The Void #15 – Creating an online Yoga Studio with Megan Sevart-Culbertson – Mar 20, 2022
In this episode, Mitch and David sit down with Megan Sevart-Culbertson to learn how she started an online yoga studio amidst the pandemic. Check out how Megan’s Yoga Tribe got started and how she turned her passion into profit. Check it out for yourself at https://createandlivealifeyoulove.com/ If this show raised questions you’d like us to answer, please feel free to email them to [email protected] Thanks for listening and thanks for sharing! Enjoy the show!
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i’m your host mitch smedley and with me as always is david mitch what’s up buddy what’s going on how was the week
it’s busy busy good busy though busy productive busy boys are good boys
are henry as always no new trouble this week anyway no new trouble no new trouble yeah yeah same old trouble yeah
same old trouble so what’s up marcus how’s it going guys we got marcus back there here we go he’s often
often heard never seen there we go i mean i mean i get it i’m telling you
people we’re doing you a favor by keeping marcus off the camera you know what i’ve actually had a good day today
guys so oh you mean try to keep it going just trying to try not to mess up we want to process we have megan spray some
some what’s yeah yeah we are here with our second guest third guest third third guest man
these are adding up on me so quick megan sievert culbertson yeah megan how are you great thanks for having me no
thanks for being on the show with us thanks thanks for being with us yeah my other option my husband’s out of town so i’d be solo parenting four kids at home
this is she was like please have me on simon i’m in yeah that night works oh my
god yeah sign me up mitch didn’t know
that it’s international women’s day today right right didn’t didn’t look at the facebook this morning i guess megan
reminded me of that ironically it’s our first female guest on international women’s days oh i’m
honored and all of megan’s businesses surround themselves around women and women only
like that’s right this is awesome i serve women they’re my people yeah [Laughter] or people and guess what when i serve
women then they’re happier they’re healthier and they’re better partners yeah men two men or women hey whatever
they want to love two men i like it yeah better part yeah get janine on the yoga i about got myself
in hot water i got somebody sent me a picture and it was like an old school 50s
like it was like an advertisement for men like men here’s how to train your wife to be
a better wife my husband sent me that yeah like how did she’ll fetch your paper and she’ll fetch your slippers and she’ll pick up
on your social cues of when you’re not in the mood to talk the 1950s baby
and make sure to have dinner ready yeah don’t tell them about your troubles yeah because he’s had a long day it’s like
oh man we’ve come a long way holy cow have that martini ready baby
i sent it to my wife i’m like you think this would fly in our house she goes with flip-flops it would like yeah at
your head yeah like oh my gosh i’m not sure that she’s like that i think she might just wait
and bottle it up and then when you’re asleep just put the pillow right over top of it yeah you know just nice i’ll show you oh
show oh man marcus is her mic too high is it good i am i good no no no no no
like the on the camera oh oh is it does it need to go down a little bit ah she looks good i think she’s fine
yeah you can pull it down and then crank it there you go just like that
so for those that are listening we want to see megan smile we also film all of these and put them on youtube and so we
wanted to make sure that you weren’t going to be staring at a microphone named megan this whole time so that’s
good i mean i seen her from her right camera so right all right
megan how about you uh how about you take a few minutes and kind of tell us about what you do and
how it started and everything else awesome well first thanks for having me you bet um so i have always been an
entrepreneur started my first company when i was 21 was actually a million dollars in debt when
i was 21. and i tell people when i talk about that it was monopoly money because at 21 you have no concept of what a
million dollars is right um so i got kind of get in over my head but the
beautiful thing is is um i am one of those people that i don’t give up so
i owned those companies took 10 years to pay off my loans um got them took about
another five years to be able to package them to sell them and then i sold them
and that was five years ago and so five years ago i say i had freedom to do what
really sets my soul on fire and my passion my purpose and that’s to
help women specifically create and live life they love and so i do that through
coaching purposeful women entrepreneurs and then teaching yoga
so that is kind of the online yoga thing right fascinates me yes so i had a ton
of questions about before the show we always do a little bit of show prep and i was just you know i’m asking her you know how do you do that do you store
those do they go on a server how does that work i mean it’s it’s extremely interesting i
think you should let’s go into it just a little bit yeah and all of those were questions i had too because
i i never and as a business coach i did not plan on owning an online yoga
company yeah i did not plan on owning an online yoga company i loved coaching
women entrepreneurs to create the business of their dreams and then covet
hit and sacred yoga studios were shut down and i really felt like women needed yoga
now more than ever i mean we were schooling our kids from home we were working from home we had this fear of
like this unknown virus and we didn’t have yoga and so i immediately just
started serving yoga via facebook lives right because was that how you were doing it that’s how i
was doing it so um i was just getting on facebook lives i had never used zoom so that i opened a
zoom account and then i started doing three facebook lives a week two zoom lives and i did this free
for 60 days and i don’t know if you guys remember in the spring of 2020 like most of us thought it was like eight weeks
we’re gonna stay home for eight years yeah and then we’re gonna all go back it would just turn off and then
turn back on yes so when i realized that wasn’t gonna happen um because my background is
entrepreneurship i was like okay i’m gonna flip the switch and turn this into an online yoga company and so 60 days
did it for free and then i did like a 30-day launch as i was prepping to
launch megan’s yoga tribe online yoga studio um and my goal was 30 members in
that first 30-day launch so and you were well on your way oh yes yes so that was
probably because i had offered the classes for free and again i was the only one
teaching i didn’t have instructors i was teaching these five classes a week um
i was serving the community and so they showed up for me whenever i launched it
um they signed up and it was and i still to this day every single time a woman signs up i do a happy dance still yeah
and we’re at like almost 250 members and so i still get that excitement that someone is
saying yes to making their health and happiness a priority right and i want to go into what you you brought up at the
very beginning um that you had were a million dollars in debt and you do can you explain you know to other
people that um you know this whole show is about giving people information as to
uh not make the same mistakes like you may have made look i i’ve made a lot of mistakes when i
started mine and that’s and we’ve gone over a lot of that it’s been very humbling when we do that can you
just give a couple of examples of like things you learned about like i wouldn’t have done this you know in the
you know what i did here absolutely i i um i feel
wrong or right our experiences um our past experiences obviously make us have
different perspectives on things right oh yeah based on our past experience so um especially when i’m coaching women
