Luca Richards ~ Why Yoga Teachers Burn Out: The Secret to Longevity in the Industry

Episode Transcript
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(00:33):
Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast,so happy you are here. My goal
with this channel is to bringinspirational speakers to the
mic in the field of yoga,massage, body work and beyond.
Follow us at @nativeyoga andcheck us out at
nativeyogacenter.com. All right,let's begin. You.

(01:05):
Hello. This is Native YogaToddcast. I'm Todd McLaughlin.
Today, my special guest, LucaRichards. Visit Luca on two
websites, onelitfromwithinyoga.com, the other

https (01:23):
//goodcompanyco.com/, Instagram handles are in
description. Click the link,you'll find them easy, and I am
very grateful. Thank you. Luca,I enjoyed this conversation
immensely, and I feel like thewisdom that Luca brings to the

(01:45):
table here is applicable to allof us. And as a yoga
practitioner myself, and as youbeing a yoga practitioner,
having interest, having passion,having love for yoga, I think
what you'll might notice, what Inoticed is that Luca fluidly has

(02:05):
been able, and is able to movefrom each of these various
worlds that we speak aboutwithin this conversation so
fluidly, effortlessly, it seems,and and just really brings a lot
of wisdom and insight into whatit's like to be a yoga teacher,
to facilitate trainings, to hostworkshops, to run businesses, to

(02:27):
own studios. And so I hope youfind this as valuable as I do,
and please send a message toLuca to let him know if you
enjoyed this, send a message tome. I always appreciate
feedback. We really appreciateany sort of feedback is great,
and let us know what you think.
All right, on that note, let'sget started. I'm really grateful

(02:48):
and excited to have thisopportunity to meet and speak
with Luca Richards. Luca, thankyou so much for joining me
today, and I've been lookingforward to this conversation,
how, how's your day going sofar? What's how's the new year
treating you?
Well, yeah, thanks Todd. It'sgreat. It's really great to be

(03:08):
here. Well, the New Year's goinggreat. This is my first day with
my head up from moving into mynew place. So if you do hear
some hammering in thebackground, it's not the wheels
of my mind turning. It's actualcovering happening from the
restaurant downstairs. But yeah,it's been, well, moving has been

(03:29):
a real practice of yoga with myhusband and working together to
hang pictures and move furnitureand make decisions. And it's
been really wonderful andmagical and gelling and creating
a new home together and having alot of laughs and, you know,
really challenging opportunitiesfor growth.

(03:52):
Well, congratulations. Do youmind me asking, Where did you
move from and to? Yeah,well, I'm from Southern Maine,
so I grew up in Portland. Ilived away for many years. I
lived in, you know, I movedquickly to New York, Los
Angeles, Boston, Miami, where Ilived for many years, and moved
back here, gosh, about fiveyears ago, I was lucky to be
able to work remotely, evenbefore it was happening widely.

(04:15):
Moved back to me. What wouldhappen was I was traveling so
much, teaching yoga and stuff. Igo to, like, I go to, like, cool
places like Atlanta, and whoeverwas hosting me there would be
like, Oh my God, you've got tocome check out the Old Fourth
Ward. They're they're building,they're putting, like,
restaurants inside of oldwarehouses. And I'm like, Okay,

(04:35):
well, I'm from Maine, so like,everything's inside of a
warehouse, and it's so whatwould happen is more and more
I'd come home, and maybe becauseI was getting older, or Portland
was getting cooler, but I would,I'd be like, this is a really
cool spot, but I didn't think atthat time I'd have an
opportunity to do what I dohere. That opportunity presented

(04:56):
itself, and. I moved back. So Imoved anyway. To answer your
question, I moved from Portland,where I moved back about five
years ago, just one town, overto Falmouth, Maine. So we just
relocated just it's just aboutfive minutes away, but nice,
more suburban, a little easier,little more manicured, very

(05:19):
cool, and I've never been toMaine. I can't wait to go
someday. Here, it's absolutelybeautiful. Can so and it's
January right now. What is theweather? There are you guys
under snow? It's got to be waycolder than Florida right now.
Well,it certainly is colder than
Florida. It's not snowing hereright now. I think it's just

(05:39):
cold. I'm going to be honestwith you, I have not left the
house today. So it looks cold.
It looks great. It's January inMaine. The days are short. You
know, we get our days. Our sungoes down around a little after
four, yeah, yeah, in the winter,and then in the summer, it's
like, you know, light untileight, eight plus. So we swing

(06:02):
in the pendulum, which isunderstood, a fun adventure,
cool. Well, have a ton ofquestions for you, because I
feel like I'm just meeting you.
I am meeting you for the firsttime, and I've I've been able to
read about you and learn aboutyour work and your journey, but
I'd like to hear it from you.
I'm curious, what was your forayor entry into this wonderful

(06:24):
world of yoga?
Yeah, I in thinking about comingto talk to you today, I was
doing a little bit of timeliningto get a sense of it. So I was
introduced to yoga over 30 yearsago, and well, I'm almost 50, so
I'll be 50 this year, 2025Yeah, I'm with you. I'm 51 so

(06:46):
you are,yeah, man, some people, you
know, because I think I dogenetically look a little young.
So some people be like, what'syour secret? And obviously, yoga
is the obvious answer. But it'snot that, it's just that I don't
have many kids, you know?
I'm gonna, I'm gonna say, Yeah,you're right, dude.

(07:09):
So I, yeah, I was introducedyoga for 30 years ago, and I've
been really teaching for what isnow 25 years. You know? I
started teaching and and workingin Los Angeles, actually working
with some, you know, I like tosay, like, you know,
celebrities, but you know, D andF list celebrities, we could

(07:30):
say, and then made some movesand continued in the field, and
continued to grow and opened myown business in My mid 20s here
in Portland, Maine, I came backfor a spell and opened a fitness
studio here, and then went on torun medium sized business in
South Florida. I spent some timeworking with in Kenya, with

(07:52):
Africa yoga project. And, youknow, in Florida, when I was
there, I I was sort of thedirector, and I was directly
accountable for over 120teachers in five brick and
mortar locations. So it wasreally my first entrance into
the business of yoga at a highlevel, other than being an
entrepreneur, like reallydeveloping teachers, which has
you know since become my what Ilike to think as my lane, or my

(08:15):
passion. And then went on towork for an international
training brand, so Baptist yoga,some of your listeners may have
heard of and really travelingthe world, working closely with
those trainings, smalltrainings, I would lead, and
then support Baron Baptiste,who's the founder of Baptist
yoga, in his facilitation at thelarger scope trainings. And

(08:37):
then, you know, sort of moved,moved moved on, and really, you
know, more recently,transitioned the work of what we
all know is the work of yoga,you know, into more corporate
coaching and consulting, softskills development and training
and doing a lot of work therenow, more so than yoga. So have
one toe in the door for yoga,mostly in trainings we can talk

(09:02):
about a little bit later. Yeah,300 level, and I would say,
working with leaders on theirfacilitation and also giving
them replicable content to beable to lead their own trainings
and programs. Nice, but it'skind of the long, that's the
timeline of it? Yeah. Imean, that's that's 25 years in
a nutshell. Well done. It's noteasy to break all that down, all

(09:25):
the highs and the lows into anelevator pitch. But good job. I
so at 20 it sounds like aroundabout 25 is when you opened your
fitness studio in Maine, and youdidn't say yoga studio, you said
fitness studio. So I'm gatheringat this point, had you studied
or practiced with Baron yet andor were you doing a combo of

(09:49):
yoga and fitness in your firstbusiness? Yeah,
it's a great question. So yeah,I had, I had done some training
with Baron when I opened thebusiness with a business.
Partner. We I when I was in LA,I'd also trained in classical
Pilates, but I studied inHollywood, right across from

(10:10):
CBS, at a place that was very,it was very yoga, like the
teachers were very yoga. So itwas really my first, you know,
Introduction to professionalteaching. And so it was a little
Pilates, yes, and very strict inthe classical format, but also
with a very yogic sort ofbackdrop, yeah. And so then we,

(10:31):
we, when I opened the businesshere in Maine with my business
partner, she also had a Pilatesbackground. And then she also
did something called bar, whichis much more popular now, but
she'd studied with some of thein New York. She'd studied with,
you know, whoever brought thatup into being. And so we kind of

(10:52):
had, we were like, really didokay, let's be honest. We did
not know what we were doing.
Made a lot of mistakes and andmaybe for better later on, but
at the time, you know, we didn'treally know what we're doing.
But you know, nobody really atthat time, especially here, was
doing combo, sort of boutiquefitness, where you'd be like

(11:12):
doing we had yoga happening. Wehad Pilates on the machine
happening. We have barhappening. We had some personal
training hit stuff happening, sowe didn't know better than to
dial it in. We were very happyfor it to be, yeah, loose and
open. And you know it was. Itwas pretty wonderful experience.

