Money and Modern Yoga

Welcome everyone to the Yoga Liberty podcast. We have not been podcasting for a while. Um, I have not— I was doing the podcast all by myself, um, and that's why I was not podcasting, because it's a lot of work to podcast and I needed help. So I— let me— I'm just getting situated here. Okay, um, I thought I was going to be in a perfect spot, and I was not in the spot that I wanted. Okay, so, um, my name is Angelica. I'm known as Yoga Liberty on social media. That was my name. I started that name, um, I want to say 20 years ago when the internet— when the internet started back in the days. Some of you weren't even alive then, but, um, I was, and I was teaching yoga, and, um, the internet was like kind of a new thing. And, you know, it came out in 1999 when I was in college, um, and I remember getting my first email address and, um, how exciting all that was and learning about the internet. But anyhow, so back in the day, I needed a handle. You know, everybody had these handles, and so I decided to become Yoga Liberty, and my teacher was Manifesting Mofo. So we were, we were together, we were just young and silly, you know. So that's, that became my name, and then it just has, it stuck for years and years. And so that's why I'm Yoga Liberty now. And so that's why this is the Yoga Liberty podcast. That's why when you see me on Instagram and YouTube, I am Yoga Liberty, um, and that's my name. So, but my real name is Angelica Govert, and I've been teaching yoga for just over 20 years now, and I teach online and in person. And I host this podcast, or I did host this podcast, and I've tried a number of different, um, ways of doing the podcast, you know, in different formats because, um, I wanted to connect with people. And I think that after 100 episodes, I've kind of come up with a number of just kind of like great ways that I like to do a podcast. So the one of the formats that I like to do is I interview yoga teachers about their experience being a yoga teacher and how they became a yoga teacher and why they became a yoga teacher and what they offer to the world now. And so that's one of the formats that I do. Um, another format that we're trying out that's a new format, and we're going to call it Is It Yoga? Where we will go through on the internets, on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and we'll watch videos and we'll say, is this yoga? And we'll talk about, um, modern social media, because I think that we can really be changemakers for yoga and social media in the world and in, um, the future for future people, because I think it's kind of gone into this phase where it's a lot of things that aren't yoga anymore, and it's a lot of, um asana that isn't even asana, that's more like dance moves. And so I want to talk about, um, you know, is it, is it yoga? And it, it doesn't— it's not a bad thing, you know, it's not a bad thing to say that's not yoga. Um, it's okay to do mindfulness practices, but sometimes they truly are not yoga. Um, and then the third type of format that we're going to be doing is where Justine asks me questions that people have about yoga. So if you have any questions, send me a DM on Instagram to @yogalebrity and let us know what your questions are about teaching yoga or doing yoga or anything yoga related. Let me get a drink here of my chai tea. Anything yoga related, and those questions might be on this podcast. So we're pretty excited about that. So that's a little bit about me. That's about the podcast. Let me, um, introduce you to Justine. She is going to be my co-host on some of these podcasts, and I'm really excited that she wanted to do this because it's a lot more fun to talk to somebody than to talk by yourself. So she's also going to be producing the podcast behind the scenes, which allows me to just jump in and be on the podcast and not have to do the work of putting everything together on the backend, which makes it hard for me to actually do a podcast. So, um, Justine, tell us about yourself.

Um, well, thank you so much for that introduction, and I'm really, yeah, excited to be here. Um, I was like driving home from work being like, I'm about to be a podcaster. Um, I just like having all these, um, awesome like celebrity, like movie star moments in my mind of like, I'm on the internet. And yeah, I have— I'm pretty new to teaching yoga. I got my 200-hour 2 years ago, and I teach online, I teach in person. Right now I teach pretty much anything that anyone will let me, as I'm still continuing to get my foot in the door, joining new yoga communities. And I'm so excited to talk about money and yoga today, because it's something that I struggle with a lot. I know a lot of people in my like direct in-person community struggle with it, and I think also there's so many good conversations in there about social media and yoga. I'm someone who like every day has to get timed out of my Instagram app or else I'll scroll all day long, so someone else password protects my phone to time me out. Like, I'm just such— I grew up with social media. It was always there, and there's so many good parts of it and so many icky parts of it. And I think just like the money and yoga conversation is a great way to start thinking critically about the role that the internet can have in modern-day yoga.

