The SOMA Breath Origin Story - Team Work Makes The Dream Work!

Hey, this is Neeraj, the co founder of Soma Breath, and Gary, the other.

Co founder of Soma Breath.

And I am known as the right brain of Soma Breath and I'm known.

As the left brain.

And there's a reason why we came together and we took a little idea on the beach of Koh Phangan and turned it into this global community in like two years. And I have to say, the journey has been pretty remarkable and full of surprises and, and a bit of magic along the way too. So let's just talk a little bit about how it all happened. So I actually had a business.

That worked online, which was a music therapy business. And it used a basic version of what we do in Soma Breath now. And it was a way for me to give therapists tools for them to become more effective therapists. So some of the top therapists in the world were using my stuff, like Marisa Peer and even Wim hof. I'd created the soundtrack to the Wim Hof method and I had a very, very simple automated business based around my passion. However, I'd kind of plateaued when I got to Koh Phangan. I had reached a kind of a limit of how far I had grown and the income I was getting. And I really wanted to do something more. I wanted to go deeper and I wanted to expand this. But I was a solo entrepreneur and I was trying to do everything on my own. And when I met Gary for the first time, he was actually sleeping on the floor of our neighbor. And I'll tell, let him tell a little bit of story of how we ended up getting there.

Yeah, it was pretty crazy. So I was actually, you know, I, I did everything that I needed to do in life to be successful, or at least I did everything I was told that I needed to do to be successful. So I went to university, not just to get one degree, but I actually went to get two degrees. I, I ended up graduating with a degree in physics and economics and then I ended up working as a salesman for printers. So I was selling printers and I was like, how did my life end up here? Like, it just didn't make any sense. Then I started working in. I quit that job and started working in the transportation industry, doing logistics. And again, something I had no passion for whatsoever. But I was moving up pretty quickly. People were saying, I'm successful, but in my mind there was always something there saying, this is not what you need to be doing. So eventually that got the better of me and my body said no more of this. And anxiety kicked in and I really started to get like some pretty powerful anxiety. And I just knew I had to make a drastic change in my life. So I was like, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna buy a flight to Thailand and I'm just gonna go one way ticket. It didn't make any sense whatsoever at the time, but I'm so happy I did it because when I, when I came to Thailand, I started traveling around a bit, didn't really know what I was doing. And one of my friends, Chris, said, you should come visit me in Koh Phangan. So I said, you know, I didn't really want to because I knew this was known as like this crazy party island and. But I said, okay, I'll come visit you for a few days. And I came and the very first person I met was Niraj. He was Chris's next door neighbor. And I just saw something in him. I didn't, I didn't know what it was. I was like, this guy seems a bit crazy, you know, with he's doing like these breathwork things. I didn't even know really so much about that. I knew about meditation and yoga and that stuff. And I've tried these different modalities, but they didn't really do anything for me. Until Niraj like pulled out his phone and said, here, try this. He put on this music that just was incredible. It just blew my mind and said, breathe a long time. We started breathing and it just, it was just like in insane. I was like, we need to do something with this and turn this into something and really share it with the world. And you know, I didn't even know about marketing. Like he said, I was sleeping on my friend's floor because I didn't have money to pay for my own bungalow, which was only like $10 a night, but I just didn't have enough money to do that. So somehow Niraz was actually crazy enough to listen to me and, and allow me to start working with him. Even though I didn't know much about marketing and maybe it was the Soma, I'm not sure what it was, but I started doing this every day, doing so in breath. And it gave me so much mental clarity. I was able to learn Internet marketing and business development. I already had a little bit of business experience from some failed businesses in the past, and I was able to put all that experience together into learning some Internet marketing techniques to be able to turn this into something, turn what we were doing into something. So yeah, it was really an incredible journey.

Yeah, well, actually just to rewind a little bit. The way I realized that I needed Gary was because.