(11:34):
Sounds like a little ahead ofthe curve, almost in relation to
now. There is a lot of crosspollination within fitness
studios. Do you? Do you feellike it is a more trendy thing
to do to bring in these multipledisciplines into a single space?
Well, say in having a lot ofconversations with with yoga

(11:57):
studio owners, I think one ofthe things I always advise
people to do is pick a lane, Ithink, for the most and maybe
that comes from my ownexperience, but also, if you
don't have the bandwidth,really, to run multiple
schedules and run multiplemodalities happening at the same
time, or even really be able to,you know, do quality control on

(12:22):
different teachers. So what mostyoga studio owners will do,
especially new, new and out ofthe gate, is they'll sort of
open and they'll just hire inwhoever they can. And usually
they're like, oh, let's bring inthis person. But what what
happens is, even in the yoga,the yoga gets very confused,
yeah, because, like, I'm goingin Tuesday, I'm taking Todd's
class. It looks like this, itfeels like this. Then I'm going

(12:43):
in. Wednesday, I'm taking Lucasclass. It looks like this, it
feels like this. And from abusiness model perspective, it
doesn't work. Yeah, yeah. And,and, you know, one place I
really saw that when we openedthe studio in Miami. So at the
time, I was in Kenya, and I metwith the owner of the South

(13:04):
Florida businesses, and theywere just opening this
tremendous Yoga Studio in Miami,and it had, like, it opened up
these sliders and could fit overlike 200 people. Was that the
frogone was there? Like, a green
you're thinking the greenmonkey, the green monkey, oh my
gosh, yeah. Is thatwhat it was, it was that, well,
it was a precursor to that,before we merged into green
monkey. And what happened therewas really, you know, especially

(13:28):
in Miami, and I'm not sure whereyou are, but people just
followed teachers. So it wasvery teacher driven. So the
successful studios just sort ofhad successful, yeah, teachers.
And you know, what we were goingto do is going to be very
different. It was going to bevery uniform. You know, you're
going to get a product, not thatit was going to be boring or the
same, or, you know, anythinglike that. It was just that, you

(13:50):
know, the students who come inat four o'clock, whoever was
teaching, and get the sameproduct. And it was very
interesting. A lot of the, youknow, very popular and
successful yoga teachers came tovisit, and they said to us, when
we first opened, this is nevergoing to work here in Miami.
This is not what people want inMiami. They follow teachers.
They want it to be, you know,much more spiritual. They want

(14:12):
it to be more free form, moreopen. And we said, okay, and I
will say in the context of,like, 18 months, we were the
biggest studio in in Miami. Wewere just crushing it.
I remember hearing about youguys, yeah, I remember, I feel
like I was watching from afar,what your development. Yeah,

(14:34):
people were, we were justcrushing it. Because people were
hungry for consistency. It'sactually, you know, they were,
they were hungry for classes tobegin and end on time for there
to be a clear structure, notthat it would be the same in
every class, and certainlypersonalities drove the class,
but we could interchangeteachers. It became a really

(14:55):
easy model in which to trainteachers and have them be really
successful. Full quickly, so Ito answer your answer. Asked me
a question about five minutesago, but I'll answer it now.
Okay, so two things. So Ilearned from my own experience
that what being kind of wide andshallow and wide wasn't really

(15:18):
the right model. You know, toreally go skinny and deep. It
tends to be a more successfulbusiness model in in yoga,
unless you've got, like, thebandwidth, but I would say even,
like in an equinox, or one ofthose big gyms where they have a
variety of different classes,you know, that's really a
selling proposition, like, we'vegot all this, you could do all

(15:38):
this. But really, what tends tobe successful, even in those
businesses, is, is what'sconsistent?
I agree. I agree 100% that's sointeresting. I i like the
juxtaposition of what you'resaying with the the multiple
assets and your your experiencewith trying to hold that down

(15:59):
and then coming in with a reallysolid program that is very
consistent, but you said forabout 18 months we crushed it. I
just want to I'm curious to hearfrom you. Well, then what
evolved? Because somethinghappened after 18 months. Where
was the breakdown?
Well, I would say it took usabout 18 months to get up to
speed. Is, is what I meant. Andit did break down. And I'll tell

(16:23):
you where it broke down is, isexactly in the moment you're
referring to when we merged ouroriginal brand, which was called
Bala vinyasa, with the verypopular local brand, which was
green monkey. And what we hadwas two very divergent and
distinct cultures. And you know,one of the greatest challenges
in my life was being at the tipof the spear to bring those two

(16:45):
cultures together. I met withevery single teacher from the
green monkey, and I said, here'swho we are as a culture. Here's
what we want to create. This iswhat we do. This is what we want
to invite you into. Some of themwanted to be part of it. And
then those that didn't, wegenerally invited them to go do
that elsewhere, and they did.
And some, some, some of them togreat success. But really we

(17:07):
knew who we were, and sobringing those two businesses
together and expanding suddenlyfrom three locations to at five
locations might even been sixfor a short time, six locations
and and really, with two verydistinct cultures, I think
ultimately was it was a littleahead of itself. Ah, very

(17:32):
challenging transition, Ican imagine. So you originally
were to the ball of vinyasa.
That was your original creationwith with a group of people, am
I right? Yeah.
Well, I was brought in as todirect it was, it was owned by a
great mentor of mine, kirstjMooney. She owned it, and she
brought me in to work there coolsort of, I spearhead with it,

(17:55):
with a small team the Miamistudio, until we merged and and
worked. And, you know, evenstill, it was still moderately
successful, I think ultimately,just collapsed under its own
weight. Wherewere the Civic studios, like all
within the Miami area or spreadout cross country?
They were we had two in Naples,Florida. We had our Miami

(18:17):
location. There was a greenmonkey in South Miami. We had a
Miami Beach green monkey, and wealso had a Fort Lauderdale green
monkey. Gotit, got it. And based off what
you're saying, then the factthat there's these two distinct
cultures was there a bit of abattle, so to speak. That's
probably the wrong word, a anego, a power trip between each

(18:37):
side is like, who's going tobend here to be in control of
the overall vision of theunification?
Yeah, well, I think you'reright. I think there's always a
bit of that, because we've gonefrom strong leadership under
Kiersten to her merging andworking with the owner of the

(18:58):
green monkeys, and they decidedto stay in partnership. It
wasn't a buyout, yeah, and hewas a businessman, and saw
things very, a bit distinctly,and was looking at the numbers.
And Kirsten was a cultureperson, and she's she knew that
if we implemented a strategy ofculture, we'd be able to get,
wow, the results we wanted. Butthat was always a push and pull

(19:19):
for what was happening. Becausein order to, you know, be
successful, we weren't able tojust clean house and just put in
a bunch of new teachers. Wereally had to work with the
amazing and exceptional teachersthat were already acrimony. But
that was a very differentphilosophy. It was a very
individual and I do my this ismy thing, and this is what I do,

(19:41):
yeah,yeah. Well, I could see where
that would be challenging.
Yeah. I feel very blessed. Youknow, it's like the work I do
now with yoga studios and studioowners is really informed by,
you know, a lot of what wentwrong in my own business, but
even in these other businesses.
I, you know, some of theseplaces where I we fell on our

(20:02):
knees or fell on our face, hasbeen so instrumental in me being
able to have, you know,conversations, not just inside
of yoga with yoga studios andstudio owners and key leaders,
but now that I do this workinside of corporate America,
it's, it's interesting how muchof it translates over wow,

(20:24):
like the core is there. Itdoesn't matter what the business
or product or service that'sbeing delivered underneath,
there's these same challenges,so to speak, and or levers that
you can pull to to createsuccess. Is that going a little
too far, far out there. Doesbusiness actually work on

(20:45):
levers? You know what I mean?
Like you read business books andyou go, that's a great idea.
Whoa, I really got to implementthese ideas of pull this lever
and do that trigger and thattype of thing. But for me
personally, it's always likesuch an organic thing, and you
just keep trying so many things.
I'm so excited to hear somebodywho to talk to you, to hear, you
know, you've been really workingwith this, to direct the

(21:08):
question in this angle. When I,my wife and I used to own a
Bikram studio in San Diego, andthen we went and studied
Ashtanga in Mysore, and I hadthis kind of, like, similar
concept that you're saying, oflike, if you want to, like,
really focus in on one thing.
And we were kind of gettingsplit in between two. And we we
could see the business model ofthe B Crom world was so good in

(21:28):
the sense that you got oneclass, it's 90 minutes, it's the
same 26 poses every single timeyou got the class going, six
times a day, any teacher cancome in, can come out, and yet,
there was such a and people goto Bikram, they'd be like, you
know, Bikram, you're like, theMcDonald's in a derogatory way,
like, you're the McDonald's ofyoga. And he'd be like, Yeah,

(21:48):
I'm the McDonald's of yoga.
Thank you very much. Like, thisis a business model plan that
works. And he was very obviouslysuccessful up until a point
where I don't really look at PECas very successful now. But
anyway, when I got Baron's book,and I was really kind of under
bikrams thumb, I was so nervousabout going out on my own. And