That is exciting. I didn't even really think about how we are You know, we're very on different ends of the sphere. You know, I'm kind of in the September of my years as, um, a yoga teacher, and you're starting your journey. And so that's pretty cool that we're bringing this like unique but different perspective to the podcast. And I also think, um, you know, this morning I was thinking a little bit about— and this, this is you know, not necessarily on the topic of yoga and money. Well, it's not on the topic of it at all, but, um, I'm so grateful that yoga has been my career. Because of it, I have been very healthy, and I've had, um, I have a lot of physical ability that I wouldn't have, that, that my friends don't have, you know. Um, I hear a lot of my friends talking about aches and pains and how hard it is, you know, and their body's changing. Now I'll be, I'll be 50 in November, And, um, but I don't have that. But I also think another thing that I have done is that I don't— like, I have some friends that are my age, but I would say not a lot. Um, I connect more strangely with much older people and much younger people. And I think being around a lot of people who are younger than me is actually keeping me young. So I'm glad that you're here.

Happy to be here.

Um, okay, so today's topic is money and yoga, uh, money and modern yoga specifically, because something, you know, Justine and I were talking about the other day is that we aren't really teaching yoga. We, we are teaching yoga, right? But we aren't really teaching the yoga of Krishnamacharya. We aren't teaching the yoga of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. We aren't teaching the yoga of the Bhagavad Gita, right? We're teaching something entirely different. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with that because I am not an Indian man um, in the 1800s. I am a woman that was born in 1974 in Indiana in the United States, um, grew up on a farm, right? So like my experience in the world is very, very different, and all of our experiences are different, and the world that we live in is very different than the world that the people who were, you know, Patanjali did not live in the world that we live in. But one thing that Patanjali does say that I think people really go, like, gloss over in the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali says that we must first take care of ourselves before we can take care of anyone else, before we can teach yoga, before we can be a part of the yoga practice. We have to take care of ourselves. And the reality is is that that looks very, very different. That looks different for modern yoga teachers than what it looked like for people in Patanjali's time and what it looked like for people when the Hatha Yoga Pradipika was written. And what that looks like for me is very different from the person who is living in Rishikesh right now. Right. So, and it's very different for the person that lives in Paris and the person that lives in Barcelona and the person that lives in Buenos Aires, you know, and the person that lives in Tijuana. What our needs are to make us feel like we've been taken care of are very different. And so I think discounting that money is a part of what we need in order to work, live, and be a part of modern society is just flat out ridiculous. Like, you have to have money to make it as a yoga— my landlord doesn't take avocados, so you can't give me avocados because he's not going to take that for rent.

Right. Well, that leads into a question that I was thinking about, which we've talked about a little bit, but I think would be great for— uh, and something that I think about a lot is the wellness industry is becoming a billion-dollar industry. And I'm curious for you, someone who— I think I'm correct in saying you have a background in sales. And you like, you have an understanding of the financial world as well as an understanding of the yoga world. How do you navigate the wellness industry and selling yoga ethically, and how do you navigate it as a yogi?

Yeah, that's a really great question. I apologize for my dog barking. Someone was knocking on my door, and even though it says on my door, do not knock on my door for any reason whatsoever. I have noticed that the political people do not care about that sign and they knock anyway. Listening. I know I'm learning how to speak Spanish and like the first like practical Spanish I've used is no político. So anyhow, But yeah, so I started my career. I worked at The Limited, and I don't— I— you might not know what The Limited is, but it— oh my gosh, it was like the biggest clothing store ever. So it's the same, like back in the day it was The Limited, Bath and Body Works, Express, Victoria's Secret. This was the place where all the girls went, okay? And The Limited Corp owned all of that. They also owned Abercrombie and Fitch at that time. So Limited Corp owned all of it. So Limited was like the pillar store of all of those. And if you worked at The Limited, you were like an it girl. So I worked at The Limited and I was very successful at it. They paid me $6.15 an hour, uh, total living wage. Total living wage. Um, but I think my rent was $166 a month. So, you know, this was in the '90s.

Yeah.

Um, and I learned how to sell at The Limited. Top, bottom, layering piece, accessory. You know, like that's what you want to get everybody into when they buy an outfit and then you want to add on the credit card. And I opened more credit cards than anyone else in the Midwest region. Wow. And I learned how to do feature, advantage, benefit, right? So I would say, you know, the feature is that these pants come in a shimmery black, which means that you are going to be looking fine when you wear them and you'll be noticed. Isn't that amazing? Don't you want to be noticed?

Yeah, I want shimmery black pants right now.