entrepreneurs and they’re kind of at a crossroads in their business um one thing i
so deeply believe is don’t take loans from family yeah yeah so
here we go i’ll tell you my story um again i was 21. i had nothing i owned a
90 000 house in independence that i bought when i was 19 because i’m an overachiever and that’s what i did i got
a house at 19. same and yeah and so i i had nothing and
went to the sba you know wanted to buy these businesses and i legit like these
men at the table i call them you know i’ve now arrived and i’ve earned a seat here
when i was um when i was i was actually 20 going through the sba loan process it was a six-month
process so i was so confident i believed that i could do it and guess
what i did it oh i did it i mean i absolutely 100 paid every single penny
back to that sba but i was fearless and they were telling me you need this
you need that and i was like just fly from la sit in front of me and tell me no that’s how confident i was right and
guess what they didn’t tell me no but they did tell me i had to have 160 000 down payment
well i did not have 160 000 at that time um so i took i took a loan from my
grandparents um don’t do it yeah don’t do it yeah um especially because this was back in 2005
the recession hit in 2008 it was overwhelming and i tell people
all the time for 10 years i lived in fear um overwhelm um just
it was knowing that i owed people i loved a hundred and sixty thousand
dollars right the weight of that as a 21 22 20 the weight of that was too great
so my advice is always work your ass off if you do need the capital if you do need the money or it needs to be a gift
and there can’t be the expectation of it being paid back repaid right and i think that’s okay and i’ve told my kids that
i’m a mom of four you know what you’re probably not going to ever come to me and convince me to give you cash to
start a company right you probably aren’t because i don’t want them to ever have the weight i felt
for those years on my children’s shoulders and and my grandparents believed in me as much as the sba did as
much as my parents did um but still i wouldn’t want to put anyone in that position yeah to have that kind of yeah
i think even if it was a gift like i feel real guilty when i take money so if someone was you know if my dad was to give me 50 grand and say hey you don’t
have to pay this back dude like the whole time i’d be thinking man i didn’t do this on my own right right like i’d be feeling guilty the whole time yeah
well and the adversity that you have to overcome in order to generate that startup capital or that down payment or whatever
like that forges your character to a whole new level which will only make you more successful later right so and we can get
i mean that’s the thing is um you can get creative right i’m just you
can get creative and sometimes we do need to hit pause and say you know what is there another way we can do this
right but again at 20 at 20 21 you don’t know no better you don’t know any better
and it was big dreams and it was and granted
i did it and i made it work and i paid back my debt but for 10 years i had to feel the weight of
that and i would just never want someone else to have that kind of pressure right
um it’s just not worth it yeah it really truly and if something would have happened and it didn’t work out worth it
you know and you had to close up or do and then you’re still feeling that i have to pay them back on top of getting
a job you know it i mean that’s a lot that’s a lot to take on i just don’t think and i i get it i i
get how people say well so and so has money or but it changes the dynamic it changes the dynamic of the relationship
owing a bank money is one thing owen owing family members or neighbors or
yeah i completely get i just that would be the one the one thing i would say just just don’t do it even though it
seems easy easy is not always yeah it’s the easy way out for sure right yeah it’s hard to
sit there and fill out that loan application and then convince a complete stranger to give you money right it’s easy to go to grandma and say
yeah yeah you know she’s not you’re not filling out an application and like when we started ours i had
borrowed the money from myself essentially and i still gave myself a very strict very very strict timeline to
pay it all back because i didn’t want to be lazy i wanted to be assertive and i wanted to when it’s in the back of your
mind every day yeah every day you wake up and you’re like okay i’ve got to pay for this in in my mind the business
wasn’t even official yet until it was free standing on its own financial legs yeah and until it paid me back my
my investment into it it was that’s not even legit yet people talk about that they get into a lot of credit
card debt you know like say something happens and they just have to live off it for you know two months or whatever
right they say the same thing like it just every day you wake up and it just weighs on you
every day you’re thinking about it you can’t be happy that way you know and i was raised by parents so it’s
interesting i was raised by parents who paid cash for everything my parents just that that’s how we were raised that’s
how that’s how we were brought up so i know this is going to seem crazy but i never had a business credit card
and i owned a million dollar business and had between 30 and 50 employees yeah yeah lots of people they literally never
had a business they worked right out of that checkbook because well this was the thing i was 21. yeah like you don’t have
a lot of i mean at 21. you don’t have any credit well i didn’t have any credit i had a lot of debt
once it was just kind of like that thing it was just like okay like i can’t buy that new piece of equipment until i can
pay cash for it yeah yeah and it holds you accountable that’s how we run our business now is is everything that we’re
doing is is cash based the only thing we finance is vehicles uh and that’s that’s
simply because it lines up with the irs’s depreciation schedule but uh outside of that yeah we we pay cash it
takes discipline potentially people will tell people you know and and i get it because now like
at home i can fly anywhere for free because we have so many southwest points yeah but with business expenses it’s
very different yeah and it takes discipline in one month of getting over your head
and then you know business is down yeah it can be a huge thing so when i started mine i did everything
on a credit card but that’s because i was very meticulous about like i would match up my receipts to that statement
every month and i would sit there and do it but that’s just i wanted to be able to get that independent
you know statement every month and i like points you know everybody likes points and cash back you know when
you’re when you’re putting it doesn’t seem like a lot but if you’re putting 25 000 a month on it that stuff adds up real quick oh yeah i mean one percent
cash back can be a lot of money but it does take discipline you have to pay
that thing off every month and that’s why dave ramsey hates credit cards because people don’t do it because they’re not disciplined and you know
that’s just if you can do it where you’re paying cash that is the way to go yeah because you’re always on zero at
the beginning of every month right that’s we did dave ramsey my husband and i before we got married all right so uh
we did the the seven step seven steps oh we did yeah is it seven steps i don’t remember what it was like i do remember having my
envelopes with our cash in it yeah we laugh about it today because our grocery
budget when we first got married is what we spend in about three days now we spent it for the whole month yeah and
i would go in i would go in with my envelope to the grocery store and i’d have my coupons in the envelope
if that ain’t birth control i don’t know what it is now we have four kids that’s what i’m saying yeah yeah which
