Martin

The best place I’d like to start today is sort of you taking us back to where it started for you and actually how your journey into yoga begun.

That would be a great place to start, sure.

Cathy

Well, my journey is kind of a long one, so I don’t want to spend too much time on that because I could talk forever.

But I am currently 49 years old, and I started yoga when I was 19 at a time in my life where I think a lot of people start yoga, which is at college now.

This was, like, 1990s for me, and yoga was pretty rare.

And I was in Chicago at the time.

There weren’t really yoga studios even.

And so I was in a theater conservatory, and one of our movement classes was to go to this yoga teacher’s apartment and learn yoga.

And so that was, like, my introduction into yoga was like I’d been on the spiritual path as pretty young.

I got into meditation books in my teens.

I was already meditating.

I’d maybe heard the word yoga, but I don’t really, you know, I didn’t really know what it was because, again, it’s not like it was super popular in the nineties yet, and.

Yeah, but when I was introduced to it, it was like the physical meeting the spiritual for me, and I was hooked.

That was it.

I was just.

I have never looked back since that moment.

Martin

What was it actually that you’ve found that helped that, that bridge between spiritual and the physical? Like, what was it sort of specifically that that helped bridge that gap? Because I’ve heard that from.

We had another guest on our show last week, Reese, and he’s an expert in breath work, and he actually said something similar.

He was saying that breath work is a great way to amplify your meditation practice or help you get into a meditative state, because there’s something physical that you can do that helps you sort of, I guess, almost like a stepping stone into meditation.

Was that sort of the same experience for you? 

Cathy

Yeah, I think I was very active as a child, and I was actually a competitive tennis player.

I was training to go pro, and so I was very disciplined with my physical practice of sport, basically, as an athlete.

And I just didn’t really know that there could be a physical, mindful movement practice.

And I think, you know, I look back now, and in hindsight, a lot of my discipline that I applied to my yoga practice, I actually got from training as an athlete.

And you’ll hear a lot of that kind of coaching come out in my teaching.

It’s, I think, something that differentiates me a little bit from other yoga teachers.

In some ways, I’m a little bit more of a coach than a teach, than a yoga, like, all kind of yoga teacher that people expect to hear in the classroom.

So I think it was just, yeah, really the marrying of the physical and the spiritual.

And then, of course, as you journey on the yoga path, you realize a lot of it, if not all of it, is really the mind is really learning to focus, harness the mind.

You know, mindset is such a buzzword now, but we, you know, so it’s a similar kind of idea where we can use.

We can learn to either focus the mind.

The mind is not always necessarily going to be quiet.

It has its own agenda, has its own things it needs to do.

So if we can learn in yoga, we call it single pointed focusness.

If we can learn to focus on one thing, then we can connect more with our body, and that’s that mind body connection.

So I think that was a firing off moment for me.

It was like, oh, spiritual mind body, all in harmony here, working together.

Martin

Very curious, because I played soccer or football for most of my life as well.

And I’m curious, like, what are the sort of principles that you take from, from your tennis career that you now you say you put into your coaching or your teaching as a yoga teacher? I’m curious, like, what are some of those things that you sort of put in that other yoga teachers might not? 

Cathy

Yeah, that’s a fantastic question.

And when I look at, really, my first online series that I ever produced, which is called activate your core, I took this exact idea that I’m about to talk about, which is conditioning the body for your sport or movement practice.

And up until recently, you didn’t really see that in the yoga world.

Like, there’s almost this pretension that a true yoga student or a practitioner, just as yoga, there’s like this purest kind of attitude.

But the truth is, you know, yoga isn’t a perfect physical practice.

And without conditioning your body.

Sorry, that’s my puppy.

Without conditioning your body building strength, that kind of stuff, you can really, I don’t want to say injure, but it’s just, you know, you’ll break down after a while.

And, and that is what I took from my childhood as an athlete.

Like, yes, I was on the court 5 hours a day, but after that, we would condition, or before that, we would condition.

We would run the stairs, we’d be in the gym room.

So there’s like conditioning your body for, and then also the recovery aspect again, I think that’s something more new in the yoga world.

And really, I almost feel as a yoga teacher, I have to, especially more type a people that want the physical practice.

I have to educate them on why it’s so important to take more restful practices sometimes and balance out things and give your body time to recover.

So these are things that I bring into my teaching and my online series that I think are a little bit unique.