(22:11):
then I got Baron's journey intopower book, and I saw how he
kind of blended these multiple,you know, study with Iyengar and
Bikram and in the vinyasa,stronger world. And he empowered
me to think I could do this,just off that book. I never met
him, but I thought, if he can doit, it's possible, right, to

(22:33):
kind of tread your own path. SoI guess I'm curious in your
observation of everything thatwe're speaking about thus far,
can you give me a little insightinto just what your experience
has been working with Baron andand some of these ideas about
combining what we've learned allalong and somehow making that

(22:53):
accessible and a good model forfor making a business work,
it's a great question. You know,I would say this, I think Baron
is brilliant. He's reallybrilliant and and really had a
great listening for otherpeople's listening, like how
their capacity for actuallydigesting information and taking

(23:15):
that, making it applicable, likeyou're saying, you know, just
you reading the book and feelinglike you could do it is, I
think, I think he'd be so happyto hear that. I think that's
really at the heart of who heis, as as a leader and as a
thought leader. In that way. Ithink, you know, so much of what
he would refer to as hismethodology is, is really, you

(23:35):
know, it's the ocean in a papercup. It's, he's, and he gets it,
he's, he's lived that life, youknow, like you said, working
with greats like Iyengar Bikram,you know, his family opened, you
know, brought in, invited allthese gurus from San Francisco.
And, you know, he's lived it,and also somehow managed to get
maybe in his own studentship,like what goes over people's

(23:58):
heads and how to really dial itin, and how to make it just
complicated enough, if not alittle bit overly complicated in
a simple way. I know that soundscrazy, but no, I get
that. That actually makes sense.
That was, that is a weird idea,but that's cool. Man, that's a
good point. Yeah,I, you know, I have been lucky
in my life to have we talkedabout this a little bit before

(24:21):
we started. Have really, havehad really strong mentors, you
know, in my life and and thementors I needed, because I
think I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm notalways the best student. And so,
you know, throughout my life,I've had these really, you know,
I think about Joe fontechio, whoused to own the food bar in
Chelsea, New York, and I workedthere for a time, and I was late

(24:43):
a few days in a row. And I thinkthe last day I was ever late for
anything, I walked into the barand he swung around on the stool
you could smoke at the time witha cigarette in his mouth. He
said, Don't be late again. And Idon't think I've been late to
anything. And I think you. Know,sometimes I think I've been
lucky to have really mentors whoare courageous enough to

(25:04):
actually say what needs to besaid, or to point you to what
needs to be pointed to you. It'slike the it's the broccoli in
your teeth. I've been lucky tohave mentors who've said,
There's broccoli in your teeth.
Stop doing what you're doing.
It's not working for you. And Ithink Baron's been one of those
mentors for me, so I got thegreat privilege of working with
him closely for many years. Imean, I was the, you know, first

(25:25):
person to see him in themorning, last person to see him
at night. We'd worked togetheron facilitation and his what he
was leading that day, and how hewas going to lead it, and what
it would look like. And I knewwhat an amazing education that
was for years to get hisinsights and really get a sense
of of what he was doing and whyhe was choosing to do it from

(25:46):
behind the scenes. And, youknow, again, that's filtered so
much into my work now as afacilitator and coach that I
don't think I could have evergot to on my own without that,
you know, support of a, youknow, really guiding hand. And
I'm always so grateful to himand to the work he's done. And I
wouldn't be doing what I'm doinghad I not, you know, had that

(26:10):
opportunity.
That's so cool. Luca, you know,what are your feelings and
thoughts currently about thewhere the state of let me see if
I can, let me try to do this.
Well, the world is in fluxconstantly, and it seems like

(26:30):
we're pushing and pulling backand forth from these different
ideas. If I grew up or wastrained the same way you were.
And, you know, it's easy for meto make fun of B CRM, based off
of how things evolved, but thesame time he kicked my butt. He
really kicked my butt. He yelledat me, he he was so intense. And

(26:56):
as much as I'd be like, I wantto be like, you know, look, you
guys don't follow that path,because that doesn't lead you
into greatness, you know, takingadvantage of people. But at the
same time, I'm so thankful,like, what you're saying, and I
feel like we've been in a littlebit of a that was a push, and

(27:17):
then we've gone through a littlebit of a pull collectively into,
let's be nicer to people. Let'slet's treat them kindly. Let's
not take maybe, let's not tellthem they have broccoli in their
teeth, and try to get itcreatively with get them to get
the broccoli out. But instead ofjust like say, Hey, man, you got

(27:40):
broccoli in your teeth. Let'sget creative. So I just would
love to hear what your thoughtsare on finding that balance
between the hardcore. Tell itlike it is. Let's not cut around
any corners. Let's get to thechase and being kind and
thoughtful in the world of, say,trauma informed and all of that.

(28:08):
Well, I think when you knowbetter, you do better as Maya
Angelou, I think, yeah, we thinkabout where some of these large
format training came from these,these large group. Forget the
exact name for it, but they'relike, you know, you know,
essentially like the world inthe 90s, early 2000s where you

(28:31):
know, and even then somewhereyou know, and where somebody
would be, you know, asked toshare in front of a group of
people, 100 200 people, and thensort of coached by, you know, a
leader of the group. And there'sso much power dynamics in that
there's so much, you know, I'msaying, in front of all these
people, there's that's a largergroup than most people will ever

(28:51):
stand in front of, and sharingsomething vulnerably and being
pushed, say, in a way that evenas gently as it can be like it's
your choice to share. You'restill in this environment in
which you don't have a lot ofchoice. And I think that's what
the the important message oftoday is, is that, well, wait,
why are we doing that anyway?
And though, I think we have tobe mindful when we look back

(29:16):
that we're not looking back witheyesight from today, we're not
looking back at what got ushere. We would never have been
able to get to the revelationthat there might be a better way
if we hadn't, sort of gonethrough the just like it's just
like my life in business, right?
If, if I hadn't messed it up soprofoundly, I wouldn't have a

(29:38):
clear understanding of whatworks. I wouldn't be actually
any efficient at my job in anyway. And if you know we have to,
I think we sort of have to lookback at ourselves, certainly in
our own journeys, but also ourcollective journey, certainly in
yoga and certainly in all ofthese areas of thought
leadership, we have to look backand be like, Well, they didn't,
they didn't necessarily knowthey were doing what they knew.

(30:00):
To do and knew how to do. And itthose of us that got something,
we got something, those thatdidn't may have been, you know,
may have had a bad experience,but that bad experience in
itself, we could say, is couldbe of use, if you choose to look
at it that way. I'm not talkingabout certainly in the case of

(30:21):
Bikram or those kinds of, youknow, criminal activities, you
know, I'm not referring to that.
I'm sort of more saying ingeneral, like the way in which
we're we're working together andtalking and having
conversations, it's really up tous to glean the good and let go
of the bad. And I think thatthat's, I don't know, that's

(30:43):
kind of the message to me is,you know, I because I get to
work with a lot of younger yogateachers when I travel or go to
studios, and, you know, it'slike, gosh, it's like, I hope
they're getting told the truth,at least in it, even if it's in
a nice way. Yeah, good point. Idon't know. I don't know,
personally, what a world lookslike without, without
mentorship. Yeah,great point. Do you feel like

(31:06):
there's almost the attempt toremove mentorship? Like, if
we're, if we're, if we'renervous about, I hear very often
about, okay, the educationsystem is so bad. I hear people
saying, like, everybody wins anaward. I hear people saying, you
know, we got to be very carefulabout how we speak with other

(31:29):
people. I agree. And I'm justwondering, do you feel like
there's an attempt to removementorship because, like, an
attack on, say, the gurudisciple structure. You know, a
lot of the ways that we werelearning was initially, it seems
to be that it was from this sortof guru disciple. The Guru knows
the disciples learning youlisten to the guru, no matter

(31:50):
what the guru says, you follow.
And there's clearly a lot ofstuff that can go wrong in that
model. Clearly a lot of stuffthat can go well in that model.
Do you feel like we're Do youfeel we would ever remove the
mentor from the situation, andif we did, it sounds to me like
you're feeling like that couldultimately not be a good thing.