I actually was trying to help him create his own business by teaching him what I do. And it's such a struggle to figure out what to sell and how to create a product to sell. And for Gary, it was like, you know, a lot of, like, confusion of, like, do I do this, do I do that? But he kept coming back to our technique with Soma Breath. Like the early days, there was no real official name for it, but it was so powerful. And it was such a way to get inspiration as well. If you do one of our sessions, you get really inspired. I was like, well, let's do a ceremony to get inspired. So one day we did it, and at the end of it, we had this incredible, like, awakening, like, experience. It was so profound. I was, like, brainstorming Gary about what things he could do. And then it dawned on me. I was like, years ago, there was a guy who.

Was amazing at doing all the stuff that I didn't want to do. And he was really good at stats and numbers and all the left brain stuff that goes with running a business. And he crunched a load of numbers and created a few sheets on Excel for me and said, here's your business system. This is what you need to do. And he left it with me. And now I'm very right brain, and it's overwhelming for me to learn all of that analytical stuff. So for years, I just forgot about it. And then I just looked at Gary and was like, oh, my God, you're Mike Mindel. You're and true story. And actually, this is exactly Mike Mindel's picture. Check it out. And you know, it's a similarities. So I asked Gary straight away. I was like, are you good with Excel? Are you good with stats and numbers? And Gary's like, yeah, I've got a PhD in right. I've got a.

No, just undergrad.

He goes, I've got a degree.

I've studied physics in university. I studied economics. So yes, numbers is exactly what I'm doing.

Yeah. He goes, yeah, I'm great with numbers. And so I was like, well, do you think you could do this, this and this? And he goes, yeah, I used to work in logistics for a big corporation. I was like, right, that's it. You're gonna work with me. So that's how it began. And I literally just handed over the whole.

Like, marketing side of the business to Gary to learn and surrendered to the Fact that he would be able to do it, not hardly even really know. We'd only known each other for a few months. Trusted in universe and incredibly, like, he picked it up like, what do you call it? A horse to water. What's the saying?

I don't know.

That one picks up like a duck to water or. I don't know, that's saying, you know, that saying. Anyway, Gary picked it up just effortlessly and started to learn the ropes really quickly. And it made a great team, a great partnership. I was able to focus on the things I wanted to do, Gary focused on things that he wanted to do. And that team coming together has now created this movement. And it means that anyone coming into our community now can learn from both sides. You know, I've been in training courses before and quite often the person doing the training is very right brain like me, very creative, and they can teach you techniques really, really well. But when it comes to actually getting clients, that's when, you know, they probably don't know the best way to do that, especially when trying to train new people in this, in these things. So that's what we found, like, you know, in yoga schools, quite often you'll go to a yoga class, you'll do a yoga certification, but then that's it. You're like left with a yoga certification. But how do you get those yogis to come to your class? Yeah, and this is where this combination came in really well because Gary was very good at being able to take complicated stuff from Internet marketing things and actually teach it to others in a very concise and easy way, better than I could. So that created a great partnership right from the start.

Yeah. And it was actually, I remember like right from the beginning, it was one of our visions because it wasn't, it wasn't just yourself. You actually had a, like a pretty successful business for what you were doing, but like you said, you had plateaued. But then we had so many friends that, that were yoga teachers or reiki healers, you know, inner dance teachers, therapists, all kinds of different things that they just had their certificate. They were really knowledgeable, super passionate about what they did, but they just had no idea how to actually build a business out of it and how to continue to create a career out of this. And a lot of them actually had to go back to their regular jobs or had to do stuff that they didn't like doing on a daily basis. And it was one of our visions, one of our dreams to be able to create something that is not only an amazing Modality that changed, that really transforms people, that. That we have felt ourselves and our inner circle has felt and now thousands and thousands of people around the world. But we wanted to create something that will actually help the facilitators spread it out even further. Because the reality is like, we can't spread this on our own. It's impossible. We need as much help as possible to get this around the world. So we wanted to really make something, build an ecosystem, build a community and. And build this. This collaboration between people to really help you get to the next level. And it's really cool to see that actually become a reality because, you know, I went from sleeping on the floor a few years ago to now sleeping in, like, a proper bed in a nice house with a baby.