Like, it’s one of the reasons why none of my series are actually named yoga.

They’re all like, activate your flexibility or activate your arm balances.

Because I do veer outside of the yoga practice to bring different techniques in to build a sustainable practice for people so that they can do yoga in a healthy way.

Martin

Super cool.

I mean, that’s a really interesting point.

I’ve never thought about it that way, but I always, when I thought about yoga, I always thought of it as sort of almost a restorative practice anyway.

But it is something that you still need to condition yourself and it’s something that you do, from my understanding, need to take rest from at time to time.

You can’t just be going full 100% all the time.

There needs to be a restorative part of it as well, which it sounds like you’re encouraging your students to do.

Cathy

Yeah, I think that that’s a normal conception, that yoga is like relaxing or soothing and some yoga is, but some yoga isn’t.

And a student can only go to, let’s say power yoga and be in a hot room and be doing tons of chaturanga push ups and strength stuff and then never have that balance, basically to reset their central nervous system.

So I think that that’s one of the biggest myths about yoga, is that it’s relaxing or all kind of restorative.

Restorative yoga is actually something that’s pretty much brand new in the yoga world.

It started in like the seventies, eighties.

So that wasn’t even like necessarily a part of yoga until recently.

Martin

Obviously you’ve been practicing for a while now.

Tell us a little bit about how has your practice evolved? What sort of challenges have you sort of had to face along the way? Because I know it’s not a linear journey.

Yeah.

So I actually started in Iyengar, so I have love for alignment and prop use and that’s where that comes from.

But in my twenties I lived in Los Angeles and this is like the mecca of yoga.

Like yoga in the west started in LA, so you’ve got the strongest yoga movement there.

Some of the arguably the best yoga teachers and people are really into it there.

And so I was very impressionable in my twenties of just like, this is so cool.

And people were doing it.

Was vinyasa doing these, like, cool transitions, and I was just like, ah.

So I kind of married my love for alignment with my love for a strong kind of vinyasa practice.

And that’s what I did throughout my twenties, actually practiced yoga ten years before, I did a teacher training, and then I did my teacher training and I started teaching.

And that’s a whole journey in and of itself.

But I took a little bit of a break in my thirties.

I wanted a family, and I was worried that yoga as a career couldn’t sustain me, and so I kind of left the yoga world, and I went to Columbia University in New York.

I did, like, a hard move from LA to New York, and I just immersed myself in academia, and at the same time, I had hurt my back.

I was starting to go through just horrible back pain.

And so I was kind of off the yoga path for a few years.

And then when I decided to come back to yoga, everything was different, Marty, like, because before there was no social media.

I didn’t even have a cell phone, you know, and now it was just like all social media.

Vinyasa was everywhere, and everything was just different.

And I had my second child, and I was staying at home with her because she had a condition the first year of her life.

And it was this very quiet time for me, and I just, I literally rolled out my mat, hadn’t practiced in or taught in like, a year or two, was in a lot of back pain, and I just committed.

This is where that athlete comes in to practicing two times a day.

So I’d practice one time when she was napping, and one time when she was awake, and I’d lay her on my mat and I did one was I did more of, like, conditioning and then one like a more kind of traditional yoga practice.

And this was a quiet time for me where I started to question everything I had learned as a yoga teacher and student when I was younger.

And it was a time in which I feel like I became my own teacher because of that questioning.

And I started to do my own research.

And I’d be like, well, I always, I was always told this, but that anatomically doesn’t make any sense, like, why were we doing it that way? Maybe, like, let’s try it this way.

And I started teaching yoga again, and I started testing a lot of things out on my students and then seeing results and that’s when I feel like I really became my own teacher.

But it was having gone back to school and I went to grad school and everything I that helped me learn how to develop these programs.

So I’m glad I took that time away from yoga and went and got myself educated and learned how to write a thesis and do research, because I really do, to this day, still apply those things to my teaching and my business.

Martin

What are some of those things that you were challenging? Actually, I’d be curious to hear what were some of the, the things that you said you had learned when you were younger that then when you got started again, you were saying, wait, let me try this with a student and see what happens.

What are some of those things that stood out? 

Cathy

Gosh, I could write a book on this.

So I’ll just give you one example.

And it’s like no one’s fault.

Like, we’re all getting better.

We’re all evolving.

But what we have now in the west is I like trained people, anatomy experts, doctors coming in and examining the body and looking at things and going, maybe you all shouldn’t do it like that.

