Dear Yogis, My childhood was filled with instability, we moved every year, we were always running out of things, or simply didn’t have things we needed at times. I learned early on to be resilient and to make the best with what I had in every situation, a sort of day to day life negotiation. I never grew up thinking life should be “my way or the highway,” because that reality simply didn’t exist. What I grew up learning, was to adjust and to compromise and that every interaction is essentially a negotiation. I share this story because negotiation is a huge part of daily life and a huge part of running a yoga business. Being a good negotiator matters...

Hey Yogi’s, 7 years ago this week YAMA was featured in The New York Times.  It was a solo profile, the kind of coverage people dream about and pay tens of thousands of dollars for. How did it come about?   Well … I had written to the NYT about a client and a stunt we were hosting in Time Square: bringing together 40 women of a certain age to show off their yoga confidence, and their yoga bodies, by doing yoga in the least amount of clothing they were comfortable wearing in public and getting our vinyasa on. They wrote me back right away, but were more curious about this crazy woman was writing to the NYT on behalf of a yoga teacher?!   The article...

So, This newsletter was supposed to go out a month ago. Yet here I am working on a third (or fourth!) version suffering from a hard core perfection infection. Can anybody out there feel me? Is your productivity / output being slowed down by your desire to make things, “perfect?” Perfect by definition:  is the condition, state or quality of being free as possible from all flaws, defects or fault. And, we all know that perfection is not possible.  So, how can I be suffering from something that doesn’t really exist? Perfection is a disease that affects all creators, at times, with paralyzing symptoms such as: Micro - managing and obsessing over details - “you know, I just can’t send it...

The truth is... Being a yoga entrepreneur ain’t easy ... There are so many moving parts, so many moving people, constant changes in technology, limited resources, and juggling day to day responsibilities. I know because I am one and because we receive hundreds of emails and hear first hand accounts, from yoga entrepreneurs who are looking for tools and strategies to either: Save their businesses, or, to take their businesses from GOOD to GREAT. When we begin with a client our first step is to assess the situation. As an entrepreneur it becomes difficult to see the forest from the trees for most of us. We are simply too busy running things on the daily to stop and assess. Why...

Hello Dear Yogi’s, Wishing you all a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.  My brother, father and grandfather all served in the US Military and our typical way to celebrate has been a big, fat BBQ!  May you enjoy this time with you and yours. As a child I always recited the school yard mantra: “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” As an adult however, I now understand the power of words to bring positive manifestation, to cultivate inner strength and instill confidence, as well as to inflict pain on one another, or ourselves, whether intentionally said, or not. Communication, language and words are a topic that I think about a lot and I am curious about...