5 Keys to Success as a Yoga Teacher by Absolute Venture PTE LTD

5 keys to success as a yoga teacher Teach Less, Earn More & Make a Huge Differenceâ&#x20AC;Ś

Teach Yoga, Inspire Students & Change Lives

ÂŠ2012 All Rights Resrved | Absolute Yoga Samui

Teach Yoga, Inspire Students & Change Lives

An Open Letter to Yoga Teachers Wondering “What’s Next?” Dear Yoga Teacher, If you’re a certified yoga teacher, career-minded and looking to grow personally and professionally… … if you’ve noticed that 98% of your colleagues are teaching way too many classes, not making enough money to live comfortably, and their future looks like it’s going to be just more of the same; then the 5 Keys I’m about to share with you might create a huge paradigm shift in your teaching and in your life. My name is Lucas Rockwood. I’m a yoga teacher and teacher trainer, I own and operate a multi-million dollar yoga business, and the way I got started is probably just like you. I fell in love with yoga, I wanted to share my passion with the world, and so I got certified and started teaching— a lot! My first year as a yoga teacher, I think I made a whopping $18,000, hardly enough for most people to live on, but I was living very simply, doing yoga like crazy. For that first year, it was really great. I was so happy to have escaped the rat race that nothing could wipe the smile off my face. But as I grew a little older and wiser, I looked at the future with a different focus. It’s great to live in the present, but with age comes responsibility, maturity and planning; and if you want to be able to support yourself teaching yoga, perhaps start a family, buy a house, and have health insurance; if you want to have some semblance financial freedom—then you are probably feeling now the way I felt back then. Confused. Is a financially stable life even possible teaching yoga? For me, when I realized I needed to earn more, I simply taught more. It seemed to make sense. My hourly rate was pretty good after all, so at one point, I was teaching 18-20 classes per week.

Teach Yoga, Inspire Students & Change Lives

3 I would teach a class at 9 a.m., another at 10 a.m., take a quick break, then teach again at 12 p.m. I never sacrificed my own practice so basically I was “doing yoga” either teaching or practicing for 5-8 hours daily. If you’re hearing this and thinking “Wow, what a great life!” I just have one word for you: BURNOUT.

It’s impossible to maintain a schedule like that and something has to give. You’ll either stop practicing, stop socializing, stop sleeping, or just have a nervous breakdown. And all of this in an attempt to simply make a decent living. After a year of working like a dog, I physically couldn’t do it anymore, so took a long trip to India. It gave me some time to breathe, to practice deeply, and reflect. There’s a famous Earl Nightingale quote that I’ll never forget and I remind myself of constantly:

“If you want to be successful, look at what everyone else is doing and do the opposite.” And on that trip in India, I realized that to be successful, I needed to NOT be like most of the teachers I knew. Most teachers I knew were single, broke, and burn out. I didn’t like any of those adjectives. Long term, I wanted a family. I wanted to be able to support myself and others; and I wanted to feel like I went to work not for money, but because I wanted to work—because I loved it. And anyone who tells you they love teaching 3-5 classes per day is just lying—it’s not fun. My yoga practice has always given me the greatest insight into life, and one thing I already knew from my practice was that you need to find a good teacher. If you do, and if you do exactly what they tell you to do, then there’s a really good chance you’ll achieve your goals. I started looking at all the most-successful teachers in the world, people I considered successful personally, professionally, and financially; and I did my best to decode and model what they did. Without them even knowing it, they become my mentors.

Teach Yoga, Inspire Students & Change Lives

KEY #1: Teach Less Here’s the first and most-profound discovery I made: the highest paid, mostsuccessful and passionate teachers, don’t teach very often. This was a shocking realization for me, and it’s absolutely true all over the world. Without exception, teaching less is a key factor in long-term success.