(32:12):
Well, you know, like in somekindergartens, they arranged the
tables to face each other, sothat there's like four or six
kindergarteners, and they'refacing each other, and so that
what they're, you know, teachersmay be in the background
talking, but they're whatthey're seeing is each other, so

(32:34):
they're sort of learning fromeach other. Now, what I would
say is that I'm not an expert oneducation, and I'm certainly not
tackling challenges in youngeducation, but what I would say
is like, Well, is theresomething to be said for
students actually facing theteacher? The teachers really the
leader in the room, the teachersthe one with the experience. And

(32:54):
if we that and carefully placeour leaders and our teachers,
and if our teachers take thatwith that responsibility, with a
level of reverence that they'renot sort of taking advantage of
their positions of power andleadership. If we could make
that assumption, then really,shouldn't that? Shouldn't the
students be facing the teacher?
That's where, that's where wewant to

(33:16):
look. That's a good question oreducation. You
know, I think that's true inthat Guru, also it's I should, I
should hammerings here, that ismy mind turning this time. But
you know, that is, you know theguru. You know every religion.
You know, it's like every notjust yoga, if you you know,

(33:37):
everywhere from, you know,Michelangelo and apprentices to,
you know, how do you learn howto paint if you if you're not,
you know, there with a masterlearning how to what they're
what they're doing. And I seethis a lot with young yoga
teachers. I think they know thatthey already know better. And so
a lot of the conversations Ihave, you know, sometimes

(33:58):
working with newer leaders ornewer yoga teachers is that they
sort of have, they have itfigured out already, and, and
I'm like, Okay, well, that'sI'll come back in a couple
years. Let's see, yeah, yeah.
Let's see how that goes.
Yeah. Can you talk a little bitabout your yoga teacher training

(34:19):
that you offer, and what aresome of the key components that
you focus on as as your teachingmethodology?
Yeah, thank you for asking. Soyou know, my yoga, my toe in the
yoga business is called lit fromwithin yoga, and I do that with

(34:39):
a couple amazing partners, Mary,Lynn, Jenkins and Karen Tyrone,
and we bring very differentperspectives, but we're very
clear. What we do is we have a300 hour training. We don't
necessarily call it a 300 hourwe call it a the good to great
facilitator Academy. It's a 300hour training that doesn't focus
on more philosophy. More anatomyor more of anything. It really

(35:03):
is an opportunity to a to becomestronger in facilitation, from
the classroom up to workshops upto trainings. So really, how do
I develop and create replicablecontent for myself? You know,
most, most, even good yogateachers will show up at a
workshop and they'll have a fewnotes on a post it, and then

(35:24):
they'll just see what happens.
And you know, there's, there'snothing wrong with that, and
it's going to work for apercentage of the time. It's
going to work. But what we'vefound is that if we actually
give people a solid foundationof scaffolding, you know, it's
going to be successful more thanit's not. And even in the
classroom, if, if we're standingin some really clear tools and
skill sets and scaffolding,right, it's going to be great

(35:47):
more than it's not, and and it'sgoing to give us an opportunity
for connection, versus removeconnection, which I think is
always the fear of teaching in asystem. It's like, I just want
to go in and feel I can't tellyou how many times I hear let me
just go in and just go in andfeel the room. It's like, no,
no. Stop feeling the room. Like,don't go in at six. Feels like,

(36:08):
you guys just want to rollaround today. It's like, no,
they don't come here at 6am theywant to be led. You know, they
need you to lead them. And so itmaybe harkens back to our
conversation about mentorship.
Yeah, we have to sometimes havestrong mentors to be strong
leaders, to be able to say, no,everybody. Get into that warrior

(36:30):
two. And I think that say whatBikram did really well with the
26 postures, like it's youdon't. You're not really having
a choice, yeah, yeah, should wedo an extra long hip opener
today. We don't. We're not, andI think that's in a way, why it
was successful anyway. So whatwe do in the facilitator Academy
is really look at those tools inthe context of teaching a class.

(36:52):
So you know, sun salutations toShavasana. What are those tools?
I call them key building blocksthat I've learned throughout the
years of what are those? What isthat scaffolding? And how does
it? How does it support me andactually doing what I love to
do, which is create connectionwith the students. It's really
important. Without it, withoutit, it falls apart more often

(37:15):
than it doesn't. And I just seeit. You know, one of the things
I see is our role at lit fromwithin yoga. And my own role is
that, you know, I want to yogateachers are amazing people. I
really like them, and they don'tstay in the game very long.
You've probably seen this. Theylike they don't. It's, you know,
it's like, it's fun and it's gotenergy to it, and then it

(37:39):
doesn't. And I think if we canapply strategy and tools that
aren't just like secondary butreally at the foundation of what
we're doing, then more likelythose teachers will have the
skills to be able to overcomethose, those energy hurdles, of
like, Oh, I'm kind of bored withseeing these same faces, or my
classes aren't growing. Or like,what you know, why isn't? Why is

(38:02):
this person's classes so muchbusier? It can be really
challenging. So we move from,anyway, I'm saying a lot, but we
move from, like, the inclassroom teaching, to
developing workshops, to reallyunderstanding how those
workshops get marketed, andreally talk about what are the
key aspects of facilitation,what you're doing here, leading
conversations, asking greatquestions. You know, it's it's

(38:24):
essential to a career in yoga.
Oh, man, I'm happy to heareverything you're saying. Luca,
the I like the scaffoldinganalogy and this building
process. And I grew up withhearing this slogan as a kid,
the 6p over and over and overagain, used to annoy the heck
out of me. It was the 6p or theproper planning prevents piss

(38:46):
poor performance. And I wouldget told this whenever I wasn't
putting proper planning into myinto my strategies, and I would
get so frustrated. But I thinkit's a really valuable idea
about how important it is toactually plan and think things
through and have strategy, andyou're right. And when you bring

(39:08):
these concepts into a trainingformat, I'm excited to hear that
you're approaching the training,the 300 hour training, because
this is where we say, Okay, thisis an advanced training, or this
is the training that you woulddo after you've already
completed a training. So we cantake a slightly different tack.
I like the fact that you saidit's not more of this, it's not

(39:29):
just more of that. It's morelike, let's break down the
strategy. So that's so cool,man. I yeah, I think that's a
brilliant idea, and it's, I'mhappy to hear that you guys are
having success with it, and thatyou've been able to collaborate
with others in on the project.
So that's sounds amazing. And Ithink I definitely have days,
and I'm sure you probably wouldagree that maybe you can't be

(39:49):
doing your six PS for everythingall the time. Like some days I
do come in and go, let me justfeel the room. But I love the
fact that you said, Stop doingthat. Like. Don't do that all
the time, like you gotta. Yougotta prepare and plan so it's
encouraging. Gives me amotivation. I appreciate that,
man,thank you. Yeah. Man, yeah. I
think you know a couple things.

(40:12):
I think there's a I think mostof us do what we do because we
get something out of it, andbecause we enjoy getting
something out of givingsomething. And I think all the
work we're doing to remainrelevant and interesting and to
make it, you know, make itdynamic for the students is, you

(40:34):
know, is really sometimes in theway of that connection,
in the way of the connection, sothe the Pro. So let me just try
to understand what you said. Ithink you said, like, so then in
the process of building thescaffolding, though, you're
saying that that also can get inthe way, did I get that right?
Like, there's like, a balance tothat?

(40:55):
Yeah, I think so, in a way, Ithink yeah, you learn it to a
point that you have a level ofmastery over the tools. So the
tools are there to support you.
And then, you know, in a way, itclears the space, you know, it
actually clears a space for whatwe all want, which is to connect
and and make a difference. Yeah,good for the students. Yeah. And
it's fascinating. I mean, oneplace we really see this at lit,

(41:18):
from within one of our productsthat we're really proud of is
that we created and sell a 200hour training to new not always
to new studios, but so we havethis complete product. It's a
complete 200 hour yoga teachertraining that works, that
provides tools that has a clearpromise to allow for your
students to leave that trainingable to stand in front of a

(41:42):
group of people and actuallyteach yoga practice from soup to
nuts and and then what we do iswe sell that to studios, the
materials, the intellectualproperty, and then we coach them
through leading it. So we givethem this facilitation
opportunity, and we work withthem closely, and we work with
them throughout in marketing andthroughout the process. And so
what we've seen with that a lotof the times new new studio

(42:05):
owners are very skeptical to tostart their own 200 It feels
very daunting, and it's a bigproject and it's a scary
project, and they don't want toget it wrong. And so, you know,
one of the places that I thinkthis model is really successful,
is in really clear, replicablecontent that you're able to read
off the page. You know, I alwayslike to joke, like, if you

(42:28):
handed this to my mother, wouldshe be able to deliver this, you
know, with no experience infacilitation or or until we've
refined the product so clearlythat, you know, hopefully,
people who own, who want to lead200 hour, you know, trainings in
their studio are able to, andreally, we've worked with
almost, I think, at this point,10 partners, and a lot of them

(42:50):
have been like, newer studios,or one that comes to mind, you
know, she just opened and, youknow, she was like, Hey, I'm
just going to do This. And shehas almost 20 people in her
training. And nice, you know, Ikeep poking her to see what's
going wrong. And she's like, No,it's going great.
Are you that sounds cool? Solike, if we were just to say,

(43:11):
take the pose, Triangle Pose,that then you are and maybe
you're doing it somethingdifferent from the postural
side. But if you're saying,okay, Triangle Pose. We're going
to pick five key things thatyou're going to point out. Let's
start from the feet and work ourway up to the hand. Turn your
feet this way, make the legs dothis angle. Your hips that way,

(43:32):
shoulders this way, and top handhere. Now I want you to repeat
that in that order of those fivekey points is that, is that to
the level that you're attemptingto kind of simplify so that the
process of delivering will feelcomfortable and not haphazard
and like, hey everybody trianglepose so and then having no clear