one’s going hungry like they’re all their names are in a hat and they’re like anthony’s going hungry this week we
don’t have the money for him there’s a reason to hold off on kids right there dave ramsey
we have a lot of customers that will literally like when it comes time to pay their
plumbing repair bill they’ll walk back into some room in their house and they’ll pull out an envelope
yeah and they’re catching it and then you’ll hear them talk and they’ll say like which envelope is that is that home repairs or is that the emergency on like
like they’ve got them organized yeah and it’s like that’s actually kind of cool good for them so i i budget 101
that’s amazing and people don’t teach that anymore like i i feel like i’m i’m 40 mitch is 40. we like
even my parents they didn’t do that and i think i think if you were born around you know 80 84 i think that’s when it
started to wane off because you know when like when you talk to my grandparents you know my dad’s like oh no
the budget this is what it was this is how we did it you know that’s just what we did yeah and then i you know asking
well how how come you didn’t do that if you you know what i mean i think that’s just kind of when it started
you know the baby boomers they did it the boomers did it they let us down
yeah maybe so so so you had that other business you sell it yep
it took you a minute to sell it it took me a minute it took me a minute and while this is the thing my story is
i started practicing yoga 15 years ago okay so the only piece i
found because owning my previous companies it was stressful it was overwhelm i like to tell people like i
was surviving on coffee i was surviving on wine and i was just staying busy to
stay numb because there was so much overwhelm and the the one thing i found peace was on a
yoga mat i came to a yoga mat and i could breathe i could think clearly
i could be present and then it became like a drug i was
like i need this i need more of this and then i realized like on that yoga mat
like i don’t want to own these companies anymore right i don’t want to live this life anymore i like this not that yeah
yeah i this isn’t purposeful i’m not living the life i was put on this earth
to live right and that’s where i really came up with a plan that i have to sell these yeah i have to figure a way to get
out um and then through that i actually went through yoga teacher training and
business life coaching training all at the same time right um because i thought if yoga helped me this
broken down at the time i had two kids mom of two who was just surviving life and not
thriving there’s other women out there just like me yep and that’s where it
triggered this purpose and so after i sold my companies i just started teaching yoga
simply as what i call my passion project and god it brought so much joy yeah so
it’s it’s crazy how much faster your business can take off when it is truly purpose-driven purpose-driven 100
so and purpose-driven people whether you’re it’s your business or just your life the
way you live are happier yeah and i thought that’s now my mission is to help
women create and live a life they love yeah and and so yours tied around
being in a business that you came to realize you didn’t have alignment with at all right and so you sold it
most of our listeners are probably in a very similar scenario only they’re
not owning the business that they don’t like they’re working at a job that they’re out of alignment with right and
they’re they’re going to cross that bridge to their passion project so to speak yes
and they’re gonna they’re gonna have an awakening at their job and say this isn’t for me
that’s right let’s identify what i am passionate about and then let’s create a
planned eternity put a plan in place to do that yeah and and that’s so important because
those of us who choose to work a third of our life will be working right it should be doing something you
love yeah if you are wanting to hit snooze in the morning that is your indication
change yeah it takes one breath to change you can change yeah
and i think that i hope the listeners hear that if you are wanting to press snooze
on your life today take action yeah and we talk about that in in the first
few episodes i think it’s the first episode or second episode we talk about you know what it feels like
to be trapped in your job you know and then we and then i think the next episode we go into you need to figure
out you know is it the job is it the type of job right is it the place you work or do you need to be on
your own yeah and these are questions that you know she had to answer in her journey just like you answered like i
answered just like everyone that the first like the first questions we got and the guys on facebook hey man just you know
those are the sometimes people don’t realize they need to just hear that right oh you know what
maybe they’re right right maybe in the back of their mind they’re in their subconscious they’re thinking man i could do this there’s there’s an
awakening that comes from it now yes just like you had to go through
some trenches to come to that awakening that that’s not uncommon there’s a lot
of people that have to go through that like you have to know what bad looks like before you know what good looks
like and so you have to be willing to get super uncomfortable yeah because i was basically i tell people all the time
i was a collection of what everyone thought i should be um people see me today and still say that like i was
always one of those people she’s an overachiever she’s so successful by 21 you had a million dollar company you had
a home then by by 22 i decided to buy a home in lakewood like i was a collection
of what everyone else thought i should be but i wasn’t honoring my heart and my
soul right and and that’s the thing it’s like i’m living in alignment with what joe schmoe
and sally think i should be doing yeah yeah yeah but i wasn’t honoring what megan’s
heart and soul needed to feel complete um and so yeah it is it is like you have
to get real uncomfortable and realize like all right and it’s like this isn’t
working it’s wild how fast the success starts to roll when you feel when you
yeah when you fall in line with that it is you’ll struggle if you’re not comfortable in your own skin
you are going to struggle and struggle and struggle to find success absolutely but the moment you find you
you become authentic and you quit trying to impress
other people for behaving like you think they want you to behave or acting like you want to do you think they want you to act
that it’s freedom that right there is is a big step towards success you know i
don’t i’d like to don’t think of it as um you’re gonna stop doing this and automatically be successful i know i’ve
known guys that were making 50 bucks an hour you know working on commercial jobs or prevailing wage jobs whatever and
they always thought the grass is greener over here i’m gonna do this is what i’m gonna do i’ve known guys more than a few
that have gone and done that and then realized like we’ve talked about some of the previous episodes that ain’t for me
the boomerang you know what i mean and they’re like you know what and sometimes it takes that lesson to go back and now they
realize oh you know what i actually have more freedom working for somebody because i don’t have the mental capacity
not that you’re not smart i don’t mean that yeah but but that isn’t what drives you yeah you know you feel like that’s
too overwhelming and when you’re over here and your mind is free and you don’t have to worry about the money and the finances you can do your job you can get
your physical exercise you can you can feel more free doing that than if you owned your own company yeah you know
what i mean it’s really about it’s not just about i’m gonna move on and start my own company and be happy that’s not
what she means when she says stuff like that you really have to find what makes you happy
and what your purpose is yeah and typically it’s it’s some sort at least in my experience it’s service it’s