Who doesn't? Who doesn't want those, right? So what I did was I took a feature of the pants right, was that they're shimmery and black. And then the advantage to that is that, you know, they shimmer, right? And then the benefit is that you're going to be noticed in your outfit. You're going to shimmer. And don't you want to shimmer? So the third thing you do is a grabber where you, you get people to shake their head and say yes, which is what you're doing right now, right? So yes, I do want— and you do want those, right? You want the shimmery black pants. So that's You know, what I've done is I learned that, and then I worked for a company called L'Occitane, L apostrophe O-C-C-I-T-A-N-E. For those of you that call it L'Occitane or L'Occitane, it is L'Occitane. It is a French company. It means the girl from the, like, the south of France. It was part of Basque Country, like, back way in the day, and they also have really great cheesecakes. So, um, Note it. Noted. Have that. Um, so anyhow, um, the— at L'Occitane, I was a multi-store manager. So I worked for, uh, I had 22 stores in my district and I would travel around Monday through Thursday, or Tuesday through— Tuesday through Friday I would travel. Mondays I was in office. So Tuesday through Friday I would travel to my different stores and I would teach people how to sell. And I really got very effective at selling. But what I learned at L'Occitane was the Friedman style of selling. And Harry Friedman has a book called No Thanks, I'm Just Looking. Because people will come into your store and you'll say, hi, and they'll say, I'm just— no thanks, I'm just looking. And you're like, I just said hi. That's it. And I have to tell you, when you go into a store and people talk to you, first of all, they are forced to talk to you. That is the culture there. They must greet you or they will lose their job. So be kind to them when you go into a store. Second, it is boring as hell to work in those stores. Like, if you're not working in a busy store that has lots of customers, you are bored most of the time. You're in Victoria's Secret folding panties, you're bored. All right, so when somebody comes in, you legit want to talk to them because it is boring. And the only people that are good at sales are people who really like to be around people, you know? So if, if that— at least like in that environment, right? If you're— if you— that's not necessarily true for online sales because you don't have to be around the people, but for in-person sales, you've got to be good at being around people and want to be around people, otherwise you won't make the sales, right? So anyhow, Um, so the ideology was the Harry Friedman ideology. There was a couple of different things. One was to make sales that wear, wear well. So you want people to buy things that they're later going to feel good about. So I don't want to sell somebody a bubble bath when what they really want is a body lotion. You know, if they never take bubble baths, They'll just be like, why did I spend $28 on a bubble bath that I never, ever— I never, ever take bubble baths, but I just spent this $28 on this bubble bath. You know, like, that's, that's going to not be a sale that wears well. Right. And the other big thing that I learned from the Friedman philosophy of selling is that you want to break down customer resistance and talk to people in a way that gets them to realize you're an actual human being. Because if you get them to realize you're an actual human being and you genuinely want to talk to them and break down their guard that they naturally have against salespeople that we've been told, because most salespeople we've been told are unethical and that they're trying to take your money. But the reality is, is that as a salesperson, I'm not trying to do that. I'm trying to sell you something that wears well, and I'm trying to break down your resistance so I can truly understand what it is you need. So that I can either fit you with the product or service that you need or don't fit you with a product or service at all. And I have told people before on sales calls for my, um, teacher trainings, I have said, I don't think this is the right program for you. I will say that to people if I know enough about them and know that that's not their goals. Or like, for instance, the Empowered Yoga Teacher training that you and I met on, that training is for people who want to create an online yoga business. They want to build an online yoga empire. They want to learn how to do sales funnels. They want to learn how to do email automations. They want to learn how to sell one-to-many. They want to learn how to do social media, right? If they don't— if they want to just have a home business and they don't want to do anything at all, they don't want anything to do with social media, that is not a good course for them. And I will tell them that. Right. So you don't have to be on— like, we have one person, Kat, who sells yoga blocks, and you can get the yoga block engraved in— you can get your cork block engraved with your name or your logo or whatever. We'll put— we'll put the link to her website in the show notes. So make sure you write that down, Justine, to put in the show notes the link to Kat's website, because it is really cool, right? But she's doing videos where she's not actually in the video. It's a block that's talking and telling stories. It's, it's actually hilarious and I love it and I crack up every time I talk about it. And, um, so it's not like you have to be the face of the videos in order to be in that course, but you have to want to do social media. You can't be like someone that's like, I hate it. I don't want to do it. I don't have anything to do with it. That's not going to work for you, you know. So, um, there are definitely— you are more effective if you're the face of your videos, always, right? Well, not always, but 99% of the time. But there are ways around that if you really don't want to be in your videos. Anyhow, all I'm saying is, if you don't want to do the internet, the Empowered Yoga Teachers Course is not for you, right? But if you do, and that's something you're interested in, we'll also put the link to that below in the description so that you can check that out. Um, so we want to focus on sales that wear well. So that's really what I learned from corporate, and I learned all these different things being in the corporate world, but then I used them to build my own businesses. And what I did was take the ideology of the 8 Limbs of Yoga and kind of merge that with selling techniques. So how can we take what it is that we've learned about selling and make it ethical? Well, the first thing we're going to do is we're not going to sell people something that won't benefit them, right? I don't want to make a sale just for, just for the, just for the thrill of making a sale. I don't want to make a sale just for the thrill of making a sale. I want to make a sale because legitimately I can help you. Because if I wanted to just make sales, I would literally like go sell boats. I love sailboats. I know a lot about sailboats. I lived on a sailboat. I would be an incredible boat broker. I know how to do YouTube walkthroughs. That's how we sold our boat, was through YouTube videos, because we had a YouTube channel about our boat. You know, like, if I just wanted to make money and I wasn't like trying to change people's lives, I would just go into a high-ticket sales You know, boats are like, what, like $100,000 to $1 million for like the standard boat, sailboat, you know. So if I'm making 3% of that, it's, you know, it's a lot of money. So I would, I would just be selling boats, you know, or something like that, right? But the reality is, is that I actually want to help people change their lives, and I want to help people to change the landscape of social media, because I think that there, you know, we've been through a lot of different things in yoga and social media. And something that I've noticed as a teacher over the years is that there's a lot of eating disorders within the yoga community. There's a lot of gaslighting about what people look like. I mean, if you can't do all the poses, well, you know, here's a shocker alert for you. It doesn't matter what size you are, whether or not you can do all the poses. Whether or not you can do poses depends on your bone structure, and that won't matter no matter how skinny you get. You're always going to have that same bone structure. So if your bone structure doesn't allow Padmasana, seated lotus, then you're, you're just never going to be able to do that. So it don't matter. How skinny you are, you know?

