looking for. If it's too fast and they can't grasp a hold of something they might feel that they ‘aren’t getting it’ or that yoga ‘isn’t for them’. Give people the opportunity to explore things more fully. Go deeper versus wider so your sequence and its effects are revealed in deeper ways.

Tip 2: Incorporate Themes

Incorporating a theme into your class can also help make things more interesting. Moreover, themes are a great way to group classes together which can also really help with retention. There is a FOMO element to a series of themed classes that you don’t have in the same way with weekly classes that aren’t connected in somehow.

The most important thing about choosing a theme is that you're really interested in it personally. When you’re excited to teach, your students will be excited to learn. And that is interesting! So if you could give an F about chakras don't teach seven weeks about chakras! If your thing is exploring the four different quadricep muscles over four classes—if that lights you up—teach that.

Maybe you want to teach mythology. Maybe you're a Patanjali person and you want to teach on the Yoga Sutras. Maybe you love the Shiva Sutras or Mary Oliver poetry. Maybe you're more of an anatomy geek. Maybe you want to do a class about the shoulder girdle followed by one about the pelvic girdle. What would light you up?

Themes can be so much fun and they're going to help you stay inspired. Like I said, they're great for retention as well.   

Tip 3: Keep YOURSELF Interested!

Ultimately, if you want your classes to be interesting, you have to be interested. How do you do that? Go to more classes. Be a student as much as you can. Go to all the classes: the shit ones, the brand new teacher ones, the favorite ones, the industry leader ones, the whacky ones. Go to all of them. Get back on your mat as a student and fill up your creative cup!

Also get signed up to stream classes so you can practice AND you can also simply observe. Watching classes is incredibly powerful in helping you stay interested and therefore interesting. Take notes, look at how the teacher teaches something, watch their body, be an observer. When was the last time you actually sat back and ‘audited’ another person’s class? Your YTT exams? How powerful was it when you got to sit and watch those classes?

Have at least one streaming service that you can watch regularly. Become someone’s Patreon and ‘audit’ their live zoom classes or become a monthly member of one of the corporate platforms. Don’t overthink it: just sign up to one and actively watching.

(Note: this is not the same as using their ideas. This is about firing your own creativity. Remember the principle of ‘Asteya’ and be respectful of other people’s intellectual property.)

Let’s recap!

Here's the quick recap of my tips to keep your classes more interesting:

1.     Go deeper versus wider with your sequencing. Stop trying to be fancy and let people have a deeper experience of the yoga poses. Let people experience the same pose in the same class in different ways.

2.     Have a theme to hang your classes together week to week. If people understand that they are building on something week to week they are going to stay interested and are more likely to keep coming back.

3.     Get yourself in front of more teachers. Be a student more often. Observe classes and take notes. 

Remember yoga is already interesting so you don’t have to be. Let yoga be the interesting part. You get to be the conduit for it.

No one else is worried about how interesting your classes are. You don't need to impress people. Take them deeper versus wider, hang things together with themes to keep people coming back and make sure that you're staying inspired and interested yourself because that will come through in your classes.

Looking for more support? What about joining my 2023 Abundant Yoga Teacher Retreat in Chiang Mai, Thailand?

Learn more about it here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/retreats

Worried Your Classes Are Boring? Remember This!

Often people reach out and ask me, ‘I'm worried that my students are going to get bored. I'm worried that I'm teaching the same old stuff, that maybe people aren't coming anymore because I'm not being interesting enough. How can I keep my classes interesting?’

Keeping classes interesting is an important consideration for all Yoga teachers. Interesting classes means greater professional reward for you, a better experience for your students and a higher retention rate for your business.

But ‘interesting’ can be misinterpreted to mean ‘high tech’, ‘fancy’, ‘novel or unique’ etc. In this sense, striving to keep things ‘interesting’ can keep us striving for ‘bigger, better, faster, more’. Our class planning becomes onerous. We become addicted to additional trainings, trying to ‘qualify ourselves confident’. We start pouring over old books, lecture notes, posts in Facebook groups. We look to our competitors, their posts, their reviews. We doomscroll.

This can take us to a place of feeling pressured, competitive or inadequate. All bad.

Next week I’ll answer the specific question about how to keep your classes interesting. But to prime us for that article, here are two really important reminders to provide perspective and context for the larger conversation.

1.     No one thinks about your classes as much as you do.

Recognise that most of our students are not thinking about yoga in between yoga classes.

Perhaps some of them have a home practice but for the majority of people in your Kula, yoga is something they do on a Wednesday night because they know it's good for them and they have a bit of fun. They go to bookclub every fourth Thursday night, they go to trivia on a Friday night and on the weekend they mow their lawn and play with their kids. You might be thinking about your yoga classes all the time. Your students just aren’t.

Understand that the level of emphasis you put on keeping your classes interesting is probably unique to you.

2.     People are coming for yoga not a sound and light show.

Remember that your students are coming to you to learn yoga asana, maybe some pranayama, maybe some meditation, maybe a little dusting of philosophy. They're not coming to you for wild entertainment. They're not coming to you for Cirque du Soleil. They're not coming to you to have their mind blown and to achieve Moksha in 75 minutes. Take the pressure off yourself if you are expecting yourself to be wildly entertaining and trying to offer up a spectacle, an extravaganza of yoga asana sequencing every week.

No one else expects that of you, no one, not even your teacher trainer. I don't care who you did your teacher training with—I'm fairly confident that your teacher would much prefer you to teach a solid, reliable, intelligent class than anything that is whiz bang fancy pants. (That's a technical term, ‘whiz bang fancy pants’.)

Remember that no one has expectations as high as you may have for yourself. 

Keep your eye out for next week’s article where I’ll be sharing my top three tips to keep your classes interesting. The good type of interesting, that is.

If you’re looking for more inspiration in the meantime, find my podcast ‘Abundant Yoga Teacher’ on Apple, Spotify of wherever you get your pods. It’s a weekly 45-minute business training for yoga teachers, with the occasional yoga joke thrown in for good measure.

Enjoyed this article? DM me on Insta and say hello!

Use My Email, Sales Page and Social Media Ad Templates to Fill Your Yoga Classes

People often ask me, ‘Oh you're actually a yoga instructor as well?’ Yep, in addition to training and coaching Yoga teachers how to run profitable, rewarding businesses, I am also a 500 RYT teacher. This is a critical question for people to ask me—and any other coach for that matter—because it’s important, I believe, that the person you choose to hire and work with does actually have experience and success doing what you want them to show you how to do.

To that end, in this article I’m sharing the exact emails, ad copy and sales page copy I used to fill a series of seven classes recently. Please feel free to modify and use these templates in your own business if you like. Along the way I’ll also offer some explanatory notes.

If you’d like some more direction about the timing of this campaign and how to plan a similar one for yourself, I’ve got a free video called ‘6 Weeks to Full Classes’ that you can stream here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/videos/6weeks-m33ca No opt in required.

Before we jump into the templates, some context. I live in a small town of about 10,000 or so, at the outer limits. The two largest employers in the town where I live are a prison and a bacon processing factory. So, if you’re reading this and already thinking my templates won’t work because you ‘live in a small town’, would you like some bacon with that excuse? I got you. You can do this. Let’s get stuck in.