serving others yeah it’s serving like i say in my practice passion is what sets my
soul on fire right so passion is for me purpose is how i serve that passion to
others right and that’s why i’m an entrepreneur because i’m purpose driven i want to go
serve others i get energy from serving others so that’s when you kind of flip
the switch into a purpose-driven entrepreneur because that passion is there for you but then you have to go
serve it to others yeah yeah not to be biblical but doesn’t the good book say something about that too marcus
about serving others fills your soul the uh there are a lot of people that are
really good at executing tasks but they’re not good at creating the tasks that need to be
executed those are people that may not be better suited in their own like business
yeah they’re going to be better suited at a higher level working for somebody else letting somebody else
you know be a visionary and create all the things that need to be done and then give them just point them in the right
direction and as long as they’re pointed in the right direction they’re going to execute execute yeah and people change too you know how many times do you hear
about somebody that was great super successful and then they get to be 55 and they’re like you know what right
let’s keep it simple i don’t want to do this anymore and they find something else and they’re just as successful at it yeah you know what i mean it’s a
pretty common thing to be like an eight to ten year cycle on on that kind of stuff people you know everyone said oh people don’t
change no people change yeah people’s hearts change situations your passions change what
you’re interested in yeah i i ask people all the time like when they’re struggling with i’m not happy at my job
or and i’m like well tell me what this this ideal your perfect day looks like and and there are some people that their
perfect job doesn’t exist and that’s when i’m like take a leap into entrepreneurship and create it then yeah
make it if your perfect job doesn’t exist doesn’t mean it’s not available
for you you have the ability to create it yeah and it’s so interesting because
a lot of people unfortunately because of social media people will say well there’s there’s someone already doing that or they know more they’re doing
better but i guarantee like you have the ability to create your very own thing
and find yours your own customers your own clients your own people your own tribe that need you
so when someone’s like i just can’t find the job that sets my soul on fire then create it right make it happen make it
happen there’s plenty of room in the marketplace for
another yoga tribe similar to yours right like there’s there’s abundance and that’s a
mindset so i’m literally an expert at mindset i can mindset hack anything it drives my kids
nuts they come home they want to [ __ ] about something and i’m like let’s flip the switch how can we see that from a different angle right right but it’s so
true yeah it’s an abundance mindset there’s enough out there for everyone right and the reason you’re going to
have a successful business is because of you you attract the people you attract the
community it’s it’s a unique gift and there’s plenty there’s plenty available plenty
to go around plenty oh i can’t handle a scarcity mindset yeah when people like
there’s plenty this is america do you do anything in america that’s that’s pretty obvious with how you started
in the pandemic yeah so here the pandemic hits you’re trying to
everyone panics everyone’s gonna work you’re you’re not a scarcity mind you’re an abundance mind so you
automatically start thinking up ways to deliver your product to your people without an actual in-person studio yeah
does that ever get like tiring at times like so my husband likes to tell people like
i will be honest my husband i think half of his business meetings he talks about me which is very humbling
um you mean he just doesn’t want to pay for therapy he’s just going to business meetings you’re probably right oh god i hadn’t
thought about that yeah it’s just it’s just therapy for him that’s all he’s like never once and i
have been teaching yoga at at least five mornings a week every single morning at 6 80 for
six years now maybe seven he will tell people like and before i taught at home i drove to a studio to teach so i was up
every morning at four he’s like she’s never once not wanted to get out of bed yeah i’m not kidding it it literally
coming to my mat and serving those women it just it ignites the flame within me
yeah and i do it and it’s never never once do i think i wish i didn’t have to
do this this morning so i’m i’m like i think that every morning but i’m just not a morning person once i do get up
i’m rolling once the mornings are my jam once that about one cup of coffee in i’m
on fire and i’m ready to go so we we started our business like two years ago uh coming up on two years about a year
ago i started getting up and working out at five every day life-changing it is
and it so it does two things one you get like this endorphin rush
whenever you’re done like i’m like i could go tackle the world whenever i’m done but two
is it helps me gauge the day i’m not going to say i haven’t missed a workout there’s times where i’ve missed a workout
alarm goes off when we’ve been here don’t want it yeah yeah alarm goes off i don’t want to get up or
whatever well that is like from the moment i wake up in the morning and i’ve missed that
workout that’s like an indicator for me that my mindset’s not in the right spot that day so i got to be careful
because it is it is it’s like a trigger like an on off switch for oh it sets the tone for the
whole day yeah one other thing with my business coaching clients the morning routine is essential i’ve met very few
successful entrepreneurs that do not have their morning routine like to a tee yeah because it sets the entire tone for
the day it helps with clarity it helps with focus it gives you that me time and i’m not saying anything against men but
especially for women entrepreneurs who a lot of us are also getting kids on the bus feeding them drop off pick up like
all of these other tasks that some of our counterparts get to just leave in the morning and go hey i put the kid on
the bus every day i appreciate that you’re welcome i think it’s amazing i’m not here not her kids but my husband and
i we are teammates i mean he’s the better you have to be and we are a partnership but the mornings i am taking
preschool or to preschool i’m getting those kids on the bus and so for me as a woman entrepreneur i
have to have that time yeah and that energy where there’s not other energy in my space where i can just plan
my day set my mindset take that breath and i practice yoga every single morning i will say when you
wake up in the morning and and the kid is asleep and you get like 30 or 40 minutes like
even if it’s dreaming even if you’re not doing anything and it’s peaceful and it’s quiet and you’re just like oh man
i wish it could be like this sitting on the kitchen table in your holy bathrobe drinking coffee 20 minutes later in
quiet dad i’m hungry okay all right all right let’s get going it was one of
the biggest things and i mean i’ve had my morning routine for 10 years now i’m a decade and i’m a decade in to
self-study and self-love for myself so a decade into it um i it’s a
non-negotiable it’s literally my lifestyle i don’t even think about it um but i get it it’s hard if you’ve never
had that routine but once you instill that routine man you can like i i get up every day and
i’m like i’m gonna change the world’s day right we were talking about routine the other day yeah we’re gonna change the world everything me and you yeah oh
yeah yeah you know you know what i’m referencing i just don’t want to say anything on the podcast about it
he has no idea what i’m talking about we’ll talk about it all over my head i’ll remind you he’ll know