Or we also have now years of students practicing yoga, and we can see now common injuries coming out of yoga, things like torn rotator cuff muscles and hips and stuff like that.

And so we can start to say, oh, maybe doing it this way isn’t actually healthy and good for people’s bodies, and maybe we should re examine that.

And so this is a little off topic, but to give you, I think the most, like, biggest example is when I learned how to do handstand in my twenties, I was so, handstands, when you’re, like, balancing on your hands, right.

And your arms are straight, I was always told to depress my shoulders down.

Okay.

And that creates, like, a banana back shape in your back.

And people that do handstands or are learning handstands or in yoga, they know what that word means.

Banana back.

Right.

And it’s something you don’t want.

Right.

And it also really compresses the spine.

Yeah.

And, you know, I realized that, like, the shoulder joint, your shoulder blades, we don’t want to pull down because our arms are in flexion above our head.

And when our arms are in flexion above our head, the shoulder blades naturally go in upward rotation.

So when we then push down, it’s just like going opposite what the body anatomically is designed to do.

And so it creates a lot of instability in the shoulder girdle, and you don’t want instability when you’re balancing on your hands on, you know, in your shoulder is now the new place of stability.

When we’re standing on our feet, our hips are the place of stability.

Right.

And so that’s, that’s a prime example.

It’s like I literally learned the exact opposite way, I think.

And now all handstand teachers and coaches know it should be like, we want the shoulder blades actually in elevation.

We want to go this way, not this way.

Right.

So elevation, not depression.

So that, that’s a good example.

It’s just like, you know, a lot of, like, outdated stuff.

And I think that that can be a danger of any practitioner in any movement modality who doesn’t stay up to date and learn how their practice is evolving and learn from new experts coming in.

It can be dangerous to, you know, stay rigid with what you’re teaching and think it’s going to last 2030 years.

Like, my teaching has evolved so much.

You know, just I’m constantly learning new things and pulling things in from other modalities and doing research and everything.

Martin

I mean, is that, is that a challenge you see in the, in the industry in general? Because these are, you know, practices that originate from thousands of years, let’s say.

So are people more rigid because they’re like, well, it’s a thousand years old, you know, less, they’re less open to hearing, you know, new theories or new, new ways of doing things.

Is that a bit of a challenge? You see sort of people, as you said, staying rigid? 

Cathy

Yeah, yeah, I think that there’s a slight, and I’m one of those.

I’m a non dogmatic yoga teacher.

I think we can, as, we just want to always ask why, why do we do things this way and what is the benefit? And as long as you can provide a rational answer to that question, then you do you, and, like, there’s no one perfect way to do a pose.

But I do think there’s a slight divide with something like ashtanga yoga, which, as I was saying, kind of comes out of the grandfather of modern day yoga and is a style of yoga that is dogmatic, that does not want to change and, you know, good for them because that’s their thing.

Like, that’s their, like, stamp in the yoga world.

Right? So, but that does create a little bit of a divide between all of the other people that are evolving in the practice, and then there becomes a bit of a tension and a little bit of, I know, not fighting, just challenging each other in this way.

So I think it’s a normal part.

And you know what? Like, that’s fine because that’s a dialectic and that’s how we grow and evolve and educate.

If we didn’t have that kind of controversy, I don’t think any of us would be that curious to change and evolve the practice.

Cool.

Now that there’s obviously new expertise evolving in different areas of anatomy and movement and, you know, bringing each of little parts of each of those together and questioning, you know, your own practice or own methodology can, can lead to good insights, like the handstand approach, for example.

So, yeah, that’s really cool.

Martin

So just connecting the dots again on your, on your timeline.

So it’s back to that moment when you started to get into yoga again and how that progressed in, into you going full time at it again.

That’s what I’d be curious to hear.

Did you start teaching in local classes? Yeah.

What did you do? 

Cathy

So, yeah, I had, you know, graduated with a master’s degree, tried to join like corporate America, and I was absolutely miserable and I sat.

This is the time that I got on my mat and I was with my baby and I just kind of meditated and thought like, what am I doing? I think I was at a huge, pivotal shift in my life.

I was in my, I don’t know, almost 40 or something.

And as crazy as this sounds, I was driving one day and I heard a gong like sound and I heard a voice and this never happened to me, but the voice said, you’re going to go, you’re going to teach yoga again and you’ll open up a yoga studio.