My Email List

You don’t need a massive email list if you are looking for only a handful of students. When I started advertising these classes I had 90 people on my list. Now I have 84. (Note: unsubscribes are normal. You should expect people to unsubscribe from your newsletter when you send your subscribers emails. This is a good thing. It’s like dating. If someone isn't into you, you don't want to buy them a second dinner. Think, ‘If you're not going to buy my Yoga classes it’s a good thing that you unsubscribe from my newsletter’. You’re simply not the right fit for each other.)

Here are the emails I sent out, one a week over three weeks. Please feel free to alter them and use them to fill your own classes.

Email 1

Hey there <<First Name>>,

Guess what? I'm DELIGHTED to announce that I'm offering Hatha Yoga classes during Term 3!

I'm offering a block of 7 classes on Wednesday nights at 7pm.

Classes start July 25th and run through to September 5th.

If you book for the term with the early bird, the 7 classes are $140. You can use this link to book: INSERT LINK TO SALES PAGE.

Space depending, you can also attend casually for $25. Please let me know if you are interested in casual classes.

So excited to seeing a bunch of you again: I hope you can make it!

Warmly,

Amy
 

PS: Please pass this email on to friends and family who might be interested in some quality Yoga on a Wednesday night!

Thank you!

Email 2

Hey there <<First Name>>,

Are you joining me for winter Yoga?

I'm offering a block of 7 classes on Wednesday nights at 6.30pm.

Classes start July 25th and run through to September 5th.

If you book for the term with the early bird, the 7 classes are $140. (This runs out TOMORROW)

You can use this link to book: INSERT LINK TO SALES PAGE

Space depending, you can also attend casually for $25. Please let me know if you are interested in casual classes.

There are 5 places left, so please register soon to save yours.

Warmly,

Amy

PS: Please pass this on to friends who might also like some warming winter Yoga.

(Here I also pasted in the poster I’d made as a jpeg so people could forward it to their friends.)

Email 3:

Hey there, 

I'm looking forward to classes starting again THIS WEDNESDAY night. 

If you've already booked in, I'll see you at Embody Pilates at the Mill for a 6.30 start.

If you have not yet booked in, it's not too late.

To sign up for the term, use this link: INSERT LINK TO SALES PAGE

If you would like to attend casually this week, class is $25 and please bring your own mat if you have one. (We are filling up fast!)

As always, if you have any questions, please let me know.

See you soon!

Amy

As you can see, these emails are succinct and direct. Sometimes Yoga teachers feel squeamish about sending out multiple sales emails. They worry about being pushy or salesy. I find that being clear, direct and succinct is the best way to address this. Be assertive and email with intention. Think of it like a massage, a tentative massage is ALWAYS icky. A massage therapist with firm hands, consistent touch and clear communication gives a great massage! So be confident, clear, warm and direct and your emails won’t come across as icky, either.

In these emails I’m also using ‘scarcity marketing’. This is a technique to incentivize people to buy because ‘time is running out’ or ‘there is limited supply’. This type of marketing is incredibly effective but it must be done with integrity. If you genuinely only have 5 spots left or 2 days before registrations close, include it in your email copy. But never hype up the scarcity to make your emails more compelling. Remember: ‘Satya’.

My Website

It’s quite common, especially among new Yoga teachers, to run a Yoga business without a website. I’m not condoning that: I believe having a sharp, simple website with great photos and an online shopping cart function is important. But if you’re not at that stage yet, don’t worry. You can use a shopping cart, like Paypal or Moonclerk, and with a small amount of finessing create a sales page within that platform to direct people to sign up for your classes.

In this campaign I ran I sent people directly to a Moonclerk payment page that I had altered slightly. I’d created a simple image in Canva that showed me doing Yoga with the text ‘Yoga With Amy’ on it. Then I included the following copy. Again, please feel free to make it your own and use it for your own sales pages.

Fancy some Yoga to keep you warm this winter?

New classes starting
July 25th
Emdody Pilates, the Mill Walker Street, Castlemaine

Enjoy intelligent, safe and strong Yoga with Amy McDonald, 30-year Yoga practitioner. Have fun, stay warm, refine (or start!) your practice and make some new friends! Everyone welcome: beginners to advanced. (Bad Yoga jokes complimentary!)

Wednesday nights 6.30 - 8
25th July - 5 September (7 classes)

For info call Amy: MY NUMBER or email amy@amymcdonald.com.au

My Ads

I also ran a Facebook and Instagram Ad to fill up the classes. I ran it for 3 weeks to an audience within a driving distance from the venue (35km). Because I’m in a small town, I didn’t select gender or other defining characteristics. Anyone living within the 35km audience was shown my ad.  

I spent $107.22 on the ad over the 3 weeks, which worked out to 70 cents per landing page view and secured 4 of my students. Here it is if you’d like to use the copy. Remember to use the image that matches the image on your webpage.

And also

I also printed out 20 posters and put them up around town. The posters had the same copy as the webpage and a variation of the same photo on the website and in the ad.

In summary, the marketing to fill up a class doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. But being consistent and conveying the same simple message on a variety of platforms is important. Good luck filling up your classes, too!

Want more support?

Check out what it would be like to work together here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/coaching

And enjoy more free training with my podcast, Abundant Yoga Teachers, here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/abundantyogateacherpodcasts

Beware the Bricolage in Your Yoga Books

The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘bricolage’ as ‘something constructed or created from a diverse range of things.’ It is a term generally used to describe an approach to art or other creative pursuits—think collage, mixed media etc.—that combine items, ideas, smaller works, lines of poetry, found items into one thing.

 

In Yoga publishing, ‘bricolage’ is a common approach: combining various types of information into one ‘collage of ideas’. A little bit of Yoga philosophy and mythology peppered with life advice and sidebars for ‘reflection exercises’ and ‘contemplations’. Perhaps some quotes from gurus who’s conduct may now be questionable. Pictures of deities and the occasional info graphic conveying metaphysical ideas. Throughout these types of books the authors mention uplifting anecdotes and poignant lessons from their own lives (often with a whiff of uncomfortable, covert privilege) as they encourage us to consider that with steady application of their ideas, we, too, could change our lives forever and for the better.

 

I’m sure you have a handful of these types of books in your studio or your study. I know I’ve got loads.

 

There is nothing inherently wrong with this subgenre. I’ve found inspiration and useful activities in many of these types of books. In fact, I’ve drawn ideas into my own practice that I’ve used for years from some of my treasured favourites.

 

But sometimes the mashing together of disparate ideas to create such a Yoga bricolage leads to confusing, misleading or downright wrong books and teachings. And too many readers can’t tell the difference.

 

 

***

 

 

I’m currently reading a widely-available Yoga book that absolutely falls into this category. I’m going to keep the title to myself (because this isn’t about punching down on the author… but if you’re a part of my Patreon you know the one I’m taking about).

 

I knew nothing about the book or its author when I bought it. The website I used to buy my books suggested that I’d like it based on what I had already put in my shopping cart. I’m human: I added it. This book had a great title, a compelling description and several endorsements from Yoga teachers I know and trust.

 

Yet by page 4 I was already concerned.

 

·      The ‘divine feminine’ was being conflated with gender.