what um so back to just you know the actual business and getting it going um
what was the most difficult part for you hands down technology i’m sitting in this room right now and like
just technology just like it’s it’s i’m just in awe of people that naturally
understand it um i had never taught an online yoga class when i opened an
online yoga company yeah i didn’t even know the basics i had never done a zoom call i’d never done a
facebook live and so the technology for someone who my limiting belief is i’m
bad at technology was that overwhelmed but i’m also a problem
solver and i’m like i can figure this out so google youtube people a lot smarter than me
people a lot smarter i was really grateful one of my husband’s dear friends is a developer so he was able to
he came over i fed him a really good dinner i gave him
and developed a website yeah my membership site i already had a website but he developed this website and we
turned it into reality but we that didn’t even get up and going when i first launched the company it was like a
hodgepodge it was like you have to go to vimeo to find the videos you have to go to facebook because i was just putting
something together yeah and then that’s it took time to really develop do you
wish that you would have if you could go back would you have wished that you’d had like
60 days to prep and have all that stuff together are you happy that it kind of just came together like that i i’m glad
it did because my gosh i learned so much going through the process that i can be that mentor for someone else who’s
wanting to develop a membership site yeah so i actually did it like hands on the tools and learned it i think also
too all of my members who signed up like right from the beginning they got to see the progression yeah they got to see
like wow and they love watching that investment the growth i mean these women are
invested well i was gonna say they’re vested and now they tell everyone they know oh if they if they go to a yoga
class just with a friend of theirs to and then everyone in that class they’re like hey i do this i do megan’s yoga
tribe i do it all the time is what i do online at home and they’re like what yeah so i mean that’s why we have almost
250 members i’ve done zero marketing i’ve paid for nothing right this is grassroots from
serving my purpose pouring into these women and they share
on social media they share with their neighbors they share with their friends it’s so cool like during the pandemic i
like had this dream that i wanted to do a destination wellness retreat i was like we were
we we thought we were kind of coming out of it travel was opening up and i was like i’m doing this i’m gonna do a
wellness retreat and i co-created with a resort in arizona
and it was overwhelmed i’ve never done anything like this before i was creating a three-day all-inclusive all-inclusive
yoga wellness retreat i was like we’re gonna do let’s start with eight people
it’s it was about i think around two thousand dollars a person and let me tell you how this works when you host
retreats you are responsible for the monies whether you sell one ticket yeah okay
yeah you’re booking them up front you are paying up front okay i think it was like twenty thousand dollars my
husband’s like you got this like no you know he is like totally confident you got this
well let me tell you it sold out in nine minutes and we sold
26. [Music] 26 women came with me to arizona
that’s in the middle of a pandemic yeah to do i was looking at your notes i was like i know she wrote that in there
i wonder what the number was and then she’s 26. but then so we did this this was just september of 2021.
um before we even left they’re like we have to do this again yeah and i was like oh my gosh i’ve already created the
blueprint because the blueprint’s the hardest thing the first time you do something like this it’s all and i’m like okay you’re like now i know i can
do it every six months or every year and i just can just do it yeah so our next one is may 15th um under one minute
29 women nice so it’s just where’s the next one going to be same place nice so um three days all
inclusive but the cool thing is is because we’re a virtual platform we still do these zoom live so we see
each other we have a our facebook group is very active we are commenting sharing
so these women who have never met in person came together their besties literally the pictures
like they are interlocking arms laying their head on each other’s shoulders like we left completely connected with
new bffs and it was just for me it’s so cool to sit back and like
watch women just like me who are you know managing self-care businesses jobs
husbands kids give themselves permission to step out of their everyday life to invest in
their health and wellness for three days it was amazing right this just like sets me on fire megan’s yoga tribe because
now people i bet a lot of people are like oh man i got i got to know that megan’s yo
and this is the coolest thing i had a husband google it out it comes right up it does come up it comes right up a
husband it was so we got back from that trip i think on like a thursday a husband reached out to me that weekend
he’s like whatever you did to my wife do it again do it again
she’s never been happier yeah yeah he was just like it was magic she came home
she’s never been happier and that is it that’s all i want is to help women
create and live that life they love that’s the community involvement we talk about all the time yes that’s really i
mean that’s the community involvement part of her company right obviously yes that’s your whole business but that’s
like the that’s one of the big outreaches that i would compare to you know being a member of the chamber
and you know that group of people she’s just creating her own group within the community and they they
really feel that connection because i know them and i care about them i have that on my sales page when you sign up
for my membership what’s the difference between youtube yoga and megan’s yoga tribe i care about you right i truly
care about you well there’s a connection i am going to get to know you i’m going to get to know where you like to travel
i’m going to get to know your body if you’re dealing with an injury right i care about you and if you don’t show up
you’re gonna call if they don’t show up they get a message and this is the thing so i i hadn’t seen one of my regular
clients for for a couple weeks and she’s consistent on zoom every morning i reach out to her and
this may be too much information i won’t say her name but she’s like oh i actually got my implants taken out so
but this is a sad day do you know i better yoga practice will be better
though there you go but this is the thing like it’s it just like fills me up that like
we notice we i my instructors we notice if someone’s missing and there was a reason it wasn’t like she was just
ghosting us and then i just wanted her to know like we miss you yeah and if you
need anything let us know i love it um and so this is so there’s there’s
we got a theme going on here every guest we’ve brought on has talked about how their business grew to a stable and
substantial level with zero marketing and when you are small and new into business
it should be a warning to you if you’re not growing at that and you’re considering having to pay for marketing
chances are your product that you’ve put together is not where it needs to be
if you’re not getting those word of mouth referrals and you’re not getting those people that are bragging about you and talking about you and wanting to
buy your product or use your service you need to improve that product or service wholeheartedly so
um there’s there’s no listen to your customers ask for feedback right so important right i my clients tell me
what they want it’s beautiful yeah megan we want a mexico retreat next time all right all right girl we want to go to
cabo megan we would like a lunchtime class like and i pull them and i ask them what they want because oh lunchtime
