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On today’s episode of the podcast, Dawn Mauricio is joining me from Montreal, Quebec to share her journey as a yoga and meditation teacher. Dawn came to yoga after a painful break up while she was working in marketing in a corporate setting. After having a really powerful healing experience through yoga, Dawn decided to do a yoga teacher training, and quickly became a teacher.

Dawn shares how she went from teaching upwards of 20 classes a week to teaching workshops, retreats, teacher trainings, and at festivals. We chat about her biggest learnings as a yoga teacher, how she has grown her yoga business, the power of a great mentor and cultivating relationships, and how professionalism can help you take your yoga career to the next level.

Enjoy!

Business Lessons from this Episode:

• Meet your students where they are and create a space where they can accept themselves as they are
• Transition to full-time teaching while supplementing your income
• Get exposure as a new yoga teacher – talk to people and practice at multiple studios
• Get multiple certifications and test out different areas of specifications to see what you like
• Spend a couple of years hustling, where you teach as much as you can so that you can get a lot of experience and figure out who we are as a yoga teacher
• You can get to a point with your career when you can choose where you want to teach, when you want to teach, and how often you want to teach.
• Supplement your income with corporate classes, private classes, and workshops
• Have conversations with the students that you teach to gage interest for workshops and other offerings
• Sometimes new teachers throw themselves into running retreats or workshops before they are really ready, and then they give up because it didn’t go well. Be patient and wait until you’ve built up your experience as a yoga teacher.
• Find a balance between jumping into quickly and feeling like you’re not ready.
• Have a mentor or a teacher that you can bounce ideas off of. Find someone who you are comfortable asking for feedback and exchanging ideas with.
• Take all collaborations with other studios, studio owners, brands, etc as a give and take relationship.
• Create relationships with everyone that you work with because you never know what opportunities could come from these.
• Be loyal to the brands and relationships that you’ve cultivated.
• Always play the long game
• Be intentional and considerate with each career move that you make
• Always be professional – respond to emails in a timely way, invoice in a timely manner, stay on top of your schedule, and be organized
• Communicate clearly with the people that you’re working with and always be truthful
• Studio owners want what’s best for the studio and the students, and as a teacher, you should too
• Always allow your teaching to come from a place of authenticity and caring about your students.
• How are you showing up for your classes energetically? Are you happy to teach? Are you annoyed that you’re there? Do you wish you had said “no” to the class?
• Finding your balance between life and teaching is often a continuously moving point.
• Tune in to how you feel each time you teach and with your career. We cue this with our students but it’s so rare that we actually tune in ourselves.
• Trial and error and refine as you go. Learn from every experience you have as a teacher.
• Don’t put pressure on yourself right away to make teaching yoga your only source of income. Keep a revenue stream on the side so that you can diversify yourself and not burn yourself out.
• As yoga teachers, we’re in the business of self-care so we need to practice self-care for ourselves so that we can be a good example for our students.
• And much more… Here’s the episode!

Connect with Dawn:

Dawn Mauricio 

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by bookyogaretreats.com! I used bookyogaretreats to book my very first retreat and loved it. It’s a great platform for people who want to book a retreat or training and for yoga teachers who want to lead a retreat. Check it out here!

I’ve also launched a private community on Facebook for yoga teachers who want to learn more about business. Join me here!