Want to know why? Energy. Yoga teaching is all about energy. You need to show up to class on fire, excited and eager to share what you love with your students. You cannot do that 3x a day, 6 days per week. I’m sorry, but you just can’t. Great teachers save their energy and deliver it in concentrated busts… special classes, workshops and trainings.

KEY #2: Specialization The next thing I discovered is that the most-successful teachers had a specialty of some kind, something they were exceptionally passionate about or good at—or both. There are teachers who are known for Trance Dance, others for their inversion workshops, others for anatomy, and others for simply teaching an extremely challenging, hot and sweaty class every time. Specializing in a style or an approach of yoga is the 2nd key to success.

Teach Yoga, Inspire Students & Change Lives

KEY #3: Create Your Own Future Next, I found that these teachers I admired, they created opportunities for themselves. They didn’t sit back and wait for Yoga Journal to call. They were out there making things happen, sharing their knowledge, and taking on new challenges and opportunities. If you’re working for a studio and teaching great classes, most studio owners would be extremely pleased to have you do more of the same for as long as you can. In other words, they don’t have any position to promote you into—there is no growth model in most yog studios. Day one is the same as day 1001. This is great for them, but it’s impossible for you—because you won’t be able to maintain a heavy, inspired teaching schedule for long. Worse still, like most business, yoga studios come and go, and you cannot base your career on a job with a single employer—you have to diversify and take control of your future.

KEY #4: Plan for Success Another thing I discovered is that these new mentors of mine had a plan. They had a very clear vision of what they wanted—the life they wanted to live, the income the needed to be comfortable—and the “how”, meaning how exactly they would achieve those goals, sorted itself out, usually in a very short period of time. In the yoga community, people have a tendency to “go with the flow,” and believe me, that’s extremely rewarding short term. If you’ve never lived on cruise control before, I’d encourage you to take a few months or even a year and do it; but long term, it’s a disaster. If you don’t know what you want, if you don’t have focus, it’s almost impossible to end up with a life you can feel proud of. Yoga teachers will often tell me that, “Everything always works out in the end, anyway!” and while that’s true, if you craft and plan for your future, it’s exponentially more rewarding and your impact on your students, your friends, and your family is much greater when you’re living on purpose rather than on a whim.

Teach Yoga, Inspire Students & Change Lives

KEY #5: Practice, Learn, Practice The last thing I discovered, and perhaps the most important thing, is that the best teachers practice like crazy—they never stop—and they are always dedicated students. They never stop learning and growing both personally and professionally. As you probably know, many yoga teachers simply stop growing as students because they get too busy or too caught up—or they just feel sick of yoga after a full day of teaching. If this is you, I’ll tell you right now, you’ve got to fix this immediately or your classes will get smaller and smaller… and one day they’ll be empty.

Your students can feel your passion and your connection to your own practice the moment you walk in the room. If you haven’t got it, they’ll feel it, and as soon as they feel that you’re not teaching from experience, you’ve lost them.

Action Step #1 - Reignite the Fire of Your Personal Practice Start studying something new, study with a new teacher, go to an advanced training— do whatever you need to do to get excited again about yoga, just like you used to be. Reclaim the excitement of getting up in the morning and rolling out your mat. Tap into that energy and everything else will come so much more easily.

Action Step #2 - Get Some New Friends Most yoga teachers have a peer group with “wealth wounds,” people who look down on success as “selling out” or “giving in.” If your peer group is like this, you need to branch out and start spending time with people who are creating opportunities and actively crafting a life that has a huge impact, people who are living on purpose. At first, this can be extremely challenging, but as a teacher, you are here on this earth to teach and inspire students. To do that, you need a supportive, driven social group that will lift you up, not bring you down.

Teach Yoga, Inspire Students & Change Lives

Action Step #3 - Get More Skills Specializing, as we’ve talked about, is the key to success, and one of the best ways to figure out what to specialize in is to simply learn more specialized skills. That might mean you become a yoga anatomy expert, or an AcroYoga teacher, or a yoga for cancer rehab specialist. The only rule here is that more training means more options. Get yourself educated and never stop learning.