class yeah we do three now we have three so when i started out it was just me just a good old me now i have
what seven instructors that teach for me we have 11 live zoom classes a week we started out with five
um so yeah we pull that community because we want to serve them and meet them where they’re at right so i love it
that is that is cool that’s episode seven 101 right there yeah community involvement yeah totally step six yeah
so my four bar four i’m all a little jacked up today
well my bar teacher um she’s 27 mama too and was diagnosed recently with
malignant melanoma oh no very aggressive um on her scalp had to
have like major surgeries 24 24 months of immunotherapy which is basically
another type of chemo in one month our community raised
two hundred dollars for her it’s just like mind blowing yeah yeah it’s just like just yoga girls yeah that’s what
you think of whatever you did yeah when she first reached out and was like i knew what she was kind of going through
i had already had a thanksgiving class a free class planned just for anyone not
just my community for anyone right and i’ve never ever done what you call a
donation base a lot of yoga instructors do them where the you just show up and you pay if you want yeah you want to pay
two dollars or five dollars donation based class well i decided when she told
me about her diagnosis my thanksgiving live zoom class i would do a donation class so i had already had it planned i
changed my facebook thing i said this is a donation class here’s the story of my bar teacher what’s going on here’s my um
venmo write her name if you want to donate i taught a 45 minute yoga class and 875 was donating nice holy cow nice
know what you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing on this earth yeah i love her passion that’s when you’ve got like you can tell the things that
really excite her she’s just yeah i mean i like it lights my soul and then that’s what helps your business grow like
people can people can sense that people can feel that people know that it’s real you know and you’re not just faking it
right you know what i mean i did fake it my other businesses right yeah you learned that’s why i care so much about
helping other people step into their truth right because i know what it feels like to get up every day and wish you
were doing something else yeah it doesn’t feel good yeah i’ve been there broken you’re broken yeah and it took
this it’s all been there we’ve all been there yeah but yeah so we were able to do that and
then we did a t-shirt a smile through it because her her saying when she’s like kicking our ass literally she’s like
does these things where you’re like i don’t think my leg can move like that she’ll always she’ll say smile through it ladies smile through it i branded a
shirt that says smile through it and then we put our logo on our bat on the back and we sold 75 of these shirts holy
cow great that’s cool i love it amazing yeah i love it just a collection of amazing badass women yeah what uh
when you started out what was the easiest the community the community um i think
she’s answered that question no i think well not really but i mean obviously i mean
right the community just supported her the the people that were like
we trust you megan we believe in you we’re gonna give this a try even though i will tell you i had a limiting belief
that i had to be in a yoga studio to practice yoga so i i hadn’t even drank my own kool-aid and i had a yoga studio
in my house that i had just finished building right before the pandemic and i was like can i really do this
because i felt like i had to be in a studio for it to be yoga and so the fact
that these women were like i’ll i’ll give this a try and then what they realized is
they’re saving time they’re saving a [ __ ] ton of money because one of my biggest things is i
want this price point to be available for anyone and i can tell you right now if you’re on a budget i’ve got a coupon
code or you know what i have some people on my membership for free because they need they need the mindfulness they need
the movement um and it was the saving of the money the saving of the time
really realizing for me like i didn’t do the morning routine with my kids for six years because i was in a studio teaching
now i’m home to see my kids in the morning some days i love that some days i don’t but that’s every parent
for a lot of women if you’re gonna if you’re gonna work out you’re gonna have to miss something in the morning miss something in the evening maybe miss a
carpool maybe have to get you know you’re sacrificing something else and with my program they don’t have to right
and their kids can be there a lot of women would have to get a babysitter to be able to go to a gym or a yoga studio
yeah yeah they can be playing just in the living room and you know if something crazy happens you can log off
yeah yeah it’s no big deal there’s no it’s the zero expectations you can log in you
can log off if you want to come live you can or you can do the on demands so it fits for that busy woman that busy wife
but it took kovid to realize for me that i could do it from home yeah and then
when i realized i could i was like damn this is nice yeah i have so much more time yeah because for me to teach an in
studio class i would get there at least 30 minutes early i would teach my class and then i
would stay 30 minutes late and then i drove home so i was gone between two and
a half and three hours for one minute yeah you guys now i walk in my
basement i teach and i walk upstairs yeah you’re done to mom and i’m back to wife and it’s just and and my clients
are doing the same thing right they’re able to take care of themselves there’s not all those roadblocks of i have to
get a sitter i have to get up early i have to miss carpool oh my gosh i can’t afford a 140 dollar membership right
there’s none of that roadblocks they’re still and they still feel community yeah that’s i like it that’s awesome but i i
mean i i had to drink my own kool-aid yeah hmm and it’s wild once you’re on that right
once you’re on that right product how fast they’ll come back around to you yeah so and and they’ll full on support
you and help do your marketing for you and get everyone else seems to be a very inspiring story too yeah you know what i
mean it’s just like you know what am i going to do and then all of a sudden no i’m just going to do it you do it and
then you have this tremendous support from the community and you’re
just like i am actually feeling it it’s not that it was she talks about it being
purpose driven and that being her you know driving factor and in making the company successful but it
didn’t just make the company successful right it’s another drive a whole nother driving factor is i get to help women do
it oh my gosh change their lives yeah and she’s changing their life so she not only has she does she have two
things that drive her not one thing but two great things that drive her to do it right which is i mean it’s just very
inspiring it’s so cool when i get to hear the feedback and the reviews that people write about
how this habit of yoga and coming to their mat with me has changed their lives oh it’s it it’s so cool too
because you know i’m just this small tiny online yoga studio and this lease
summit lifestyles is a magazine at least yeah they reached out to me and featured me in their january article talk about
humbling yeah like totally humbling i’m just like this small little solopreneur
right serving my purpose on this earth and they did a whole spread on me yeah that’s amazing and that’s the other
thing too so cool is if she didn’t know it was going to be that successful she didn’t
know obviously she just said it was humbling don’t think that if you do have a small idea even if it’s a a small business
from home which a lot of women are doing now they’re like just doing they think it’s going to be a little side hustle or