·      The philosophies of Yoga, Vedanta and Tantra were all lumped together as similar.

·      The 7-Chakra model was presented as the only model, despite the author identifying as a practitioner of Sri Vidya Tantra.

·      And on and on.

 

Essentially the books reads like a wide collection of ideas and teachings that have been cobbled together to illustrate the overall premise of the work, regardless of whether the pieces actually fit. This form of bricolage doesn’t bother me in the sense of its philosophical contradictions per se. My concern lies in the faith of the reader who, presumably, would take the author at their word, having not read widely enough to know they are being ‘fed a dog’s breakfast’.

 

These types of books aren’t created for Yogic scholars. They are written for Yoga enthusiasts who aspire to be slightly ‘better’ versions of themselves and think that Yoga might help. They are written for people who are looking to learn more about Yoga ‘off the mat’ but haven’t yet studied widely enough to think critically about the information presented. They are written for Yoga teachers who then go on to share the teachings with their students and teacher trainees, presuming all the while that ‘if it’s published, it must be legit’.

 

 

***

 

Infrequently I am approached by publishers who want me to feature their authors on my podcast, Abundant Yoga Teacher. For the most part the books they are promoting are of the bricolage style and this presents me with a quandary. Because the Yoga bricolage subgenre is so problematic, having the guest come on my show without me having read the book in full first is simply not an option. Here’s the rub: the imprimatur of these guests can provide good publicity for my show, however reading the books takes time (and because I live in Australia publishers are too stingy to post me hard copies, so I have to read the PDF on screen).

 

Recently I was approached by a publisher spruiking a book based on the Yoga Sutras. (Actually, it was only the ‘8 Limbs’ that were covered, just one small part of Patanjali’s work… but let’s not let that rabbit hole tempt me for the purposes of this article!) I had some extra time, I was interested in having some guests on my show and—to be perfectly honest—I was keen to test my theory that inevitably and in general Yoga bricolage as a subgenre is problematic.

 

I agreed to the proposal and downloaded the book.

 

Sure enough, the book was highly readable, peppered with personal anecdotes of the ‘overcoming’ variety, infused with simplified translations of Yogic texts and complete with optional exercises for me to use in my own practice. And, surprise, surprise, it conflated ideas that lead to my confusion and would be misleading to your average ‘Yoga punter’.

 

What to do?

 

After some consideration I proposed to the publisher that I would still be prepared to have the guest on my show on the proviso that I could address the contradictory content and provide the author the opportunity to respond and clarify. This was agreed by all parties.

 

On the day of the interview I was nervous. I’d never confronted a guest on my show before so I’d made sure my research was sound. I was ready to substantiate my claims. I started the interview and it was going well. The pleasantries. The backstory. The segue to talk about the book. Then I started in with my questions about the problematic content.

 

I was really hoping for a robust yet warm debate. I was also hoping a conversation like this might give faith to readers who like these types of books. I was hoping to show my audience that it is possible to disagree and enjoy respectfully thrashing out the differences. I was hopeful I’d misread something or wasn’t as ‘advanced’ as my guest and they were going to show me my own shortfalls. But it didn’t go like that.

 

This fairly famous Yoga teacher, with tens of thousands of followers, not only couldn’t justify why they had conflated contradictory ideas and simply been  inaccurate on certain fronts, they didn’t even realise that they had been.

 

 

***

 

 

Over the past week I’ve been DMing with a colleague and teacher who I admire greatly about the book I referred to at the beginning of this article. We’ve been sharing frustrations about the misinformation, logic gaps and general low level of research and therefore integrity it contains.

 

My messages to her have been of the petty, jealous variety: here’s another small error! I should have a book deal if this gets a book deal etc.

 

My colleague’s messages to me are far more insightful, so much so that they inspired the development of this piece. She asked how can we trust the information we are taking in is accurate? How can we trust our teachers are sharing valid wisdom with us? She wrote, ‘It’s an interesting contemplation around authorship and research and teachers and trust’.

 

 

***

 

In 2014 Penguin Australia published a cookbook called ‘The Whole Pantry’ by Belle Gisbon, a wellness influencer who was also famous for her Apple App of the same name. At the time, Gisbon was held up as an alternative treatment pioneer, having overcome her own brain cancer with juice and enemas.

 

When Gibson was uncovered as a fraud, Penguin withdrew the book from sale. (If you want to know all about Gibson and her grift, I recommend the book ‘The Woman Who Fooled The World’ by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, published by Scribe in 2018.) The publisher stated that the work was ‘published in good faith’, meaning none of the health claims had been fact checked prior to publication, including the suggestion that you could cure your brain cancer with enemas (source). Consumer Affairs Victoria, the government watchdog for matters such as this, fined Penguin Australia $30,000 as a result.

 

While this doesn’t come close to rectifying the impact of misinformation spread by a fraudster to people in potentially perilous health situations, at least it is something. I do not know of recourse happening in the Yoga bricolage genre.

 

Work that is published without being adequately fact checked is still work that is published without being adequately fact checked. Whether it’s a cook book or a Yoga book. Whether its offering health advice (like ‘The Whole Pantry’) or spiritual advice (like the two books I’ve referred to in this piece).

 

In my guest interview experience mentioned above, it was clear that the writer didn’t have enough knowledge herself to write the book she thought she had written. It seemed to me that she wasn’t even aware she’d created something riddled with inaccuracies. Further, presumably her editor and publisher hadn’t checked her manuscript for accuracy either.

 

Is it because of the nature of the advice (spiritual rather than health) that there is no recourse for the spreading of inaccurate information? Is it because the majority of the audience for this genre doesn’t have enough knowledge or desire to think critically about the information provided? Or is it simply that the demand AND supply of these types of books is so great that sorting the good from the bad is just too overwhelming?

 

 

***

 

 

So if we can’t trust the author, the editor or the publisher to be the gatekeeper of factual information in the bricolage style of Yoga writing, what do we do?

 

We must read widely.

 

We must be discerning.

 

We must have colleagues to talk to about concepts and ideas.

 

We must hone our critical thinking skills.

 

We mustn’t presume that ‘publication’ means ‘accuracy’, and that something that made it into a book is ‘legit’.

 

And for me? Perhaps I must stop adding random Yoga books to my shopping cart.

 

 

This month I am looking for my next amazing 1:1 client! Perhaps it’s you? Check out my private Yoga business coaching package, ‘Grow, Serve & Shine’ here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/coaching

 

More in to the free stuff? Awesome! In addition to these blogs, I put out a weekly training in the form of my podcast, Abundant Yoga Teacher, that you can check out here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/abundantyogateacherpodcasts

How Committed to Asteya are You Really, in Your Yoga Business?

In most modern Yoga Teacher Training programs there is a requirement to study the Yamas of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. These 5 ‘ethical rules’ are commonly interpreted as principles for living in a morally and spiritually correct way. (For more on why this is only ONE way of interpreting this teaching, and perhaps not the most accurate one, check out my other articles). Patanjali’s Yamas, or restraints, are Ahimsa (non-violence), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (non-stealing), Brahmacharya (abstinence) and Aparigraha (non-grasping).