(43:52):
direction as to how to getsomeone from point A to point B.
Is that, am I understandingproperly some of the methodology
of how you're taking this song.
Well, I wouldjust say it a little bit
different. This might be a bitcontroversial, but I advocate
for teaching principles, notposes. I think one thing to know
is that we spend a lot of timespeaking to say, the form action
and alignment of individualposes. So as you just did, like,

(44:15):
Hey, this is what triangle lookslike. Here's kind of what's
happening inside of there.
Here's what's going on. And as aresult, your students, yes, your
students learn something aboutTriangle Pose, but it's not
applicable to any other pose.
But if we were to teach Hey, sayone key element, say, neutral
pelvis, right? But we were tolook at that key principle

(44:36):
through a series of differentranges of motion, say, forms,
yoga forms. We were to look athow neutral pelvis affects
Tadasana, how it affectstriangle, how it affects plank,
how it affects handstand. Ifwe're to look at how that
principle is applied, not justin a pose, but throughout the
poses, students have actuallylearned something. This will

(44:57):
make a huge. Difference. I'lljust say this, if you're doing
this in a class, I wouldrecommend this. So this, again,
this is a bit controversial. Iwould say, Stop teaching
everything. Start teaching onething in your class. Say, pick
up what I would call a physicalfocus. Let's say it's neutral
pelvis. Show them what it is atthe beginning of the class, and
then keep pointing back to itthrough a series of

(45:19):
gravitational forces throughranges of motions. At the end of
the class, what will likelyhappen is your students will
come up to you with slightlydifferent feedback than they've
been giving you before. Peopleare nice. They want you to they
want you to know you did a goodjob. When we're done with this
call, I'm going to ask you if Idid a good job, as my spiritual
teacher, Oprah, says, All of herguests from celebrities to

(45:40):
housewives. You know, everybodyat the end of the interview,
they say, Did I do a good job?
Most of the feedback we receiveas teachers is like, hey, thanks
Todd. I liked your class. Or,thanks, I did. You know, good
job. Now, when the feedbackshifts to what they got over how
you did, that's when you'vereally landed something. So if

(46:02):
you teach one principle andteach it in a way that it
becomes ingrained in thatstudent's body, that physical
body, they'll leave that classand they'll say, oh my god, I
never really got that. I neverreally got you'd be like, really
you never got it. You've beentaking class here for four
years. I've been saying neutralpelvis for four years. They're
like, No, I didn't get it, butnow I got it because it lives in

(46:22):
my body, and it's that kind ofsystem I'm talking about, from
the body up into evenfacilitating a training. How do
we get out of the what'shappening the form, say, and get
into to what's driving that,what's what's, what's causing
those alignments. And you know,each class, you know, you gave
about six different points ofalignment for a triangle. You

(46:44):
know, each class could, youknow, each of those isn't
exclusive to triangle. It lives,really in every pose. So we
could say, like, oh my gosh,here we are looking at the
alignment of the poses.
Nice. Love it. Luca, great,great little perspective shift.
So then, from the 200 200 hourperspective, if I follow your

(47:06):
strategy, and we'd start to thenattempt to tackle yoga
philosophy, we could then, intheory, take a if we were to
say, Okay, now not neutralpelvis, but let's say non
violence. And then do you gotext by text and or philosophy
by philosophy, and point out,look how nonviolence pop pops up

(47:28):
in the Hatha Yoga paddica. Lookhow nonviolence pops up over
here in the Bhagavad Gita. Haveyou guys taken that thread of
thought over into the realm ofteaching philosophy?
Well, I think again, because ourfocus is on sort of the How to
versus the what to teach. Ithink those things are
fascinating. And I think as ayoga teacher, because it's the

(47:51):
ocean in a paper cup, you know,I get Oracle from everywhere.
Like I get Oracle, not just fromyoga philosophy and text, but
maybe I'm watching an episode ofThe Golden Girls. And I'm like,
Oh my gosh, that's really,I love the Golden Girls. I just
watched them two nights ago. Wesort of have it in the
background here sometimes, well,projects are happening, but

(48:12):
yeah, it's like, oh my god, Igot that. And how that maybe
relates to some philosophy, orhow it relate? And then so I do,
I think so, in the same way Iwould give a physical focus, I
would say I would also give anenergetic focus, or
conversational focus, to aclass. What I prefer for myself
is like, I mean, I don't knowhow many times I've been in yoga

(48:32):
class, and it's like somewonderful 21 year old, new
teacher is like mind blown. Youknow, I was driving into work
today, and the sun was rising,and I thought to myself, every
day is a new beginning. I'mlike, Okay, how long are we in
this pose for it gets lost inthe day to day of it. But I
think if you're doing aconversational focus, it
involves some key elements,which is the again, this is the

(48:55):
how to but how am I creatingthat thought process throughout
the class, I call this breadcrumbing, right? So say it was
shifting perspectives, right?
Which I could tie into a sutraor shock. I could tie that into
a few, you know, philosophyelements, but say basically,
it's shifting perspectives, youknow, I could just do things a

(49:18):
bit different, and I could say,hey, took a take a look at your
lower hand inside plank, andthen press down to lift up, just
having them look in a differentdirection. Or instead of looking
up in your which is a bit of adeep level, looking up in your
upward facing dog, you know,having them look down or at a
specific spot, and having themexperience in real time, a shift
in perspective. And then towardsthe back half of class, actually

(49:44):
tying that into a deeperteacher, into a deeper learning,
into you know. How does youknow? To your point, like, how
does you know? How does nonharming? How do we how do these
things look when they're athome? That's an old English
expression. But what does itlook like in real. Life, and why
does it matter? But if we're,you know, rather than sort of
these platitudes or justdropping in drive by wisdoms,

(50:08):
which is what we're typicallydoing, in the same way, we're
queuing with everything but thekitchen sink, we're also sort of
dropping in all these platitudesor jargon so to our students
throughout an entire class, andit never really reaches deeper
than skin deep. For thestudents, they're not really
experiencing that, they're justhearing it. And I always say one

(50:29):
of the biggest mistakes yogateachers make is to say too
much, because it trains ourstudents not to listen to us.
Like the more you say, the moreyou're actually just training
your regular students that whatyou say doesn't matter, and the
more you can actually craft aclass. And this is what we do
inside of the 300 certainly is.
And for our 200 this is what wecoach. Our 200 facilitators to

(50:50):
lead is like we've got to getinto something that shares,
something that creates,something that gives somebody,
you know, something that theycan actually really hold on to,
not just sort of an airy fairyidea. Yes,

(51:12):
this is great. Luca, goodadvice. I'm so happy to hear all
this. Thank you for opening upand sharing what obviously, I
would need to sign up for andtake a course. So I appreciate
you, you know, being open aboutall these, like, kind of inside
information. So then I'mcurious, because you I have to

(51:32):
back up into a much earlier inour conversation, just to pick
your brain a little bit aboutthis, and I'll pull us back to
where we are now. You mentionedthe Africa yoga project, and I
recently had a chance tointerview a woman named Dorcas
morungu, who is involved. Shelives in Kenya, and she teaches
in her in Africa. And so when Ifollowed you on Instagram, I saw

(51:55):
Dorcas is also following you,and I went, Oh, cool. That's
cool. You know, that's one thingI think neat about I Instagram
is I'll just show like, two orthree other people that you
follow that or that followssomeone else, right? And you
kind of go, Oh, interesting.
This person knows that person.
That's kind of cool, thatthere's a connection there. Can
you talk a little bit about whatyour experience in Africa was? I

(52:16):
have had a chance to travel toAfrica. It was a mind blowing
experience for me. I'm curiouswhat, what was that? What was
that like for you going thereand making yourself a service
there while you were there?
Yeah,gosh, I just, you know, just
yesterday, as we're moving in, Iactually found my journal from
when I was in Kenya, and I waslooking at it. It's so funny in

(52:37):
the journal I sort of speak tolike the awe of it. You know, I
think one of the things i ilearned above anything else was
like, how much this sounds funnyto say, but how much joy more
joyful our friends in Kenya andcertainly the Africa yoga

(52:59):
project community is such ajoyful community. And, you know,
my parents are English. So notthat we didn't have joy,
but we have butter, you know. Soit's like similar. That's all I
have to say. My parents areEnglish. Do I need to say
they're English? Yeah,yeah, we would have butter. But
I found that joy is a closesubstitute to butter like and my

(53:22):
point about it is that I thinkmy big takeaway from being in
Kenya is that, gosh, like thewhat allows for now we kind of
know this through Brene Brown.
Now this was prior to mylearning about Brene Brown, but
so some of this language isinfluenced by Renee Brown, but

(53:43):
it's like, yeah, the joyfulnessis a direct correlation to the
vulnerability of the populationand how much we have here, and
how much we're concerned with,and how much that eliminates,
For a lot of us, the experienceof joy, like how much you know