It's okay to not be able to do every single pose. I think there's like this idea of kind of like a hierarchy of poses of like, this is more advanced yoga. And it's like, yeah, that's all— that's a hard pose. There's a lot of stuff out there where I'm like, I can't do that. That's okay.

Um, that's why— that's why we're gonna do the Is It Yoga, because honestly, half of the stuff you see on the internet isn't even yoga. It's gymnastics, or it's, it's dance, or it's contortion. It's not yoga at all. And not related to yoga and money, but asana is only the third limb of yoga. That's it. So if you think that asana is the most advanced practice, you're missing out on what yoga really is. There are 8 limbs. There's 5 more, y'all, after that third one. So if you're just like, I'm the best at asana, you know, like it's always honestly like I'm— I teach in Las Vegas on Saturday mornings at the studio that I used to own. And the people that come in sometimes in Las Vegas are unique. And you get some angry people that come in. And I have noticed the tourists that come who have like advanced practices are the rudest people. The rudest people. So, um, not that everybody with an advanced practice is rude, but you know, this is just my experience. And I'm from someone who did Ashtanga. I'm certified in Ashtanga. I did Ashtanga for years and years. So I understand the desire, you know, for many years I pushed my body to its, its limits, you know. So I understand that. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with doing that stuff. It's, it's awesome. It's fun to do. It's fun to move your body in that way, but it will not make you more enlightened. And I was not happier when I could do those things. I was actually less happy. It was unrelated. There was no correlation between the two things. But the advanced asana poses don't make you happier. It's the mental parts that do. And I think, you know, bringing it back to money, we talk about in the Yoga Sutras, yoga chitta vritti nirodha, right? Yoga is the cessation of the modifications of the mind. And so one of the things that could modify our mind or make us stressed out is not having enough money to pay our basic bills. You know, when I, I used to— when I grew up, I was— I grew up very, very poor. We didn't have money. We lived— my mom was on welfare. We were in and out of battered women's shelters. Like, it was, it was tough times. And I know intimately what it's like to not have money and how devastating a flat tire can be to like your day, your week, your mental state. It can like cause a whole full-blown panic attack. You shouldn't have to trade your mental health for your career. So you shouldn't have to choose either having money or being a yoga teacher. They're not exclusive to each other. Like, you, you can have both. And I think people are really gaslit by other people and told that if you want to make money off of yoga, there's something wrong with you, that you're, um, westernizing it. Shocker, you are going to westernize yoga because you're Western. There you cannot— one of the reasons you're just like, yes.

Someone needed to say it.