Yoga teacher trainees often adopt these principles as a code for ‘proper conduct’ throughout their training and beyond. Moreover, some Yoga studios, businesses and peak bodies adopt them as a type of mission statement or code of conduct. For example, Yoga Australia, my country’s self-declared ‘peak body’ for Yoga teachers, uses the Yamas to inform their Statement of Ethics (view here) , which ‘underpins the Yoga Australia Code of Professional Conduct…’

Whether using the Yamas in this way accords with Patanjali’s original intention is immaterial to this article (hint: it doesn’t.) What is important is that many Yoga teachers, businesses and bodies hold these ‘restraints’ up as the ethical code by which, as Yogins, we should all conduct ourselves.

But to what extent are we actually adhering to them?

Specifically let’s look at Asteya, or ‘non-stealing’.

Again, looking to Yoga Australia’s interpretation of this concept in their Statement of Ethics, Asteya requires that ‘as yoga professionals we only take what is rightfully ours.’

Sounds good, right? You wouldn’t shoplift a pair of tights from Lululemon. You wouldn’t pocket a student’s cash payment when no one was looking. You wouldn’t swap your old mat for one of the studio’s new ones…

… and yet I’m seeing Yoga teachers stealing from each other All. The. Time.

Today, I’m calling for it to stop.

***

‘Intellectual property (IP) is the property of your mind or proprietary knowledge’, the Australia Government website https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/ says. ‘Basically, the productive new ideas you create. It can be an invention, trade mark, design, brand, or the application of your idea.’ (Here’s the source).

When you have ideas and create works, this is your intellectual property, or IP: the property of your own intellect, based on your ideas, experience etc. Here are some Yoga business examples:

·      The content of your course.

·      The teacher training manual you wrote.

·      Your memoir.

·      Your website copy and branding.

·      Your video trainings.

·      The material on your membership site.

You get the idea.

So when someone else takes your intellectual property and uses it for their own business, this is IP theft. This is stealing. This is STEYA, not ASTEYA. And this—if you apply the Yamas as Yoga Australia and many, many other Yoga businesses, teachers and bodies do—is AYOGIC.

Let’s pause for a contemplation exercise.

Cast your mind back. Can you think of a time when you’ve appropriated an idea without attributing it to its original source? Have you ever drawn from others’ books into your own works without citing them? Have you ever been inspired by someone else’s website and lifted the copy, switching out only the occasional word?

In high school I remember being taught about plagiarism and how to avoid it. Cite your sources. Create a reference list or bibliography. Do your own thinking. It’s likely most Yoga teachers have had at least a small exposure to this sort of thinking before qualifying as a teacher.

And yet this sort of theft seems rife currently in our industry.

Since qualifying as a coach in 2014 I’ve had entire webpages plagiarised by other businesses. I’ve had SO many of my own great ideas only to see them pop up under the name of my former clients. My logo, branding, style guide. Even the name of my signature program has been ‘ripped off’ (as we say in Australia) by a competing Yoga business.

Not only is this type of stealing Ayogic, it’s shitty business and—frankly—it’s lazy.

***

So what is to be done about this?

Let’s head back to Patanjali for a moment.

Consider these two translations/interpretations of the Yoga Sutra concerning Asteya, Chapter 2, Verse 37:

‘When one is established in refrainment from stealing, all jewels manifest.’

Bryant, Edwin F (2009) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: a New Edition, Translation and Commentary. North Point Press, New York

‘When one is grounded in Asteya, material and spiritual resources of all kinds become available’

Finger, Alan & Newton, Wendy (2018) Tantra of the Yoga Sutras: Essential Wisdom for Living with Awareness and Grace. Shambhala, Boulder, Colorado

I find these passages incredibly heartening because they suggest that when we don’t steal, we will have what we need. Recall my hypothesis earlier: stealing from another Yoga business is shitty and lazy (Amy’s Yoga Sutra!!). But, according to the Sutra itself (and a hefty dose of my interpretation) when we stop being shitty and lazy about creating content, we’ll actually create our OWN ideas.

If you’ve identified that you are guilty of Steya in your Yoga business, and have stolen someone else’s material, copy, images, concepts etc, don’t worry. Just stop doing it. And then, try doing this:

·      Read and study widely then assimilate your own learnings from multiple sources.

·      Cite your references whenever you draw from them.

·      Seek permission for sharing someone else’s images or graphics (where the platform you’re using doesn’t have this as an in-built feature).

·      If you’re using templates for your graphic design etc, make changes to them so your content can’t be mistakenly identified as stolen.

·      If you’re creating quote cards and memes with other people’s quotes, make sure you’ve attributed them correctly. (The Nelson Mandela/Marianne Williamson quote is classic here.)

·      Do your own practice and thinking so the ideas you have are yours from the outset.

·      Call out bad behaviour when you see it (with compassion: many people don’t seem to know they’re stealing).

·      Shout out people you find inspiring, teachers who motivate and grow you, influencers who are doing things you aspire to do.

Looking for more guidance and support? I’m offering 30% off all my 90-minute coaching intensives through to the end of March, 2022. And the best part? You’ve got until August 1st to use them!

Learn more here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/intensives

The Why’s and How’s of a Yoga Business Sales Funnel

If your Instagram feed is anything like mine, along with the pics of the people I follow I get served (in fairly equal measure) ads for reduced price Yoga leggings as well as ads for business coaches wanting to sell me their ‘signature systems’. You may have also noticed that often among these ‘systems’ is mention of a ‘sales funnel’.

Sounds kinda enticing, right? Some special thing that is going to funnel sales right into your business. Who wouldn’t want one of those? So much so, that some business coaches will charge you a considerable sum to learn what a sales funnel is, let alone how much they’ll charge to teach you how to make one.

So what exactly is a sales funnel? Do you need it and can you make yourself one without the fee?

What is a Sales Funnel?

At its most basic level a sales funnel is communication journey you take people on where they start out with one thing that you have to offer, and then they are invited to consider buying something else, or a series of other things. Most commonly sales funnels are comprised of emails (and that is the form I’ll be largely referring to here). They can also be automated social media messages, ads or even actual mail.

The reason its called a funnel is because of the ‘conversion rate’. That is to say, many people will opt in or buy the first thing in your ‘funnel’ (think of the wide-mouthed top of an actual funnel). As people progress through the funnel, fewer people will buy the next offer and then the next: you’ll have far fewer people still active in your business by the time your ‘funnel’ is complete. In general, sales funnels have a free or very low priced item at the top, which has a wide appeal to many people. As the funnel progresses the offers become more expensive and may have a more niche appeal, leading to fewer sales—or conversions—as the communication journey completes.

Here are some examples of sales funnels that cover a range of Yoga business sizes:

·      Free guided meditation > discounted first month membership ($10) > ongoing monthly membership ($69)

·      Free online class > mini retreat ($95) > 12-week Yoga class block booking ($180)

·      Free e-book > online short course ($497) > Private Yoga coaching or mentoring ($1497)

·      Paid half day workshop ($85) > international Retreat ($1999) > 200 hour Yoga teacher training ($3999)

Why is a Sales Funnel a Useful Thing?