(54:04):
how safe for the most part weare, or how you know how
vulnerability looks, somethingwe avoid here, but really it, it
seems to me, and through myexperience, it's such a clear
access to joyfulness, towholeheartedness again, to sort
of be filtered by Brene Brown alittle bit and her teachings.
But, you know, I really saw thatand got that on the ground

(54:28):
there. And, you know, I don'tknow that I knew how to be of
service. I think certainly itwas, you know, probably 15 years
ago now. And I think, I think ifI asked me, then I would have
said, I'm excited to go do thisfor me. What a good opportunity
for me. And I think, you know, Iknow that's this is a real

(54:49):
confession, but I think itreally was that turning point
for me of actually getting whatservice looks like, what it
feels like, and how it lives andbreathes in. Side of me, you
know, and not necessarily as astrategy to sort of accomplish
something or put something on myresume or check a box. And, you
know, I don't think that was mytrue intention, but I do get how

(55:12):
it opened me up to a world ofservice that I didn't even know
I needed or wanted. To behonest. Wow,
great answer that was good. CanI Can I ask? Then Joy increases,
potentially due to adversity.
Isn't that an odd paradox? Youuse the term vulnerability,

(55:35):
adversity, I would think likeI've witnessed adversity. I know
we'd witness adversityeverywhere but, but I got from
what you said is almost likethis, through the simplicity of
that challenge that might existin a place where we have to work
extra hard to get the barenecessities, to get the

(56:00):
necessities. Somehow greater joycan spring from that challenge,
am I? Did I understand youcorrectly? Did I get it right?
Yeah, I think that's a I thinkyou're right. I think you're
right. Man, that's a really goodpoint. That's a good point. It's
a good way to put that wholedynamic that occurs when you

(56:20):
witness adversity, and therealization of for me, that was
my big takeaway going to Africa.
And I, I had originally gonewith the intention of working on
a permaculture farm, which iskind of like an organic farm,
and things didn't play outanywhere close to what I thought
they were going to and I hadthis big turnaround moment of, I

(56:45):
don't really see how I can be ofservice here, and am I more a
part of the problem byattempting to think that I could
be of service than actual beingof true service. And it was like
this moment of like, Okay, it'stime for me to go. You know,
like I had this really heavymoment of like, what am I doing?

(57:07):
I clearly had grown up in aworld that was much different,
and I was so naive, and it wassuch a good eye opening
experience for me. I think itreally transformed me in a way.
So I love hearing yourexperience. That is awesome,
man. I can't agree more withyou. And I think you you said it

(57:28):
really well. Yeah, thank you.
Yeah. Ilove what you said too, because
I don't, because I think whenwe're talking about yoga
teachers, and I think there'sprobably some listening, and we
love you yoga teachers, but Ithink sometimes we get into it.
And again, we think we're wethink we're doing we think we
want to do a we want not it'snot a favorite, but we want to
be of service, because we wantto have impact on others. That's

(57:50):
what I hear you saying, like, Ireally wanted to make a
difference. I wanted to haveimpact on others. And just the
minute you have that thought,it's somewhat self focused, the
minute you think, Oh, I'm hereto make a difference to you, or
I want to make a difference tomy students. It's some Oh, wow.
Well, you're really in a worldof self here. And I think the
trick is, and I think youprobably got it in Africa United

(58:12):
too, is that the trick isactually, and even with yoga
students, our students, even themore challenging ones is being
open to the interplay ofservices in a one way,
directionality. It's a you know,we are opening up into a realm
of being for each other inunexpected ways, and it can't be

(58:34):
controlled or managed. And Ithink we see that so often,
again, with our good friend yogateachers, is like, Wait, are we
here because we want to make adifference? Are we here to
experience something in therealm of connection and
humanity? And in order to dothat, I have to step down off of
the soapbox, and I actually haveto be in this space of again,

(58:57):
adversity or vulnerability withthem, with the students.
Oh yeah. Okay, cool. Luca. ILauren. Thank you Lauren for you
know Brian, for introducing meto Luca, because she said so
many great things about you.
You're delivering Thank you. I'mI'm so Okay, now to fast forward
or jump into another realm fromthere, you what the work you're

(59:19):
doing currently, and the or thedirection you're moving toward,
and you made mention of you'vegained, it sounds to me like
you've gained a lot of skill andunderstanding, facilitating
groups, helping to facilitatepeople that are wanting to
facilitate, and this directionthat You've moved now into, I
apologize and have my glasseson. Can you remind me your the

(59:43):
other website that you mentionedthat is your business, current
business that you're workingwith? Yeah, my, well, sort of my
access point to consulting. Sofor businesses is good company
code, thank got it, and it'sjust where I work out of so I
work. A couple amazingorganizations, vital work, which
is this great company, and theyhave a lot of national clients,

(01:00:05):
and they do amazing culturedevelopment work. They're
incredible people, and I workwith them, and I also work here
locally, with the college, soSouthern Maine Community
College, which has been for me,such an amazing experience of
these last few years, you know,going to lead culture and
leadership developmenttrainings. It could be in a

(01:00:30):
break room, we're halfwaythrough, you know, the lesson,
somebody comes in to get a sodaout of the machine, or in a barn
where we're all wearing coats.
Or it might be in a boardroom.
It's, you know, with wastecompanies and tech companies
and, you know, mechanicalengineering companies, and it's
been such a stretch for me, but,and it, I'll tell you what,

(01:00:50):
though, it's easy. Sometimesit's easier. I mean, all these
years of teaching yoga teachers,again, I love, don't hear me
wrong. We love our yoga people.
But, you know, sometimes I'lljust say to like, um, you know,
I'll just say to, like, amechanical engineer in a in a
training I'll just be like, Whatdo you want to create in 2025,

(01:01:10):
and they, they'll give you ananswer, you know, it's not,
there's no BS. They just like,it's honest, it's open. It can
be so wonderful. And, you know,having impact in organizations,
I think, has been the greatlove. It's like everything I've
done has culminated to this. Iwouldn't been able to do it
without yoga. I wouldn't havebeen able to do it without the

(01:01:31):
business of yoga. But it is justamazing to work with teams and
leaders and do some consultingand work with companies just in
what we do in yoga all the time,which is just communicating and
connecting and perspectiveshifting. You know, that's

(01:01:52):
really sometimes all it takes tomake a big change for an
organization who's experiencingsome pain points in the, you
know, soft skills. They'rereally more core skills, but
they're often referred to assoft skills. But, you know,
communication, listening,leadership, difficult
conversations, conflictmanagement, all those areas, is
where I spent a lot of my timeworking now. And it is, yeah,

(01:02:15):
just, it is yoga. It's justeverybody's wearing shoes and
pants, yeah?
Well, I like that. You'rewanting to be nice and not throw
anybody under the bus, but Ialso maybe I'll just be not nice
and take the mentorship rolehere yoga teachers, we got to
level up a little bit and startgetting a little more
professional, because I kind ofagree with you. I had a had a

(01:02:39):
chance to go and teach yoga to acorporate group, and it was a
part of a weekend corporatetraining. And it was such an eye
opening experience, because Inoticed what you said, I kind of
came out of it. I didn't knowwhat I was getting into when I
came out. I was like, do I wantto cross over into the software
world now, or, like, the thecomputing world, because it was

(01:03:01):
so fun to be around aprofessional group of people
that were working so hard todevelop their career skills. And
I was like, This is sorefreshing. And I again, and I
agree with you, I don't want tobe too harsh on myself and my
chosen profession of yogateaching and massage therapy,
but, and it's funny, because Iremember one time I just kind of

(01:03:25):
was embarking on this journey ofthinking, like, wow, I could be
a professional yoga teacher.
This sounds so great. And I metthis girl. I just moved back. I
was in California. She movedback from Hawaii to California,
and I said, What have you beendoing in Hawaii? And she's like,
I was a yoga teacher and amassage therapist. But I, you
know, I can't take it anymore.
I'm doing like a corporate job.
I can't handle the airy fairnessof this profession. And I just,

(01:03:47):
I need some structure. I needsomething and I was like, whoa,
whoa, whoa. That's not what Iwanted to hear like. That's the
total opposite of what I wantedto know right now. But I filed
it in the bank, the cabinet, andso I hear what you're saying,
Luca, and it's really, it'scool, and it's refreshing, and I
appreciate your your gentlenessand but it's coming through. And

(01:04:08):
I And would you agree with me,in relation to this, let's try
to bring the professionalquality of yoga up, because
there's no reason that wecouldn't be on level with an
engineer adopt the the medical,the the tech and the the
software to the just computer ortech development world like I

(01:04:29):
believe we could the bar. Couldraise a little and we could, we
had the capacity to come up.
Yeah, am I getting two outthere?
No, you're, you're, it's reallygood actually. And I don't think
it's here's what it is as Ithink people want this, they do,

(01:04:51):
and I don't know that. I don'tknow that. Listen, we've got to
if we want to be serious or haveseriously. We want. Let me put
it that way, there has to be adedication to precision. It is
only through precision that anyindustry, whatever that industry
is, it's only through precisiondoes anybody elevate or have any

(01:05:14):
kind of structure, growth,development or success. And yoga
teachers resist precision. Ican't. One of the main things I
teach as a key building blockis, is a measure. And what I say
that is, is, like, you've got tostart telling people how many of
something they're doing and howlong they're doing it for, how
many of these are we going todo? And you probably get this
from the Bikram world. It'slike, that's built into the

(01:05:35):
Bikram structure is like, you'redoing this this long on this
side, and then this long on theother side. You know, I don't
know, how many times have webeen in that mystery warrior
two, it's like, why am I in amystery warrior two, just tell
me how long I'm here for. Then Ican give it my all. It's I can
really give it everything I'vegot, if you just communicate
with me how long I'm here for.
And you know, yoga teachersresist precision. They love to

(01:05:58):
do the count, where they'relike, 517, who cares? Numbers
don't matter. And I'm like, theydo matter. It's important that I
know how long I'm here, becausethat's where empowerment lives.
Empowerment lives me as astudent, being able to actually
give what I've got, and maybeeven find that I've got more
than I thought I'd have to give.