this or what look if it drives you do it because it could be huge you have no idea and how you
could change your life you could change other people’s lives don’t be afraid to do it just because you think it’s going
to be some small little insignificant thing because it may be something really great but the key
differentiation between somebody doing that small thing that never really goes anywhere and somebody doing that small thing that explodes
is the level of passion that they have behind it and the level of commitment that they have to serve their customers
right that’s it so yeah serve one year my i pick up focus word every year in
one year it was serve and the next year it was create and believe it or not is when i created this online company well
there you go and so it was like but but but this is why it worked the year before it was to serve so all i
did was serve serve serve give give give and then when i created the company the
people were there yeah all those people who i had poured into who i had served
were there they were there to serve you in return there and i tell them at least once a week if not more and
every single in-person event i do because i do a lot around eastern jackson county i think people before we
start i thank you for making your health and happiness a priority and allowing me to serve my purpose right because when
they show up to that event or they show up to their mat they’re allowing me to serve my purpose so it’s super cool that
is cool that is real cool very inspiring um we even talked about that in episode
7 where we were talking about like the community involvement work that we do with our company and we we mentioned like we weren’t
prepared for the response that would come from it like we thought we’re just doing a good
thing for the community but then when the community comes back and responds in a way that just fills our schedule for
us it’s amazing it’s like a it’s a big indicator okay you’re on the right path you’re doing the right thing that’s
right and that’s your core values that’s your core values and that’s what attracts people to your business yeah
and it was something as simple we as a community megan’s yoga tribe online members we adopted um through foster
adopt connect we adopted a child for christmas and it’s so convenient these days because you can do their amazon
wish list yeah the amount of click click click click click these women i mean
this little girl what she was blessed with because of these women and that comes from the core
values anyone that does business with me knows that this is who i am like they
have no question like i am going to serve i’m going to bring you together we are going to help others together as a
community and we’re going to make a big impact right and so it’s so neat when you get that collective of right
customers right clients who also are aligned with your core values yeah that’s who you want right right-minded
people yeah right-minded people those are my people and you attract people that are that are like you and you know what i
mean those are those core values core values aren’t something that’s plastered on the wall in the break room
at the office that you work at core values are how you behave that’s right if you
and i so i always i’ve worked at a place where they plastered them up on the wall and they always referred to them up on
the wall but that doesn’t help they’re on the wall my philosophy is they we shouldn’t
have to put them on the wall for people to understand what they are like if they
if if they have to see them on a wall to understand what they are then we’re not doing we’re not doing them yeah so
you’re not living them out right right absolutely that’s that’s neat what um um
as you got off and got rolling and got started um what was one of the more difficult
things that you encountered after you’re off and running um
i think growth has been really challenging because that when i started this the intention was
never to have more instructors it was just me i was just going to teach right and then i
realized like wow like i need to hire instructors yeah um so the growth has
been challenging because do you mean not necessarily the people coming to you it’s the staff do you mean the staff and
everything to help because we’ve we’ve grown so much with members that i want to offer more
variety of classes so when we first started we were megan’s yoga tribe okay now we are making zero
try but we’re a fitness studio we offer yoga bar pilates and hit classes so i actually
have bar teachers pilates teachers i have buddhi yoga teachers and i have personal trainers that teach interval
training so i went from just this yoga these just these five little yoga classes that i taught different
modalities of yoga to branching out to serve more people and so that was kind
of the thing like what direction do i want to go right but i think it’s neat because i’m a true believer that we need
we need all modalities we need some cardiovascular okay we also need mindfulness we need that deep stretch
that yin we call it a restorative and then we need to use some light weights because we need some long lean muscles
to keep our skeletons strong and so i kind of was like you know what we need all these modalities and i want my
members to have access to lots of varieties so that i can meet them where they’re at whether they have never done
yoga before or barely worked out there’s something available for them or if they’re like achieving massive goals and
they like you know want to have a six-pack okay i have something for that too so right i want it very interesting
have something for everyone see i’m going for the six-pack that’s that’s my that’s my summer goal
good for you be a 40-year-old with a six-pack you should try my hitfit yoga class yeah hit fit yeah it’s women only
yeah you can do the on-demand though oh i will tell you tried to get out of that
real quick i came to one of my classes one of my hipfit classes and i kid you not this is
back when we were still in studio so way before pandemic and one of the gals next
to him said he was making dying animals oh yeah
well the last time i attended a gym that about made me pass out on day one i signed up for a membership like that day
so oh i i mean it is i say wednesday is my most
humbling day of the week and it reminds me how strong i am because hit fit yoga
is intense grit and grace but i am also myself and all my instructors like we offer
modifications we remind people to honor where they’re at to give themselves
grace but we also want you to know that you’re stronger than you know yeah you have been through a lot of hard
things you have risen up day after day after day but honor where you’re at if something doesn’t feel right i’m gonna
educate you like what your central nervous system is you know i’m gonna get you to the right place in your
parasympathetic nervous system i want you to be peace and calm see we’re i like it i got hit today’s tuesdays we’re
filming this tomorrow’s wednesday that’s right that’s hit day at my gym too yeah yeah so
so are you not are you not going i don’t understand it must be a thing that wednesday is a good day for hit day like
hump day yeah let’s put the most strenuous workout of the day in on wednesday in
our classes so we offer 30 30 minute classes 45 minute classes and 60 minute classes and then i also do
workshops so there’ll be i allow my instructors to to offer workshops on our platform yeah and then i bring in a
guest instructor doesn’t have to be a fitness instructor tomorrow night is actually a pelvic floor physical
therapist that i’m bringing in and doing a live workshop teaching about pelvic pelvic floor i wasn’t i wasn’t even
gonna say anything i was like that’s over my head i’m just letting go so many women are suffering in silence
with all kinds of problems with pelvic floor they like having to cross their legs every time they sneeze having pain
with sex you know incontinence literally just all kinds of ailments and so for me