One of the reasons I— I used to be Catholic, and one of the reasons I left the church was that they said that you couldn't go to heaven if you didn't accept Jesus, right? Well, and I was like, well, what about those people that never know that Jesus exists? Well, they're going to go to hell. And I was like, that's dumb. Like, it's dumb. Like, that doesn't make any sense at all. Like, Jesus doesn't want that, I'm telling you right now. No. So, um, it's the same with yoga. Like, you can't be like, you can't study yoga, you can't teach yoga because you weren't born in India. That doesn't make any sense at all. Like, that makes no sense at all. I have studied yoga. For 40 years. For 40 years of my life, I have been a practitioner of yoga. I would venture to say that I am a scholar of yoga. I have read yoga books by the hundreds. I have taught 28 in-person teacher trainings. I've had thousands of people graduate from my trainings. I've worked with people all— I've traveled all over the world and taught yoga. I love yoga. It's a, it's a part of my life. It's a part of who I am. Right? And but I wasn't born in India. I was born in Indiana. Close enough. Close enough. And I know that's going to trigger some people and make people really angry, but I can't help the reality of who I am and where I was born. I had no choice in that consciously. We can talk about sacred contracts and I made a contract to come to Indiana, whatever. Well, then that's still my dharma. Right? It's still my dharma. It's still Krishna decided that, hey, this is how you can best serve the world, you know, if that's what you believe. So I don't— I think that we have to move away from that, and we have to move away from the guilt that people have about money in yoga and, and realize, like, you got to pay your bills, and you just have to. And what your level of comfort is is different than what my level of comfort is. The, the number of years that I'll have a vehicle before I no longer feel comfortable for it to be a dependable vehicle is different than yours. You know, we're all like different about that. And so you got to just honor your own level and not be, not be concerned about what other people are saying about you because they don't have to sleep with you at night, you know.

Yeah, everyone goes to their own places at the end of the day, has their own lives, and I think a lot of those people who do really speak out about like, should white people be teaching yoga? Like, they have in some cases really great critical conversations about honoring the philosophy of yoga. And also a lot of times I'm like, great, you're not thinking about me, Justine Kennedy, at the end of the day, and that's okay. Like, you are having these conversations over here that are important, and I am having these conversations over here that are also important, because my understanding of yoga, of that unity, right, is that these practices are intended to be shared accessibly to everyone, and that everyone should have access to yoga. And we can both acknowledge, like, the way that we teach and the way that we receive financial, like, stability from yoga is going to be different than people in any other place in the world. It's going to be different than India. It's going to be different than people teaching yoga in Europe. It's going to be different than people teaching yoga in Guatemala. Like, everywhere you go is different because there are deep, complex social, economic, political differences to all of those places. And we can honor the history and the philosophy as best we can. We can be cultural appreciators of the beauty of yoga. And if someone comes to me and says like, hey, I want you to teach me like the most authentic yoga ever, I'm gonna say buy a plane ticket. Like, that— I'm not the person for you if you want 100% from the source. I can't give you that authentically. In the way that you're asking, but I can give you my authentic yoga.

That was really well said. That was really well said. And I, and I want to say another thing though, is like, what is authentic? Is Osho authentic? Because have you seen Wild Wild Country on Netflix? Like, you got to watch that. If that, if that, that's not authentic, you know, uh, yoga, not, um, the Yogaville Sri Swami Satchidananda accused of, um, of assault, you know, impropriety. Pattabhi Joy, my guru, accused of impropriety. Uh, Yogi Bhajan, 68% of the people who were in his ashram accused him of sexual impropriety. 68%, can you imagine?

That's— I mean, that's just not acceptable, right? No person is ever acceptable. Let me just say that.

I mean, and we don't even have to talk about Bikram. So I don't think that just being Indian makes you somehow better at yoga. That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make any sense. And it doesn't mean that you, you should be the only ones that practice yoga. Now, at the same time, having said all that, I do really believe in traditional yoga. I do not believe in all these yogas that I don't believe in. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings when I say this, but booty yoga is not yoga. Okay. But none of the made-up yogas are like what we've created in Western places, aren't, you know, core power. That's not what yoga is. That's exercise. There's nothing wrong with that exercise. It's yoga-inspired. There's nothing wrong with it. But it's not really traditional yoga. It's not even not really. It is not traditional yoga. You know, if you're getting up and you're practicing Mysore at 5 o'clock in the morning every day, you're doing a traditional yoga practice. If you're chanting, you're doing the invocation in the beginning, you're chanting at the end, you know, you're doing a traditional practice. You're practicing Iyengar yoga. You're doing a traditional practice, right? But if you're going to— like, don't hate me— if you're going to Yoga Six, you know, like, you're just going to an American corporate yoga. And why is it— I want to ask you all— why is it that Yoga Six can make money with yoga and it's okay, but Cheryl James in Tacopa can't make money because that would be cultural appropriation. You know, like, you don't see them out there boycotting Yoga 6 and spray painting their glass. I'm not saying you should do that. I'm just saying that— don't— I mean, we could just say Core Power. It doesn't matter, you know what I mean? Any corporatized yoga. It really doesn't matter. We're not trying to bring them down, we're just trying to bring down the individuals. And I think that's wrong, you know, I think that's wrong. Yeah. All of that being said, like, there is a case for traditional yoga will change your life in a way that this, this American experience, this westernized experience of yoga will not. Because if you're doing all the 8 limbs, then you're experiencing something completely different that transforms your life and helps you to have calm and peace in your heart. And that doesn't come really from the yoga asana. The yoga asana is what calms the body enough for meditation, which is where the real work comes in. If you could be quiet with yourself You know, and for some of us, we need more than that. Like, I needed to beat my body up in ashtanga when I was younger to get to a point where I could meditate. Yeah, but now I can drop into it right away, you know?