(01:06:19):
But if you don't give me ameasure. You hold all the cards
to my practice. You're too busyin my practice. I have an
experience of you versus anexperience of myself. Now, why
I'm saying this? Again, thatagain, everything can point back
to what we do in the classroom,but then when we look at the
leadership level where you'retalking it's the same thing.

(01:06:39):
We've got to dedicate to somesort of skillfulness of
precision as a as an artist, asa teacher, as a, you know, what
is engineering to move people'sbodies? You know, in a lot of
regards, is really important.
And I think it's actually thatprecision that that like you're
the person you're mentioning. Ithink had that person been

(01:06:59):
introduced to or and maybe theydid on some level, but had a
strong sense of mastery in theart of how to teach. I think
likely it may have elongatedthat career, maybe not forever,
but it may have elongated itenough to overcome some of those
hurdles.

(01:07:21):
Wow. Yeah, good, good. Kind ofbird's eye view there of that.
Because, yeah, I don't mean tobe controversial on the on the
Todd cast, but, oh,dude, I don't think that's too
Contra. I want you to becontroversial, man. I mean, I
mean, shoot, oh, man. Luca, Ijust looked at the I put my

(01:07:41):
glasses on. I can see the timeit's been we've been going for
an hour and five minutes. I wantto be very respectful of your
time. I'm sure super. I knowyou're busy and you got lots
going on and, uh, well, I wantto bring us in the direction of
of a closure. Um, I like theword fact that you used. So
maybe to bring us into closing,I love that you use the word

(01:08:04):
Oracle. I haven't heard anybodythrow the word oracle at me in a
long time, apart from last timeI watched the matrix. Can you
define Oracle based on the waythat you used it earlier, or
what? Why you chose to use thatword,
yeah, well, because here's justas a bit, bit of a background. I

(01:08:27):
think we're so, you know,especially in yoga, we have all
this great text and philosophyand wisdom, you know, and
thought leaders, you know,generations of thought leaders
and ideas and, you know, and,and I think sometimes we think
that we've got to repeat orshare that teaching those
teachings in order to beteaching yoga. But you know,

(01:08:50):
like I said, my move was yoga.
My career in corporate Americaas a consultant is yoga. My
relationship with my husband isyoga. Yoga has been the longest
relationship of my life. We havegood years, we have bad years
speaking. You know, sometimesit's harder, sometimes it's
easier, not with my husband, butwith the yoga and you know,

(01:09:11):
Oracle is an opportunity to bewhat is the teaching of yoga,
but be present and see what's infront of you. I mean, I really
believe, and I learn it more andmore every year, that the
universe is conspiring for mygreatest good, which sometimes
means I'm heading into aconversation like this, and I'll
find my Africa yoga projectjournal and read through it a

(01:09:32):
little bit and think nothing ofit, or why it would apply to the
future, or why would have haveany relevance. That's an Oracle,
you know, to have those writingsin front of me and have no idea
we're going to talk about it,and then have it come forward in
a way that I think, yeah, itreally closes a loop for me and
hopefully share something withthe world. And that's Oracle,
or, like, I shared the GoldenGirls, like watching, you know,

(01:09:55):
can be anywhere I joke about theGolden Girls. It could be off
somebody's bumper sticker. Or alicense plate or, you know,
something resonates with youdeeply and and connects with you
and reminds you of something, adeeper teacher. That's Oracle.
It's a, it's a, you know, it'sthe, it's the sun coming up. I
love it, yeah, it's a million,oh yeah. Every day is a new

(01:10:18):
beginning. I'mgonna bring it in. Yeah, I'm
gonna, I'm gonna use the wordOracle somewhere in my speech
today, and and I have mymeaning. I'll just wait for
somebody to ask me to like, Whatdo you mean? But I like the
idea. I do like the idea ofliving with the understanding. I
should let me say thisdifferently instead of saying I

(01:10:40):
like the idea living with theidea, living with the
understanding of that theuniverse is conspiring to my
greater good. Oh, that takessome pressure off. Yeah, yeah.
Thank you so much. That's anOracle.
That idea connects withsomething deeper in you,
something you already knew. It'snot something I taught you,

(01:11:01):
yeah, it's, it's, oh, you know,I I say this just really
quickly, please.
You know, I'm okay. I have lotsof time. I just don't want to
hold you up. I know you might bebusy. I love this. I'll do this.
Well, I'll keep going.
Well, I'll just say this reallyquick. So in a training
environment, sometimes, youknow, get together, people start
talking, and they sort of have,start having breakthroughs.

(01:11:21):
Yeah, about something. And, youknow, I always joke. I always
say, like, Hey, listen, if youget enough people together and
you just ask people chocolate orvanilla ice cream, somebody's
going to have a breakthrough.
Somebody's going to, like, havea, you know, have an Oracle
moment. They're going to really,they're going to really come to
life. They're going to startcrying, you know, you're going
to have all these humanexperiences. It's not so much in
what's being said. It's in theinteraction and how that

(01:11:45):
interaction sort of triggerswhat we already know to be true.
I think that makes the biggestdifference. I like that
just something so simple, right?
Chocolate or vanilla ice cream.
I don'tknow. I haven't put that to the
test, but I'm opening trainingswhere, yeah, I feel like the
questions inert enough, but itgets a big enough response. And

(01:12:06):
I'm like, I get that. Just askif people wanted, you know,
boxers or briefs, and let's justsee what happens. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. How are you managingconflict resolution in okay,
we're in a group. You're theteacher. There's 20 teacher

(01:12:27):
trainers, and one of the 20 hasto interject. And to the point
on everything you say, so muchso that you start seeing eyes
rolling around the room. Youstart seeing other people
getting along, comfortable fromthe mentor role in the realm of

(01:12:49):
where we want to be gentle, butat the same time direct. What is
your strategy in that setting? Iknow everything will be a little
different, but this is myvanilla chocolate question for
you, like, what's your strategy?
Well, I'll say a couple things.
You have to know that people aredrawn. A lot of people are drawn
to the teaching of yoga becausethey want to, they want to

(01:13:09):
create a world in which they getto lead and be heard. And so in
any training, you'll likely havethat, you know, that a dynamic
where somebody, somebody wantsto share what they already know,
or they want to share about whatthey already know, they want to
be seen as valuable in someareas. It's, it is, you know,

(01:13:30):
common archetype as it soundslike you're very familiar with,
you know, I would say a couplethings really set you up for
success in those areas. Numberone, most. Again, this is a
precision and a tool if yourprogram and your section have
clear intentions, okay, so sayI've got somebody who you know

(01:13:52):
maybe say we're touching maybelightly on anatomy, but
somebody's got a lot ofexperience in anatomy, and they
really want to weigh in on whatthey know about anatomy or how
what they know, right? It's soimportant to have that intention
up and alive in the room. Sowhen somebody starts weighing in
and sharing, not only can we acelebrate their insights. That

(01:14:14):
usually helps, right? Is toactually say thank you. Oh,
gosh, that's really good. Thankyou. And then also, in the case
that you need to course correctit, it's pointing back to the
intention. So yeah, that's areally good insight. But, you
know, just as a reminder, so theintention of this training is
that you leave here, you know,able to lead a power yoga class,

(01:14:35):
not that you leave here being anexpert on anatomy. So we don't
really cover it at that level ofdepth, although there's a lot of
great resources. You got to finda way and some things that
you've all agreed upon on somelevel, so like an intention or a
promise of the training, wherewe've all kind of agreed to
this, and now we've got a placeto point you back to. But my

(01:14:56):
experience is, you know, Ilearned. I mentioned my great
mentor, Kirsten Mooney, theother day, so I used to travel
with her a bit, and we used toteach at like, do you remember
Yoga Journal conferences back inthe day? Oh, yeah. So we used to
go teach at Yoga Journal, andshe was the master at this such
a kind and authentic leader. Andit would always happen. She beat