There are three main reasons I believe a sales funnel can be a really good thing for you and your Yoga business:

1.     It helps you arrange your business model

One of the common mistakes I see Yoga teachers make—especially when they are feeling financial stress or uncertainty—is to create all sorts of offers, classes, workshops and courses because they’re feeling they need to ‘do everything’ to try and make money. It makes for a lot of busy work (which can be a distraction for actual success) and it can also be confusing to your customers and potential customers as they try and parse exactly what you’ve got for sale and what they should buy next.

Creating a sales funnel of one or two paid offers that are presented to the customer sequentially will help you stick to your business plan and keep you out of ‘throwing shit at the wall’ energy when you’re, well, freaking out.

2.     It can streamline your sales

One of the things I work on with my clients is creating automated email sequences so that the sales funnel is running in the background while you’re doing other important things in your business, like doing your OWN practice and finishing up those online courses you bought a year ago!

(And if you want some email sales funnel templates, check my Insta. There is a basic one in my feed that will get you started.)

3.     It can help you anticipate your earnings

Over time you’ll generate data from your sales funnel. You’ll start to see how many people enter the ‘top’ of the funnel compared to how many people end up at the ‘bottom’. That is, how many people buy the low ticket item or sign up for the free thing, compared to how many people buy the first, second or third thing you offer them. Once you have a sense of this comparison you can anticipate your sales into the future. How many people go into the top of the funnel compared to how many people buy the higher ticket item at the bottom is called your ‘conversion rate’.

Knowing your conversion rate is not only useful for estimating your earnings, it can also inform how much to spend on your advertising. For me, it also helps provide a sense of financial confidence, being able to roughly anticipate what I need to do (i.e. invite a certain number of people into my sales funnel) to achieve my financial goals (i.e. the number of sales to make in a month, for example).

How to Figure out your ‘Conversion Rate’

Aa client of mine developed a fun short course about selfcare. It was a freebie and she ran a Facebook and Instagram advertising campaign to invite people opt in for it. By the end of the campaign just over 400 people had opted in for her free, fun short course.

She created a series of emails that automatically went out to these people, each day giving them a new piece of the free course. Once that content had been delivered, the emails changed flavour slightly and she introduced those 400 people to her short course, which was in the order of $500. We had worked on 6 emails that went out over 3 weeks to invite people into that course. We wrote a combination of sales emails (invitations to sign up) and nurture emails (useful content for the reader, whether or not they bought her course).

Importantly, over the course of sending out these emails, quite a few people opted out of her mailing list. This is really important. People unsubscribing is a GOOD thing. If they aren’t interested in buying from you, then there’s no reason to keep emailing them. More on this in a moment. For now, don’t take it personally when people unsubscribe from your mailing list. Really.

In summary, my client’s sales funnel was comprised of three parts:

1.     Emails that delivered the free course content

2.     Sales emails for her paid course

3.     Nurturing emails to provide useful info, but no sales

As I said, over the course of the sales funnel delivery, she had a number of people unsubscribe. And by the end she had sold 12 places into her paid course.

This means my client had built a sales funnel that had a 3 per cent conversion rate.

Knowing this will help her the next time she runs her program. That is to say, if she knows she wants 20 people in her paid program next time (i.e. 20 sales) then she can estimate that she needs 680 or more people at the top of her sales funnel, that is, opting in for her free course.

While there are variables (maybe the seasonality won’t work or will work better next time she runs it, maybe the free course won’t be as novel then or will be more relevant then etc) her 3% conversion rate can act as a reassuring guide. Certainly, the more times she offers the course and can find an average in her conversion rate, the greater confidence she can have in the number.

How to Invite People in to the Top of Your Sales Funnel

·      Hold a market stall at your famers market and have people opt in for your free Nidra MP3

·      Book a vendor table at a networking event and exchange an email for an entry into a 3 private Yoga classes competition

·      Run Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, LinkedIn etc Ads (it’s not as hard as you think.)

·      Work with an allied small business where they email their email list inviting them into your freebie and you do the same with your email subscribers for their business

·      Put the link for your freebie as your Instagram hyperlink

·      Message your new social media followers and ask if they’d like the freebie: send them a link to opt themselves in

·      Create a poster about your funnel first step that has a QR code that leads to a signup form

·      Whatever else you can think of!

NOTE: When you have an opt in it is critical to let people know what you are going to do with their data. Make it REALLY clear that you intention is to give them the freebie AND then send them marketing emails or that they will receive info about the small workshop they’ve bought AND you’ll continue to email them marketing materials. Remember: in Yoga consent is essential, and this includes sending people emails.

Some Final Funnel Advice

Over time your funnel may become more complex: ‘Okay, here's my freebie, here's my Yoga Nidra MP3, and then here's my casual classes, and then here's my terms booking, and then here's my weekend workshop, and then here's my private yoga package, and then here's my three-day retreat.’ Some parts may be automated. Some not. You might experiment with price points, the time between emails, the images you use in your emails, etc. Let this be a business asset you build and continue to mindfully work on, not a complete ‘set and forget’ that is going to ‘make you money while you sleep’*

(*Be aware of any business coach that offers this type of product. Danger.)

Overall, remember, a sales funnel is designed for funneling people OUT of your business. This means many more people will say ‘No’ than ‘Yes’ at every step along the way. People will unsubscribe. Some people might also email you back and let you know they really don’t like getting your emails.

All of this is normal. Make sure it’s consensual at the outset that you are going to be emailing people sales materials. Make sure opting out/unsubscribing is always clear, fast and straightforward. And be generous and accommodating with your customer support.

This month I am looking for my next amazing 1:1 client! Perhaps it’s you? Check out my private Yoga business coaching package, ‘Grow, Serve & Shine’ here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/coaching

More in to the free stuff? Awesome! In addition to these blogs, I put out a weekly training in the form of my podcast, Abundant Yoga Teacher, that you can check out here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/abundantyogateacherpodcasts

Becoming A Karma Yogi in Your Business Part 1

Recently I was teaching a workshop in one of the prettiest studios in Melbourne. The owner has an incredible eye for interiors and every time I visit, I fantasise about actually changing the locks and moving in. While day-dreaming about where I’d put my furniture, I noticed a small poster advertising for ‘Karma Yogis’. In exchange for light cleaning, social media work or tidying up before and after classes, applicants could receive complimentary classes at the studio.

This use of the phrase ‘Karma Yoga’ is common in Yogaland. I’ve also seen it on the schedule at the Ashram I visit. A couple of hours every day where people cook the meals, work in the garden or otherwise contribute to the operations of the Centre. In these situations the phrase is implied to mean ‘energy exchange’ or sometimes ‘selfless service’. But this isn’t the only meaning of being a ‘Karma Yogi’.

***

In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna explains to Arjuna the importance of ‘Karma Yoga’ or ‘the Way of Action’.

Arjuna, who is facing a terrible war that can only end in heartache and death, is terrified about taking action and bringing about more pain and suffering. Krishna points out that action cannot be avoided. That Arjuna must take action – right action – as a way of pursuing his dharma. ‘It is not to avoid work, especially the duties required by his station in life, but to perform those duties without selfish attachment to their “fruit”’, writes Eknath Easwaran in his translation of the Gita (Nilgiri Press, 2007).