Yeah, I mean, the amount of people that I have heard in my classes say that shavasana is their least favorite part because their mind is so busy, and just conversations that I've had of like, it could take years to be able to calm your mind. It can take years of practicing to get to the point where you can have those very clear moments of meditation come through. And you need, like, according to the Eight Limbs of Yoga, you need to prime your body for that.

Yeah, yeah. And that not being able to sit quiet in the, in the shavasana, that's the chitta vrittis. The chitta vrittis are making it so that you can't sit quiet in shavasana, you know. And so how do we eradicate those? Well, one of the things we do is we have enough money to pay our bills.

Yes.

So that we aren't stressed out about where am I going to get the money to pay for my internet, my phone bill, to get a car oil change, you know. Like, that stuff is just annoying to me now. But it's not devastating. They increased the— my car insurance, it's $800 every 6 months. It's— I drive a really old Ram pickup truck, like, it should not be $800 every 6 months. I'm turning 50. I haven't had it— I've had like 2 accidents in my entire life. I was really young when they happened, so like, I shouldn't— my insurance should not be that brutally expensive. But all it is is a nuisance and an irritation. It's not something that is making it difficult for me to live every day. And that's why money matters. And that's why you can't gaslight yourself into thinking that you don't deserve to make money as a yoga teacher.

Yeah, I mean, there's so much research coming out about how stress, and especially stress caused by poverty, is literally killing people. You can have a neighborhood that has a low income rate that's right next to a high income rate and have 8 years difference in an expected lifespan.

Wow, that's interesting. I did not know that. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And so stress and poverty is like something that can literally lead to a shorter life. And yoga and meditation is something that can lead to a longer life. Like there's also studies showing that. Meditation helps people's like— there's like the year age and then there's the real age and it helps people's real age stay younger. Exactly what you were saying earlier about how you're not feeling the effects of getting older as much as the people around you.

Wow, that's really interesting. I mean, I like— first of all, I want to honor that there are people, you know, when I went on my walk this morning, there was a group of homeless people sleeping like literally less than a block away from my house, which has not been an experience that we've had a lot. I don't live in a great neighborhood, but I don't live in a bad neighborhood. Um, well, some people would say I do, but I'm from Vegas, so I'm cool. Um, I've lived in worse. I've lived in worse. But people that are going— having that experience right now, they're not— they're not going to be able to have the self-actualization period that we're talking about right now. So honoring that we're very privileged to even be having this conversation right now, you know, that we're very lucky and fortunate. So, um, and I hope that those people find some peace. Um, and you know what, I, I see a lot of homeless people where I live, and I just talk to them like they're human beings, and I say, hello, good morning, you know. Right? Because they're human. Even if they spent the night on my sidewalk, they're still human. Yeah. Um, the other thing I want to say is that we as yoga teachers, we need to stop thinking though that when you get a job teaching yoga, you don't deserve more just because you're you. Um, okay, you don't deserve to be paid more just because you're teaching yoga. That's not what I'm saying at all. It's not like when we talk about like school teachers, you know, like your 5th grade teacher should be paid more, or social workers should be paid more for the work they do. Yes, They should be, but you shouldn't be paid more just because you're a yoga teacher. You also have to add value to other people's lives. You have to create programs that add value. You have to be the best of the best. And so when I started teaching yoga, I wasn't trying to be— I didn't look to the people who weren't doing what I wanted to do. I looked to the people who were making money, people who were doing really well with their yoga career. And those were the people that I wanted to be like, and those are the people I took advice from, and those are the people that I modeled after. So even if I didn't get to talk to those people, I still looked at how they did their careers. Yeah, I spent a lot of time when I first became a yoga teacher going to conferences, and at that time there were Yoga Journal conferences. And so I went to like Patricia Walden, who was a senior teacher for Iyengar. She's been on the COVID of Yoga Journal more than any other person ever. I used to do her VHS tapes back in the day before DVDs even were a thing. Um, and she— if you know, a lot of people know Rodney Yee, but Patricia Walden and Rodney Yee were both signed on by Guyam.