(01:15:17):
she had a background inkinesthesiology, anatomy, and
she would be teaching something,and there would either be
disagreement or somebody wantingto weigh in or contribute or
collaborate. And she was justthe master of of inviting them
to speak and hear, and then alsokind of really being able to
share what she had to share andit, it, you know, generally,

(01:15:40):
really had profound impact ongetting that person to feel
heard, but then also nice, yeah,stop, stop talking. But, you
know, I think, yeah, if you've,if you've got to have a clear
promise, you've got to haveclear intentions, you've got to
have something to point back to,because nine times out of 10
what somebody's sharing likelyfalls outside of that intention,

(01:16:00):
and then all you have to say isthat's outside of the intention.
That's not why we're here. Soyeah, I love that you're
sharing, and this is where we'regoing come with us. Yeah,
great answer. That's so cool.
Luca, do you when, what type offormat when you do your 300 hour
training? Is this all online? Orare you getting only altogether,

(01:16:21):
or are you hybridizing? Yeah,we listen. I'm going to tell you
we started in the pandemic. Sowe started all online 12
weekends. We've now for 2025, itstarts in March. We've boiled it
down to 10 weekends. It'sbasically like a nine to five
ish on Saturdays and Sundaysabout once a month, say. And we

(01:16:42):
have talked a great deal about,should we hybridize it? Should
we go live? And I'm going totell you, there's something I'm
watching you here. I don't knowif we're probably just
listening, but I get to watchyou because we're here on Zoom.
There's something that you learnin seeing yourself, teach you

(01:17:03):
probably, maybe you get this,you could share on this, maybe a
little bit. But like, I knowwhat my face is doing when I'm
not looking at myself, becauseI'm either looking at myself or
watching a video of myself,because we edit and we send out
all of the training materialsthe day or so after so you know,
in the case that somebody can'tbe there, we're going to send

(01:17:24):
them the recording. Or in thecase that you wanted to hear it
again, you could refer back toit so you can you can't do that
when you're live, it's just aone time shot. And if you can't
be there, you can't be there.
But there's something thathappens. Now, I'm not
recommending people teachvirtually. I'm just saying it's
a great platform through whichto learn how to teach, because

(01:17:46):
you really get a sense of whoyou are, objectively, sort of
from out here, and what you looklike, what you sound like,
Yeah, good point. Yeah. It'slike, you're almost like,
surprised. It works so good,yeah, like, you would have been
very critical of it potentially15 years ago, thinking there's
no way I'd ever do a teachertraining through the computer.

(01:18:08):
And now you're actually going,Oh, my goodness, this is better
than being in a room and well,and we can have people from
their houses and all over thecountry, and, you know, they
don't have to. You know, thetraining is very inexpensive.
It's under $2,000 for what is anextremely high quality product,
you know. But we're able tooffer it, you know, we're not
here to get rich off it. We'rewe're able to offer something

(01:18:31):
really magical at a really youknow, without having to worry
about hotels or spaces or any ofthat. And it's checks all of
those boxes. And we've talkedabout it over the years, and
we've really heard suchwonderful feedback from our
participants that they're like,Hey, listen, I gotta wait for
this guy to deliver my washerdryer. I'm here with you, but

(01:18:51):
like, I'm waiting for thewasher, you know, like they're
sharing like, Oh, I gotta gopick up my kid. I can listen
from the car. And of course, thetraining works best when
everybody's there andeverybody's present. But it does
leave for people to have, youknow, especially at the 300
hour. You know, the reality ofreal life.

(01:19:12):
Yeah, you got to go through thewhole boom of yoga in relation
to see what was going on backin, you know, late 90s, 2000 you
saw it from the Los Angelesculture, like you said, almost
like celebrity these, you know,celebrity teachers, so to speak.
And then through where we arenow, 2025, you know, a whole

(01:19:35):
quarter of a century. And I'mnot saying that this is like
such a long period of time, butyou got to see a lot of ups and
downs. Do you feel like, Oh,geez. Like in terms of yoga
teaching them, I think the thingwith the online thing is that it
opens up the possibility forevery person who finishes a
teacher training, they couldteach either online, or they can
pull their parent or theirfamily member. They could teach
in the park. Like there's a wayto figure out a way to offer

(01:19:59):
yoga. Teaching in terms ofstudios and the amount of
availability for jobs. In myimpression from what I'm
noticing, it doesn't seem likethat there's very many
opportunities within the studiorealm. And one of the big things
that I noticed as a yoga studioowner, my wife and I been here
be 19 years in the next month orso, is that, you know, we just

(01:20:22):
are always looking for someonethat's going to stick around and
actually be here long term andnot give up, like you said,
quickly, like hang in throughthe tough times and keep going.
And when classes are slow, staykeep coming. When classes are
busy, keep coming. And that'sone of the biggest challenges I
find. I'm just curious, fromyour perspective, what are you
observing in the relation to theamount of quote yoga teachers

(01:20:44):
and the amount of opportunitythere is, what are you feeling
and seeing?
I'll just say, Listen, I thinkembracing attrition is a really
healthy business strategy. Ithink, you know, in just in

(01:21:05):
looking really quickly at whatyou just said, I think there's
something around embracing thata lot of your teachers, it will
be a part time or semi part timeor a passion project, and life
is always going to be moreimportant. And though those
teachers are still really fun,and they're fun for a short term

(01:21:26):
and for studio owners, I'd say,if you've got a training system
that actually just puts teachersin the space that they're able
to hit the ground running, youdon't have to worry about
attrition as much you know,making sure that it's not about
the teacher, it's about thestructure of the classes and the
time of the classes. And itremoves this, this need for the

(01:21:50):
for teachers to stay a long timeif they don't want to. And it
allows for teachers to staythose who want to grow. It gives
them a clear pathway of, hey, wewant you teaching workshops. We
want you help leading thetraining. We want you as studio
manager. We want a pathway foryou. And I think that that is
the number one thing I'm seeingout in the world is, you know,
if you look at boutique fitness,which is dominating, you know,

(01:22:14):
like that, you know that all ofthe different types of boutique
fitnesses, you know, one of thethings you'll notice is that
it's hardly ever really aboutthe instructor. It's really
about the product. And I wouldsay that's the bigger shift that
yoga businesses need to embraceis no, no, no, don't just put on
a Pilates class because that'sthe only person who's available

(01:22:34):
to teach. Tuesdays at four.
Tuesdays at four is a greattime. You've got to, you know,
if you if you're limited towho's teaching as a business,
that you're going to reallysuffer for it. And I think
that's the biggest change we'vegot to make. We've got to, we've
got to get more on board withthe systems and how to, how to,
I don't know if that makessense, and how to get, you know

(01:22:54):
how to, there's something to begotten for everybody out of
like, hey, if, if, my, if, thestudents who come to my four
o'clock will also come to yourfour o'clock. We all benefit,
you know, versus this verysingular idea of I've got, I
need to do. Well, yeah,yeah, in my classes, yeah. Good
point. Good answer, man. Well, Imean, I'd just love the

(01:23:18):
opportunity to speak to somebodywho's, you know, we've been,
we've both been at it for awhile. And I mean, I love it.
Thank you so much. I mean,that's one of my most favorite
things about having thisopportunity to interview and
converse and learn. I learned somuch having this opportunity,
Luca and I, I just, I'm just sothankful for you being gracious

(01:23:39):
with your time, for respondingto me so quickly so positively.
Like, yeah, man, let's do it.
Let's go right now. I'm ready,so I feel really excited for the
new year. I'm excited to seewhat this year is going to
bring. Anything that you wouldlike to share to now officially

(01:24:03):
close our session together.
Yeah, I thought the oracle wasgoing to be it, but I had three
more questions for you.
It's good, it's fun. Thank youfor doing this. Is all I have.
Thank you for doing this, andthank you for your commitment to
great conversations and and andto sharing what it is that
matters to you. And gosh, what afun space to be invited into. So

(01:24:25):
I I really just acknowledge youfor what you've accomplished,
and acknowledge you for stayingin the game, you know, and
influencing, you know, years ofof students and teachers and
letting me be part of this. Sothank you.
Thank you, Luca. That means alot to me. I really appreciate
it. Yeah, cool man. Well, maybe,let's definitely do it again,

(01:24:49):
and I'll build a little scat, alittle more scaffolding and and
then see if you're, if you'rethinking my scaffold building is
reasonable, it's.
Yeah, reach out anytime. I loveto talk about systems. I love to
talk about precision andscaffolding and and hopefully,

(01:25:09):
hopefully we'll, we'll get achance to talk soon. All right,
thanks, man, thank you.
Native yoga Todd cast isproduced by myself. The theme
music is dreamed up by BryceAllen. If you like this show,
let me know if there's room forimprovement. I want to hear that

(01:25:31):
too. We are curious to know whatyou think and what you want more
of what I can improve. And ifyou have ideas for future guests
or topics, please send us yourthoughts to info at Native yoga
center. You can find us atNative yoga center.com, and hey,
if you did like this episode,share it with your friends, rate

(01:25:54):
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