Krishna teaches Arjuna that taking action can be the means to spiritual development. The WAY we take the action can vary, but we must always take action. ‘Everyone who is born, who is alive, who is dependent, acts, compelled to do so by nature itself… Do what you have to do, rather than not doing anything at all’, writes Devdutt Pattanaik, paraphrasing the Bhagavad Gita Chapter 3, verses 4 to 8 in his great text ‘My Gita’ (Rupa Publications, 2015).

So what does Karma Yoga look like in business, and how can we apply these teachings to grow the offerings and communities we’re building? Why is it important to emphasise the ‘Karma’ part of Yoga, especially in wellness businesses?

***

A few years ago, while I was getting my business of the ground, I was spending a lot of time with a group of peers working on establishing themselves as coaches, too. We met up in lavish locations to attend high-demand conferences that bordered on cultic. Paris, Miami, Dubai, Majorca. It was exciting, fashionable and kind of heady. Jimmy Choos, late nights, expensive lunches: you get the idea.

At one of these conferences I was asked to be part of a panel to share my insights and experiences hitting a certain financial goal after my first year in business. My coach at the time wanted me to share any insights I had with the rest of the audience, while indirectly acting as an ambassador for her program.

Someone directed their question to me. She stood up and waited for the mike runner. Once she had the microphone, she cleared her throat and said, ‘What was the mindset shift that you achieved to get to where you are and how did you change your thinking to make this shift?’

The question took me by surprise. I was expecting something more nuts and bolts. How much do you spend a year on advertising? What was the best hire you made? Which software do you use to manage your finances? I wasn’t prepared for this more nebulous question. I asked her to clarify.

She thought for a moment then said, ‘Well, how did you move your energy to welcome in more abundance?’

Then I understood what she was looking for. She was after my ‘secret’. My ‘inner work’. The magical thinking that brought around my success.

Unfortunately for her, mindset had very little to do with me achieving my goals.

How did I ‘call in my first six figures’ in my new business? The answer was much more pragmatic, and much more inspired by Krishna’s teachings to Arjuna in the Gita: I took action.

Simply, in that first year I worked a whole lot. Specifically, in the first twelve weeks I worked 14 hours a day, six days a week. I didn’t compare myself to others. I didn’t rest to ‘feel into my next steps’. I didn’t balance my Chakras, get my energy cleared or read wealth consciousness books. I just sat at my desk and methodically built a business.

Then, after putting in the action, I got the result.

Karma Yoga.

‘One who shirks action does not attain freedom; no one can gain perfection by abstaining from work

‘Indeed, there is no one who rests for even an instant; all creatures are driven to action by their own nature.’

Verses 4 and 5, Chapter 3, Bhagavad Gita as translated by Easwaran, E (see above)

***

There are loads of business coaches on the internet who will sell you ‘mindset shifts’, ‘energetic recalibrations’, ‘abundance mentality’ and all sorts of other magical thinking that will, allegedly, support you to create the business of your dreams. In fact, some of the friends I went to all those ritzy conferences with offer exactly these types of services to their clients.

Personally, I simply don’t buy into this approach to business. What about you?

If I just desire this enough…

If I have it on my vision board and look at it every day…

If I'm so clear and I'm talking about it with all of my friends…

If I'm watching ‘The Secret’ every Saturday afternoon…

If I'm repeating my Laksmi mantras every time I get to my cushion…

If I'm praying…

If I'm calling it in…

Ring the alarm bells and sound the safety conch!

Thinking positively is important for keeping ourselves inspired and motivated. But it is NOT the answer to seeing results. At least not on its own. Positive thinking, mindset, attitude: all these things MUST be accompanied by action to see the results you desire.

And this is what I mean when I use the phrase ‘becoming a Karma Yogi in your business’.

I meet people at Yoga events who share with me that they are also planning on leaving their corporate jobs and ‘doing Yoga full time.’ While I’m in full support of this plan (after all, it’s what I coach people to do every day!), I’m also attuned to the difference between this being an active ‘Karma Yoga’ statement and a fantasy.

It’s easy to say we are doing something. It can be much more challenging to actually take the steps to DO it. If nothing is changing, are you actually building a business, or are you simply telling yourself you are?

Here's some journaling prompts to get you started with these concepts:

1.     Where are you kidding yourself about taking action?

2.     Where do you know you need to take more action?

3.     Where are you in denial right now about the action required in your Yoga business?

In Part 2 of this series we’ll look at what ‘right’ action is. What can we learn from Krishna to guide us in not only taking action, but ensuring the actions we do take are the correct ones?

Make sure you don’t miss Part 2: sign up to this feed to receive email alerts.

And if you’re looking for more support and information about being an Abundant Yoga Teacher, find my podcast or FB group (of the same names) or DM me on Instagram at @amyyogabizcoach

3 Reasons Why Patanjali’s ‘Yoga Sutras’ Aren’t as Relevant to Yogaland as We Give Them Credit For.

I first encountered Patanjali in 2009 on my first 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Specifically, I encountered him as a large painting that stood at the front of the Yoga Shala, overseeing our developing daily self-practice. An imposing looking man from the waist up. Waist down? Snake.

 

Obviously, this was rather intriguing. To say I was ‘green’ when I enrolled in my first YTT is a massive understatement. While I was going to classes multiple times a week, I had pretty much only ever been exposed to Sivananda-type Hatha Yoga and had NO idea about props, philosophy or even active wear. So, to find out that there was actually some strange dude at the top of the Yoga lineage that was half serpent was exciting stuff. I was pleased to discover that over the course of that intense month I’d be learning a lot more about this mystical character.

 

But how much of it did I really understand? How much of it was based on fact? And how much was actually even relevant?

 

Turns out?

 

Not much at all.

 

It is widely accepted that Patanjali wrote his now famous text around 400CE. The work is comprised of 195 very tight aphorisms, so tight that the entire texts contains only 4 verbs and reading it without at least its initial commentary, also written by Patanjali, makes it pretty much impenetrable.

 

(For more background and introductory material about this, check out my Patreon-only Podcast here.)

 

In Australia to have your Yoga teacher training curriculum certified by the peak body, you must teach trainees ‘Yoga philosophy’. One of the key texts you must include in this training is Patanjali’s ‘Yoga Sutra’. I am sure this is the case for other self-declared certification authorities around the world (another blog on that topic to come!). This is problematic on at least two important fronts:

 

1.     As stated just now, the Yoga Sutras is a complex, nuanced and almost impenetrable philosophical text that requires commentary and a depth of knowledge to interpret, and many Yoga teachers simply do not have those skills (me included).

 

2.     Because of Point 1, often times trainees are presented with a really reduced version of the text or–even worse–a subset of the teachings that don’t actually encapsulate the main thrust of the work.

 

In this article I’m proposing three reasons why Patanjali should not be considered as ‘the seminal text’ for Yoga teacher training in 2022. In fact, these reasons, I’ll argue, could make a case for this text not being taught at all.

 

1.     The Eight Limbs as an afterthought

Patanjali’s work is made up of 4 chapters of 195 aphorisms in total. The topics covered are broad and wide-ranging, but boiled down map out a metaphysical model of Purusa and Prakrti plus 24 Tattvas. It’s the author’s mash-up of Samkya (one of the ‘6 Indian Philosophies’) and some emerging ideas from other traditions. In it, there are beautiful teachings about the mind, about Karma, about the purpose of practice. And then – taking up just 16% of the text – there are the ‘Eight Limbs’.