i can provide like it’s just extra i just bring this value i bring in these people i’ve brought in therapists to
teach self-love i’ve brought in healers to do different healing things different kind of instructors um guides to bring
in every single month i have someone come in and do just a freebie pop-up class for my community that’s cool i
like it we have 25 people signed up to come tomorrow night to learn about pelvic
floor and you’ll probably have come to zoom you probably have another 10. digitally all zoom yeah it’s all zoom
and then all the classes are recorded so if people can’t join live they have access still to the information from
their membership from their membership got a dance recital to attend two i’m going to get it later that’s right i had
the late a lady asked this morning she’s like megan will be recorded of course yeah yeah and then we have a i like it
for pop-up classes and they can go there and find all the different pop-up classes well that is that is really cool
it is really cool that is awesome i learned so before i always go and and prep and you know try to read about it
especially if i don’t know anyone find out everything i learned so much today and i’ve learned
so much on just on this show about just i mean
yoga sage sage we did a lot of pre-show stuff and i’m i am truly inspired by you yeah
thank you no thank you i’ve i’ve been intrigued by yoga for a while i’m scared to try it because i am not flexible
you’re afraid megan’s gonna hurt you i’m i’m afraid i’d be looking at it like i still have to work tomorrow
so like i don’t want to hurt myself there’s there’s moments dude you could be sore oh i know
you could be you could snap something you could be really trying to overdo it i bet yoga would kick my ass harder than
the gym oh guarantee it would and i will tell you no one ever leaves my class feeling like they didn’t get a workout
or they didn’t i mean yeah it is man i my genders that teach more like what i call
like vign or yin yas are restorative my specialty is like i’m gonna make you
sweat kick your ass i’m gonna put you i’m gonna put you in that crescent lunge and then i’ll have you pulse your knee down towards the earth for a while and
maybe hold some light weights and dude those muscles you don’t know you have start working you’re in you’re you’re in
panic mode but it’s so empowering you’re so in panic mode it’s so empowering and it’s it’s it’s those endorphins to
dominate it yeah it’s magic i call it my magic carpet ride my literally my yoga mat
it’s my magic it’s my magic carpet ride i like it like uh three years ago maybe
for three or four years ago i had a friend convince me to go to a body pump class down the street at the ymca
and and so i go talk about the one by south yeah and so i go and it’s like
i’m the only guy there right and all of these like i’m the youngest person there
by at least 10 years and except for my friend that got taught
or you know convinced me to go and it’s doing like most of these people are working out with like a bar only no
weights on it no nothing and they’re just doing like a whole bunch of curls and a whole bunch of like in steps right
where you’re doing steps yeah it’s it’s like aerobic and it’s like to music and it’s like i really wish there was a
video no oh those people those same people have been doing it for 30 years well yeah and so
i’m like these women are 20 years older like i’m gonna put some
weight on this bar you like gotta put a couple fives on there at least by the so i completed the workout
and then when the parking lot threw up the next morning i couldn’t even put my contacts in my arm would not
i couldn’t touch my eye and it was like that for like a day and a half i was so
so sore like oh my gosh so those are toning you know what you should do try to remember that and then when you get
home after your big workouts at the gyms then do those go do do joby super cut yeah yeah well in our you know our
muscles or i could just do yoga or you can do yoga muscles have memory but i think the cool thing too
specifically about my classes is people feel progress and they see transformation because right if you’re
just doing something day after day which great yeah the mindfulness is wonderful you feel zen you feel confident you’re
more at peace and ease but for my clients when they are like holy
get messages all the time after class like oh my gosh i did all of abc like
i really teach where you get stronger yeah where you see the results you feel
the results and when they look in the mirror and all of a sudden there’s a new shadow from a new oh like area
they’re literally like oh my gosh look at my triceps yeah yeah holy moly yeah yeah holding yourself up straight you’re
changing so cool that that there’s that transformation part there’s that progress that they see themselves
transforming but they feel it too right so i think it’s pretty cool that’s pretty sweet yeah i like it
well i guys i think that about wraps up our show here with megan um megan throw out where you are on social on social
media and stuff like that shameless plug here please yeah yeah so they can they can find you right so i’m megan’s yoga
tribe you’ll find me on instagram you will find me on facebook i will tell you
that i that’s that’s all i can keep up with i know there’s lots of social sites but unfortunately it’s too much kids
and it’s too much right i would have to watch a youtube video to figure out how to work it so
facebook facebook instagram megan’s yoga tribe um my website create and live a life you
love dot com okay or megan’syogatribe.com if you google
megan’s yoga tribe it comes right up perfect and there’s a seven day free trial to my
membership so you can try out all the classes 11 live zooms a week
over 550 on demand classes tons of modalities
come in experience the community there is no ego there’s no competition there’s no judgment you show up where you’re at
you flow and grow you will feel like you belong yeah hands down um so yeah seven days free try it out
that is cool mitch is gonna be doing the on demand yeah i guarantee he tries the drunkest one i can guarantee you i’m
gonna try it i like it so um guys remember if you if you like what you’re hearing on the show please do us
a favor and help share the show with anybody else uh who might also be wanting to start their business i think
megan is a good example of this that um a business can can go
anywhere where there is a need and so uh just just as we’ve said before the the
pandemic that we’ve recently gone through created tons of opportunity for people to create businesses seemingly
out of thin air and and megan is proof of that so um
if you if you see somebody on you know facebook groups or anything like that for your local crafts or your your
trades or whatever it is that you do and they have questions about starting their own business feel free to send them a
link to the show and and again anything episode one through nine is our is our uh our
steps to uh that you’re gonna want to achieve or overcome in order to
successfully start your business so um uh if you’re if you’re looking for where
our show may be we’re going to be on apple podcasts uh we’re on spotify and we’re also on youtube so
uh until next week uh we will see you later and again megan thanks for thank you megan appreciate it so much better
than solo parenting for kids tonight yeah i mean i let i left you you got the solo parent two kids yeah yeah just two
adults two adult kids adult-ish kids yeah i left the 11 year old to put the other kids to bed what are the odds that
they’re actually asleep um well it’s not eight o’clock yet so you’ll be 7 30. one of the kids bedtime is 7 30. zero
percent chances of sleep okay that’s always my goal is like just have them in bed when i feet
stomping up the stairs when you come in the door they’re gonna be ready i love it
no thank you megan thank you so much it’s an honor appreciate it love it all right we’ll see you guys later thank you
good night