With a family.

With a family. So it's been an incredible transformation. Like, I am a testament to the transformations that can happen in so on breath. And there are so many other people like this as well, so it's awesome. It's an honor to be able to share this with the world.

So along the way in this journey to getting to where we are today, we actually met a few key people who helped us go to the next level. And actually it started with this event run by Mindvalley, Mindvalley University in Barcelona. And I was. I'd already bought a ticket to go there. And our business partner in Soma Breath, amazing guy called John Davey, he kept egging me on to create some kind of a certification to teach other people.

What I know, what I do, my technique, my method. Because he had had great success with his wife, Marisa Peer, with an online hypnotherapy school called Rapid Transformational Therapy. So he was like, look, we're getting great success with this, and you're so perfectly aligned with being able to do the same.

I will actually support you. So he happened to be also going to this Miam Valley University event, and it was a great time for me to go over there and discuss this. But Gary.

Who I was like, just kind of paying a very basic salary.

Had literally. You didn't even have the funds or.

I already had, like, maxed out credit cards. Like $500 left in my. Literally $500 left in my bank account, which anybody who's been to Barcelona before will know that $500 will probably get you three or four nights in, like, a hostel.

Yeah.

In Barcelona, especially in the summer. So it was like. It was a huge leap of faith. Luckily, there was another driving factor for me, which was the love of my life who I'm now married to and have a child with. She had just gone back to Spain. I thought we were never going to see each other again because we had just met recently. And when Niraj told me, hey, I need you to come to Barcelona to meet with a potential investor, you know, the first thing that came in my mind was like, no way, I'm not going to Barcelona and I'm going to be stuck on the streets or I'm going to have to call my parents to bail me out and. And fly me back to Canada.

Yeah. Because I could barely at that time, like, I was. I had enough money to support myself, but I was just paying Gary, like, literally dinner money every day. Yeah.

Yeah. So. But luckily I had that, like, the two driving forces. I was like, I really want to push this forward. I think. I really believe that this investor is going to be able to help, and I really want to be able to see Tamara again so I can continue this relationship. So I'm like, you know what? Fuck it. If I have to call my parents and they have to buy me a flight back to Canada, that's what I'm going to do. But I'm going to believe in faith. I'm going to believe that everything's going to work the way that it needs to work. And I bought my flight, I went out to Barcelona, we met John, and the rest is history. Like, it's just been an incredible journey since then.

Yeah. And then also the same event, I met the founder of Zumba. And you see, at this point, we didn't know quite what we were going to because I had so many different things. I had the music therapy side, I had the renegade pharmacist side. And we weren't quite sure what we were going to do. I just knew that I had this breathwork technique with music that was creating a lot of.

Excitement from anyone who did it. And at this time, this one guy I remember in this class that I did at my apartment, he just jumped out of his seat at the end of it. And usually at the end of every class, we do, like, a feedback. His first line was, what's your business plan? And this happened to be the founder of Zumba. And that gave me such confirmation that this was it, this was what we needed to do. Because he said, you've got something that is so transformation that it reminds me of the time when I first discovered Beto's dance class and realized that this is what we need to do as a business.

And he said he got the same Feeling for when he experienced our Soma Breath class. And he had done many different breathing techniques before, but this was the one that really made it excited. So I got all these confirmations and then the same mindvalley event. I started to do workshops other places and then ended up being on stage and doing it with lots of people on stage. And all of these confirmations made me realize that this is it. And so many people were coming up to me at the end of these classes, these workshops I was doing, asking, how do I learn.

To do what you do? How do I learn? Is there a certification? Can you teach me? And to be honest, I was really shy about teaching people what I do. I didn't believe. I didn't have the self confidence, self esteem to even think about certifying people. And actually quite a few things had to happen, such as meeting these incredible people who kept encouraging me. But then one thing happened that changed everything, because.