 

According to David Gordon White in his exceptional book, ‘The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali: A Biography’ (Princeton University Press, 2014), ‘Most critical Yoga scholars agree that the eight-part practice was a pre-existing, independent tradition that Patanjali adapted into his Yoga Sutra’.

 

As a professional in the Yoga space, and having worked with Yoga teachers from all over the world, I feel confident here to opine that the mandatory nature of teaching the Yoga Sutras combined with its complexity means many trainers distil out the eight limbs and teach that small component almost exclusively.

 

So, not only do these teachings comprise only 31 verses of the full 195, they likely weren’t written originally by the author at all. Yet they are taught as the main meaning of the text because the rest is simply too hard to understand.

2.     The critics and commentators 

In ancient times teachings including the Yoga Sutra were transmitted verbally from teacher to student. Then the teacher could unpack the teachings more fully so the students could understand their meaning. (Remember the 4 verbs?) Key thinkers would also develop commentaries on these knowledge systems, contributing their thoughts to the arguments of the original author.  These commentaries were kind of like ‘philosophy slams’ and the commentators themselves could receive accolades or financial rewards. Over time, the commentaries could dilute or alter the original meaning of the text (and for modern postural Yoga practitioners, arguably Vivekananda’s ‘Raja Yoga’ is the most important one here).

In his article ‘Patanjali’s Yogasutra: Historical Interpretations and Commentary in the Tradition of Rajanaka Tantra’, Douglas R. Brooks states that ‘The majority of subsequent writers in the yoga tradition view Patanjali’s yoga as a system worthy of consideration primarily in terms of its mistaken notions and somewhat outdated metaphysics’.

In fact, David Gordon White (2014) notes that Patanjali’s work fell so far out of favour that there weren’t any commentaries written at all after the 12th Century. It wasn’t until the Yoga Sutras was rediscovered by British Orientalists in the 1800s – and as somewhat of an oddity – that it was brought back into consideration and scholarship.

 

So, a work developed around 400CE was interesting for a time more for its mistakes than its strengths only to be ‘rediscovered’ by colonisers fetishizing rare texts.

 

 

3.     The body, individualism and modern postural Yoga

Ask people why they go to Yoga these days and you’re likely to get answers spanning a continuum from ‘to de-stress’ to ‘to tone my glutes’. What you’re unlikely to hear is ‘to gradually realize my freedom from the material world, death and rebirth’ and yet that’s what Patanjali’s Yoga is all about.

 

There are no Asana in the Yoga Sutra. Patanjali doesn’t care about your body, let alone your moral code. But could co-opting an ‘ancient teaching’ give us some solace regarding the privilege, consumerism and materialism that is so woven into Yoga as we know it in 2022?

 

In her compelling book ‘Strange Rites’ (PublicAffairs, 2020) Tara Isabella Burton writes scathingly AND accurately of the modern postural Yoga landscape. ‘Contemporary wellness culture implicitly collapses the distinction between the divine self and it’s purely corporeal counterpart… the world revolves around you.’

 

Yet, unlike Patanjali’s Samkhya teachings, she is not referring to the realization of our true nature. Rather, she goes on to say that wellness culture (of which modern postural Yoga is a key component) ‘combines moral relativism with a comforting veneer of metaphysical universalism: an inherently meaningful world where you can still, ethically, do whatever you want’.

 

Again, I’ll confidently opine that most Yoga students don’t go to Yoga classes to escape the body, they go to commit more fully to their inhabitation of it. And I’m not even singling out booty scrunching shorts and bikini Yoga selfies. While I’ve heard many times that postures are to prepare us for meditation (recall the 8 Limbs) is there anything in Surya Namaskar, let alone Titthibasana or a ‘hair balance’ that is going to prepare us for Samadhi?

 

Modern postural Yoga intentionally compounds body-centric individualism. MY SELFcare. MY mat defining MY physical space. Loving MY body. Me. Me. Separate. Separate.

 

To be clear, I’m not making a case for changing this. I’m a huge fan of modern postural Yoga. I’ve got the gear. I’ve got the outfits. The playlists. The memberships. I’m here for it.

 

It’s just that… Patanjali isn’t.

 

How Patanjali became the go-to text for Yoga Teacher Trainings is material for (at least) another blog. In this article I’m strongly suggesting that why it remains the go-to needs to be reconsidered.

 

It is so hard to understand, many trainers simply don’t. Instead, they focus on a small, non-representative sample of simplified teachings that may well have been taken from elsewhere.

 

It was a work that was unpopular with the author’s peers and only re-rose to prominence through some questionable political and cultural landscapes.

 

And finally, it is a work that posits a relentless pursuit of ultimate truth and, as a result, a denial of not only the body, but all material reality. How, in a LuLuLemon-clad, kombucha-sipping, Shakti-mat infused landscape could a book like that be at all relevant?

 

Want more goodness like this? Consider becoming a supporter of my work, including the Abundant Yoga Teacher Podcast, and get access to exclusive content as well as my monthly book and film club for just $5 a month. Nice! 

Learn more here: https://www.patreon.com/AmyMcDonald

5 Important Journaling Invitations for Growing Your Yoga Business

After a very painful breakup, finding myself homeless, out of work and with most of my money tied up in an investment with my ex, I decided to do what so many Yoga teacher do: go to India!

I packed light but made sure to throw in a book I’d wanted to spend time with for a few years: Julia Cameron’s ‘The Artist’s Way’. “The book was written to help people with artistic creative recovery, which teaches techniques and exercises to assist people in gaining self-confidence in harnessing their creative talents and skills.” (Wikipedia, accessed 27.1.22)

I’d been working on a novel but since my breakup I’d let my daily writing habit lapse. (Truth be told, all I was capable during those first few months was lying in a very hot bath while reading Haruki Murakami.) My time on the beach in Kerala with Julia by my side was going to be not only my creative recovery, but my self-RE-discovery, too.

I was there for six weeks, give or take. I remember the mosquito net over my bed, the porter bringing a bucket of hot water once a day, the man who would play flute outside my window at midnight.

The place I’d go for coffee. The place I’d go for porridge. The place I’d go to rent a beach umbrella.

I shared breakfasts with a woman who sailed to the USA on an ocean liner with Vita Sackville-West. I took morning Asana classes with a Yogi who scowled at anyone wearing anything but head-to-toe clothing and delighted and disgusted us with daily reports of his severe ayurvedic rituals. I bought and traded bootlegged copies of Osho, Paramahansa Yogananda and Elizabeth Gilbert.

And I finished writing my novella.

The thing that made all the difference in my creative recovery was one of Julia Cameron’s pillars: morning pages. Essentially a journaling practice, doing morning pages requires you to sit with your thoughts and let whatever is coming up for you out on to the page for three full pages.

In the beginning most of my scribbling was complaining, whining, feeling sorry for myself. Then, over the weeks I wrote more about gratitude and even a sneaking sense of happiness. By the time I moved on from India to Thailand my morning pages were full of clarity, ideas, purpose and prose.

That was a long time ago and while my novella remains ‘in a bottom drawer’, my journaling practice is with me every day, for the three pages I started back then under my mosquito net.