Yeah.

Um, anyhow, they're both like old-timey Iyengar teachers, and Patricia doesn't teach as much anymore. I think she's older than Rodney, but anyhow, I, I knew that she was someone who had what I wanted. She was on VHS tapes. I wanted to be on VHS tapes. I'm not on VHS now, I'm on YouTube. It's a totally different landscape, but same, same but different, you know.

So people's living rooms with them, their classes with their, like, maybe their babies sleeping, taking a nap, and you're just bringing that joy into their afternoon.

Exactly, exactly. It's the same. Um, but so my thought was like, how do I get to be like Patricia Walden? I didn't try to model my career after the broke-ass yoga teacher that couldn't keep their studio open. You know, I went to a yoga studio last night and they were like, oh, just so you know, this is the last month this studio is going to be open. And I was like, oh my gosh, wow, this is my first time coming here. Why is that? And they were like, well, they just weren't getting the people. But here's the thing. When I signed up, I signed up on ClassPass because I have ClassPass. And, um, that's how I found them. But my partner Paul, I wanted him to come with me. And so I said, well, just get on their website and sign up for a class. Well, he couldn't find their website because when you Googled them, they had no web presence. And when you went to their website, it was like not functioning anymore. And the only way you could register for classes is if you knew how to get onto MindBodyOnline and find them and then register for classes that way.

Yeah.

So what we have here is not that people don't want yoga, but that these people didn't know how to market. And then when I got there, the teacher tells me their only marketing strategy was posting on Instagram. Posting on Instagram is not a marketing strategy. I post on Instagram, but I also run ads, and I also post on YouTube, and I have a strategy around what it is that I'm saying on those platforms. I'm not just like, I posted on Instagram today, so I did my job. I'm like very specific about What type of post? What did I post before? Who am I attracting in that post? You know, and I'm also not a local business. If I was a local business, I would just be running some traffic ads to my website on Meta for $3 a day, you know, or awareness ads and like just getting people to know about my business. And I just slap up my $40 for 30 days and then I'd have a customer journey that they went through when they got in their 40 for 30, and I would write them thank you notes. And then I would say in those thank you notes, hey, if you sign up for membership before your 30 for 40 ends, I'm going to give you $30 off a month on it. And then I'd follow up with a text message and an email, you know, like I would have a customer journey put together. I would have a website and I would rank number one. And I only know this because I owned studios and that's exactly what I did. So you can't be like, nobody wanted to come, you know, when you're not doing any kind of marketing. Marketing needs to be 25% of your budget. If you can't afford to market, you can't afford to have a business. That's the end of it. Like, just, you will not make it.

Everything is so intertwined with the internet, with social media. Like, there's an algorithm for everything. And yeah, I don't think a lot of industries, and yoga, like local yoga being one of them, is keeping up with that necessarily. Like, the way that I—

that's even like not keeping up. That's been a problem since the beginning of time. These people have always been behind. That's why I sold my yoga studio for multiple six figures, and most people can't even sell it for $5,000 because they're not— they're not running businesses. They're like, well, Spirit will bring the people to us, right? No, Spirit wants you to work. You want a Maserati, you better work, right?

That's like all these— the, the up here chakras, right? And then the lower chakras are that grounded, that security, that effort, all of that. You got to work your way up to get up here, and then you'll be manifesting all of your people. But we got to start down here with that security, with being able to have the flat tire not be the devastation of your whole week.

Yeah, totally agree. I totally agree with you. You know, if you want to have a profitable yoga studio, you've got to have a plan in place. You know, you've got to have a plan in place for how you're going to market that. And I tried a lot of different things when I owned a studio. And I will tell you, the one thing I noticed is that people come from a number of different places. Some people would come from referrals, some people would come from Groupon, some people would come— even with that, I had a very specific intake with Groupon because I'm not just trying to give out free classes. People would come from intro offer, people would come from an event I did, First Friday, people would come from you know, a mailer that I put out. People would come from internet ads, you know, you, you— but you have to constantly be bringing people in because you're not going to get a core group that's going to pay for your bills forever. You're going to always have to be bringing in new people. That's the reality of owning any business at all. And one of the things that I would get a lot of pushback from when I owned the yoga studio was that people would say 'Well, Angelica, you, you're too business. You, you need, you know, you, you shouldn't fire that person, or you shouldn't let that person go because that's not yoga.' Well, listen, yoga isn't walking all over me and taking advantage of it. And if I don't take care of the business, none of us have jobs. None of us. You don't get to teach here. Which also leads me to the point that stop thinking that yoga studios are going to pay you enough money to pay your bills. Yoga studios make enough money to maybe pay the owner enough money to pay their bills and maybe an assistant.