When you do things in a class, you get incredible transformations. But I knew that for this to really be successful, I needed this to work online. And what happened at that time was a couple of things. Zoom came out as a platform, which is an incredible way to do classes and workshops from the Internet. And the second thing was we'd never tested this before online, this workshop online.

And I remember that first time where you sent out that email to list to tell people about.

We were gonna do an automated one. I remember it was game changing. It was like we were supposed to do an automated webinar.

For a summit that you were being hosted on.

That's it.

And we were told like, hey guys, you need to get this ready within like two days. And so Niraj got it ready. He put together like a music track. And I set up all the tech side of it. And we had this webinar ready to go. And then all of a sudden we had like over 100 people sign up for it. And I was like, no way. We have to do this live. Let's just do it live. Who cares? Let's see what happens. All right. I was in Bali at the time Niraj was in. I can't remember. I think he was in Europe. So for me it was like 3am and we do it. And I think only like eight people showed up. Something. Yeah, like very small amount of people. So it was kind of underwhelming in the moment. And Niraj just decides to do like a full on mind blowing breathwork session, solo breath session on this webinar, which ended up lasting like an hour and a Half or something like that. And at the end of it, people's minds were completely blown. Everybody wanted to know more. Niraj all of a sudden just said, okay, who's interested in learning more and doing a 21 day journey and doing our instructor training? And I'm on the other side thinking like, what is he talking about? This doesn't even exist yet. Like, we don't have these things ready yet. But so everybody was interested. So right there, that was like our final confirmation to say, okay, it's time, it's time to step this up. And it like so many people are getting incredible transformations from this. The only way to really take this to the whole world and for everyone to see is to actually have instructors facilitating this. Because you can't do it on your own, it's impossible. So we need to get as many people out there doing this. And that was how we decided to do the instructor training. And since then, that was like two and a half years ago. Yeah. Now we have about 1200 instructors around the world and it's just growing exponentially every month. It's getting faster and faster the more people that are joining.

That's right.

And really that, that comes back to also the founder Zuma that we, that we became close friends with. He really drilled one thing into our minds that was really important to the success, success of Zumba and has been crucial to our success as well, which is make your instructors as successful as possible. And a lot of what we do is that. A lot of what we do is, is we put so much focus and so much energy and investment as well into making our instructors successful, doing everything we can, helping with the branding, putting them on our website, giving them personal profiles and listing their classes on our website, giving them business and marketing advice like, like this is so crucial to our success. We want them to be successful. We don't just want them to, you know, have a piece of paper, a certificate and this knowledge and then nobody will ever see it. We want them to share with as many people as possible. And that has been crucial to the growth of Sumobra.

That's right. So not only did I work so hard to create the most powerful transformative tool that I know exists today with so much testimonials to back it up. But with Gary together and our network of incredible advisors, we have the business and marketing side as well. So you're going to get the techniques and how to get clients, which means that you have a really holistic and powerful.

Method of being successful as an instructor or facilitator. In anything that you do. So we got to a point where we needed to create an instructor training course. And we were living in Koh Phangan and we were like, wondering, how are we going to get instructors to join our training and for us to be able to film it all and create course content. So I had this crazy, weird idea because there was this opportunity. There was a cinema in Koh Phangan where they have a big visual screen, like a cinema screen, where you lie back on beanbags with headsets. And I thought, because Summer Breath also has a visual component with the hypnofractal visuals as well, I had this idea of doing a whole breathwork ceremony in this special moonlight cinema it's called. And I put it out there. Had no idea what to expect, but we sold out 35 places. Our first psychedelic visual breathwork cinema experience, just like that. And we did the first experience and it was so profound that literally at the end of it, I asked the question, if I was to be able to teach you and certify and you be able to do. To deliver these techniques yourself.

Who would be interested? And we're going to do. We're going to do the. We're going to start the training next week. And literally 15 people put down their deposit then and there. And we had our first instructor training group and then we filmed it. We did it all. And that a lot of that material is still the foundational training that has gone on to be a part of our core SOMA Breath Master instructor training.