In fact, the ‘pages’ are so important and useful to me these days that they form the foundation of my Svadhyaya, or self-study, practice. As well as helping me probe why I take certain actions, the ways I might conduct myself better in the future, tune into what I need to achieve in the coming day and puzzle out love-life complexities, my journal is also – and absolutely – a resource for my business.

If you’ve never journaled for business before, I’ve broken down 5 powerful Sanskrit words into two journaling prompts each. My hope is that by spending loving and tender time with these prompts, your journal and your business desires, you’ll get the clarity you’re looking for in your next steps, intermediate stops and final destination.

To make the most of these prompts, create uninterrupted time. Perhaps that’s easy for you, or perhaps you’ll need to wrangle childcare, a space outside or something else. Do your best. I find I’m freshest and clearest first thing in the morning. Let yourself discover when you’re at your best for this type of reflection. And remember: keep writing without stopping. No inner censor, no judgement, no criticism. Let it all out and, eventually, the gems will appear.

Good luck!

(Note on Sanskrit: I’m not a Sanskritist (obviously ;) I’ve taken these terms and applied them in way I hope to be useful. If I’ve misconstrued anything terribly, please do let me know.)

1.     Sankalpa (or ‘intention’)

·      What is your intention as a Yoga teacher?

·      What do you desire to do/be/know/understand/share/release etc in creating an abundant Yoga biz?

2.     Samskara (or ‘influential life experience’)

·      What major life events or discoveries in your past influence how you show up in your Yoga biz now?

·      What changes would you like to consciously make?

3.     Kama (or ‘passion’)

·      What do you desire to create in your Yoga biz?

·      What elements of your Yoga biz bring you the most joy? What are your greatest passions?

4.     Artha (or ‘purpose’)

·      How do you desire to create wealth in your Yoga biz?

·      What may be stopping you from achieving this?

5.     Sangha (or ‘community’)

·      How are you growing your Yoga biz?

·      What next steps are you going to take to reach more people and share your gifts with your community?

Now that you’ve made it through this exercise, you might like to apply the five terms to other areas of your life. Alternatively, you might like to schedule this exercise quarterly or annually to keep your Yoga business moving forward.

Either way, remember to celebrate and nourish your insights and NEVER judge your pages.

If having my support to Grow Your Yoga Business in 2022 feels great for you, I invite you to explore my coaching offer here: https://www.amymcdonald.com.au/coaching

Working with me as your Yoga Biz Coach you'll receive the support and guidance you need on what next steps to take, discover how to strengthen areas that might feel blocked or stuck and celebrate your achievements...

It's like private yoga classes for your business!

7 Tips for Your First Half Day Yoga Workshop

I’ve supported Yoga teachers from around the world to grow their businesses for almost ten years now. During this time, I’ve noticed a common ‘next step’ for new teachers looking to break out of offering ‘classes only’ is a half-day workshop.

Perhaps you’ve thought of doing this yourself: offering something a little longer where you can get into more specifics or perhaps cover more sub-modalities. Half-day workshops give you more space to lean in to your interests as well as a new challenge to teach for longer. You might pursue a topic you’ve wanted to know more about yourself or share something you’re already passionate about.

As well as being professionally rewarding, half day workshops are also brilliant for:

1.     Providing a new income source

Monthly or even quarterly workshops are a great way of adding a new offer to your schedule without maxing out your time. For example, if you offered 20 places every two months for $75, that would add $9000 to your annual turnover AND it would only take 6 half days to deliver.

2.     Offering committed students ‘more’

I’m sure you have students who just love coming to your classes. Maybe they come to more than one a week. They like to stay behind sometimes and ask you questions about the sequence or for a recommended read. Wouldn’t they like to take a longer class with you where they could explore a pose or a concept without having to rush on to the next thing? Where they could ask you all their questions, take notes and just, generally, have a great time?

3.     Giving new students a ‘taster’

This is especially important if you offer something other than the ‘standard’ Yoga (and, as a ‘standard Yoga’ teacher, I’m not throwing any shade on our ilk here!). Inviting people to try a Yoga and dance or Yoga and art therapy or whatever it is you do short workshop might be the perfect icebreaker to then invite them into a ten-week course.

4.     Pro Tip: Providing you with an offer to take to other studios

Half-day workshops are a great way to take your Yoga on the road. If you have a great workshop template with an enticing theme (read on for info on that!) reach out to some studios you’d like to work with and see if they would be interested in hosting you.

(Note that when you’re just starting out and don’t have a big following, you might be looking at more of a 50:50 split with the studio. DM me if you want more info on that.)

Now that I’ve got you convinced half-day workshops are a great addition to your growing business, here are seven tips to get you started!

1.     Ask Your Students

Talk to your people about which days of the week work better for them, the duration that would feel good to them and what sorts of topics appeal. Getting info from your potential attendees about their preferences is an essential component of a full workshop. If you’re only speaking to a small group, this may not lead to a clear consensus. If that happens, go with what works for you!

2.     Choose Your Theme

In order to market your workshop and offer it to the perfect students, it needs to have a theme. Interesting themes that are relevant to your community are best. Avoid being overly generic (Autumn Yoga Workshop) or overly specific (Unlocking the Prakriti/Parusha Dualism for Liberation according to the teachings of Swami BackVeranda (for example ;)).

A good place to start is thinking about the classes you’ve taught in the past that your students loved, or that solicited lots of follow up questions. Do your students want more time to get better at Sirsasana? Perhaps an inversions workshop would be fun. Were some of your students interested in where they could find out more about Yoga stories? Perhaps a mythology masterclass would light them up.

3.     Design Your Workshop

A half day workshop is max 4 hours. Don’t overstuff the time. Remember that people are looking for space in a busy life and will appreciate LESS in your agenda. If you have tea and snacks at the end, this is INCLUDED in your workshop time.

The biggest mistake I see newbies make is overpacking the activities. Think about what you would want. 5 more minutes in Savasana and 5 more in meditation, and skip those extra poses, right? Let your schedule BREATHE.

4.     Share Your Workshop Widely

This is the time to use all of your marketing and promotion Siddhis! Need support here? Check the Abundant Yoga Teacher Weekly Call podcast catalogue here: http://www.amymcdonald.com.au/abundantyogateacherpodcasts/

5.     Prepare Yourself!

Practice the sequence you’re going to teach. Break it up into sections and teach them during your weekly classes. Reread books you’ll be drawing from. Meet with your collaborators. Visit the space before the day. AND make sure you are nourishing yourself (sleep, rest, play, selfcare) in the leadup to your workshop.

6.     Host Your Workshop (and love it!)

Enjoy! You’ve earned this. And your people adore what you have to offer. Remember to take photos and collect testimonials from your participants.

7.     Offer the Dessert Menu

Have something to offer to your participants and talk about it in a confident and grounded way during the event itself. Create a follow up email sequence to continue to offer your dessert menu (private class packages, 10-class passes, retreat etc). Make the offer time-bound to encourage people to make a decision.

There you have it! Four reasons why and 7 tips for hosting your first half day workshop. It’s not that hard, right? In fact, it might just be fantastic!

Looking for more inspiration and support in growing your Yoga business? Support this work on Patreon and get access to monthly trainings and my Yoga book and film club! Check out the details here: https://www.patreon.com/AmyMcDonald