Mm-hmm.

But the teachers are coming in there for an hour, an hour and a half. They're teaching their class. No, you're not going to get $500 or $150 to teach a freaking class. Someone else has done all the work for you. Someone else has purchased the props, paid the rent, paid for the insurance, paid for security, paid for the internet, paid for My Money Online, which is stupid expensive. Please never get that if you're listening to this. And you know, like, and they're evil. That somebody else has paid for the marketing, somebody else has taken the risk to make that business there. You are just coming in and teaching a class. Should you teach a good class? Yes, you should teach a good class. But that doesn't mean you're going to make a lot of money off of it. It's also not ethical for you to go into somebody's studio and then say like, oh, I'm also teaching here, or I'm doing this special event here. That is unethical. Those people have paid for those leads. Those clients now belong to them. So don't go promoting yourself in yoga classes. If you want to do that, work at the gym. Because that's not a conflict of interests, right? Now, if you're promoting stuff that you're doing at that studio you're working at, that's a totally different thing, and you should definitely do that. But I just like knocked my microphone over, I'm so passionate about this, really about this. Anyhow, um, you've got to do your own thing, you've got to create your own thing, which is why I really like the Empowered Yoga Teachers course. Because the thing about it that we didn't have really when I started was that I had to make friends with people. I had to go and find places to teach because there wasn't anywhere to teach, and my ability to make money really had a lot to do with my connections. Now, could I go to community centers and create my own things? Yes, but it was so much harder to market back then than what it is now. The thing about the internet is that if you get on there and you're consistent and you learn the different things about search optimization, you have good email sequences, you have a sales funnel, you know what the customer journey is, and you're speaking to that, you can be very successful even right out of the gate, right out of yoga teacher training. That was not the thing for me. That was not what it was like for me. Um, I had to work many, many years driving all over the city to get the experience that I have today. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I loved it, but I didn't make a lot of money in the very beginning doing those things. And I think that you can make money right away now, whereas that wasn't an opportunity available for me. But that is an opportunity available for us all now, right now. And that's why I really love the Empowered Yoga Teacher's Course because we— you have that ability to learn all those skills and empower yourself. That's why we call it that, to empower yourself to actually like live your dream and teach yoga and make good money doing it, you know. So if that is something you're interested in, you can definitely check out the link below. You can come to the masterclass. Um, we do a free masterclass on, uh, the Yoga Teacher's Blueprint, how to— how I did my yoga journey and, um, how I became an online yoga teacher and have made multiple six figures online. I've made almost $2 million now teaching yoga, so I definitely don't feel bad about it at all, uh, not a little bit, because it's helped me help more people. We wouldn't be sitting here today, I wouldn't be making this podcast, I wouldn't have the luxury of doing that if I hadn't made enough money to pay my bills this month. I would have to be working at a job somewhere to pay my bills, but I don't. I get to work as a yoga teacher because I've worked really hard to get here and because I wasn't afraid of making money. And so I think that's a good spot to kind of end it with. Don't be afraid to make money because you'll be able to serve a lot more people. Yes. Thank you so much for joining us. Today on the Yoga Library, uh, podcast. Thank you, Justine, for being my new co-host and coming onto the podcast and asking the questions that needed to be asked and, um, talking about this really great topic. So please do share the show with other people so that we can grow and we have a reason to make it. You know, if we're not— if people aren't watching the show, we don't want to make the show. People aren't listening to the show, we're not interested in doing it. So share the show so that we can see your interest and we can grow. Um, and we'd love to just provide you with really good helpful information. If you have any questions that you would like answered on the show, please send us a DM on Instagram, um, @yogalebrity, and let me know what it is that your questions are. We might put them into the show, and we'll look forward to seeing you in the next show. Thank you so much for joining today, Justine.

Yeah, thank you so much. I am really excited to be here, and yeah, just gonna plug to everyone, I would not be here without the Empowered Yoga Teacher course. So do with that what you will. Thank you, Angelica.

Thank you, Justine. I'll see you in the next one.

Awesome. Bye everyone.