Action Step #4 - Take Some Time & Regroup It’s extremely difficult to make big changes in your life when you’re deep in your life. You need to figure out a way to step out of your routine and gain some perspective. Your impulse might be to spend a month sipping piña colada’s in Mexico, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Your need growth and learning-oriented time outside of your comfort zone. Take a break, get some distance between you and your current life and reconnect.

Action Step #5 - Do Something! Since you’ve made it this far listening to me, I’m guessing at least 1 or 2 of the things I’ve said have struck a chord with you? If so, act on them as quickly as possible. Speed and success are joined at the hip, and the quicker you put your new ideas into motion, the more the power and impact of your choices will be amplified.

Manifesting Your Dreams… At one point I was teaching 18-20 classes per week, back-toback classes. I was burnt out and really suffering. My dream back then (I had a very clear dream) was to create a training course just for existing teachers. The idea was to create a space where mid-career, overworked teachers (just like I was at the time) could come to advance their career, advance their personal practice, and learn ultra-practical skills that would translate into bankable assets immediately after graduation.

Teach Yoga, Inspire Students & Change Lives

8 I’m embarrassed to tell you this, but it took me 5 years to realize that goal. I was busy building experience, stumbling through relationships, teaching, and practicing; but this project, this Level II teachers-only course, was always my goal and it was incredibly difficult to make a reality. Today, thanks entirely to the amazing teaching team I work with, it is a reality. And in 34 intense, teaching-packed, fun and challenging days, you can obtain your 500hr Yoga Alliance certificate, putting you in the top 3% of yoga teachers worldwide. More important than the certificate, you’ll walk away inspired and educated to be able to teach not just a 90-minute class, but workshops, retreats, and training events. Previous attendees at the Level II course have included studio owners, teachers who have just recently graduated, and everyone in between. It’s not about ultra-advanced yoga poses, it’s about an advanced mindset for how this yoga teaching thing really works as a career.

Success Stories And what happens after the course? The stories are incredible. I’m blown away myself by the success of Absolute Yoga graduates, and while I can’t share all of them with you here, let me share with you just a few. One recent graduate earns a healthy 6-figure income teaching 2-3 hours per day and she takes a full 3 months off each year. Another graduate, also a woman, earns over $100K/year teaching exclusively from her home and is planning to open a mini-studio in conjunction with a local fitness center. A graduate from Europe used his new skills to start offering weekend workshops aside from his daily classes to keep himself challenged and to boost his income. And just one final example, two recent graduates have used their training experience to go back and launch their own advanced teacher training program. It’s so great to see yoga teachers empowered like that. This, of course, is just business side of things. On a personal level, our graduates have expanded their views on yoga, taken on new practices, started teaching and studying Ayurveda, Sanskrit, and traveling all over the world. I don’t want to make it seem like all you have to do is show up to some course and all your problems will be solved— there is no magic pill. But to the best of my knowledge, for a career-minded yoga

Teach Yoga, Inspire Students & Change Lives

9 teacher trying to figure out, “What’s next?” this course should be on the top of your must-do list. But enough about this course… This is about you and your teaching career. Whatever you decide to do, take what you’ve learned here today, even if it’s just as simple as committing to your personal practice 6 days per week for the rest of this month; or taking a new class with a teacher you admire; or deepening your knowledge about pranayama—and do it! Remember why you got into yoga in the first place, remember the energy and enthusiasm you had when you first started. That energy isn’t gone, it’s just hidden, and it’s your job to go out and find it. Thanks for listening to me share what has become a true passion in my life: helping yoga teachers achieve their full potential. I’m always accessible via phone or email if you want to chat, and I very much hope we have a chance to meet either on or off the mat very soon. Keep practicing,

Lucas Rockwood Absolute Yoga lucas@absoluteyogasamui.com

Teach Yoga, Inspire Students & Change Lives