And I don’t know if you’ve ever had an experience like that, but when that voice is that loud and that clear, I didn’t even question it.

I was like, okay.

And I was sitting at a pool one day with some friends and I just said, I’m going to teach yoga again.

And one of the guys said, oh, they’re opening a yoga studio right around the corner.

I know the owner, she’s franchising.

Do you want me to connect you? And I said, okay.

And that was kind of the start.

So I started teaching for them locally and now I, you know, no one knew me there, but I had come from LA and I’d been around the yoga world for a while, so I think that helped me there, build a reputation of credibility.

And my classes just started.

It was crazy.

Marty, there was like a waitlist of like 28 people, like in my yoga classes.

Like, the waitlist was almost bigger than what we could fill in the room.

After a year of that, it just became obvious that I should have my own studio.

So I opened my own studio, actually franchised, and I helped develop their yoga teacher trainings.

I helped design their classes and then train the teachers on the classes.

And I actually, while there, approached the founder and I said, you know, if you ever go online, like, if you ever want to do videos now, this is, like, ten years ago, you know, I was like, I want to do it.

Like.

And she was like, do it.

And so while I was there, I produced 200 yoga videos.

I actually filmed them, directed them, edited them, got them all up online onto their online platform.

I was in 40 of them, and it was kind of a great training for me, and it was actually exactly why I wanted to do it.

So then I decided to produce my own online series.

Outside of that, kind of put a lot of money into it.

At the time, it was like five grand, which seemed like a lot to me.

And at the time, I had.

I was also getting myself online, so I was kind of building a local following.

And then I joined YouTube.

I got onto Instagram, but more as, like, a user, you know, I was just, like, posting, I don’t know, my practice and stuff.

And so I decided I wanted to build my first online series.

And again, this is a long time ago.

This is, like, way before COVID and I had about 30,000 Instagram followers.

So I did.

I did decide to take Instagram seriously.

I started building my following.

I had about 30,000 followers.

I launched my new program called activate your core, which, you know, I developed myself during that time.

I was talking about at home with my baby and just applying these conditioning techniques to help build strength for your yoga practice.

And I launched it, and it did okay, like, I don’t know, maybe I sold, like, 30 units, you know? And then I moved and I left my yoga studio, and all kinds of life stuff happened.

I separated with my husband.

I moved to Florida, and then COVID happened.

And when I left the yoga studio and separated from my ex, I was in Florida, and I needed money, you know? And so I started.

This is before.

Right before COVID I started a new business model, which was going to be retreats, and I invested my own money into it.

And I had.

I think I spent about $40,000, which for me, was a lot of money.

And then COVID happened, and I lost all my money.

All that none of the retreat centers would give me.

The only one gave me a deposit back, but it was like, $1,500.

None of the retreat places would give me my money back, but I was ethical, so I gave all my students money back.

So I ended up losing 40 grand.

And I was a single mom, two kids, their dad was out of state.

I was just like, Marty, I was at the lowest low, you know, I was like, I don’t know what to do.

I felt paralyzed.

Had about 80,000 Instagram followers at that point.

And I just.

This sounds crazy, but I just did nothing for three weeks.

I cried and I meditated and I had this idea.

I had a couple ideas, and one was to put activate your core on sale again.

Now, it was three or four years old, but I was like, well, I have 50,000 new followers and everyone’s at home.

Why don’t I just put that on sale? So I did, like, a three day sale, and it sold 100 units in three days.

And I was like, oh, right, yeah.

So I was like, maybe I should film another one of these.

So I reached out to a studio, local yoga studio that was closed because of COVID and I said, can I use your studio? I’ll pay you.

And I went myself, and I filmed my next series, activate your handstand.

I filmed it, I edited it myself.

So it was $0.

I didn’t spend any money except for the yoga studio.

And I launched that like, three weeks later because I was just at home, you know, edited real quick.

Three weeks later, same thing, like, sold 100 units in three days.

And I was like, what is happening? It’s like, I think I have a business here, you know? And then people started to message me because everyone was at home for a while and they all knew I led teacher trainings in the past.

And they said, would you put a teacher training online? And my first reaction was, no, you can’t do that.

You can’t train yoga teachers online.

And then it just sat with me and it was like, gnawing at me.

And I was like, you know what? You can do that.

Like, you can set a high standard because everyone was just throwing their yoga teacher trainings online in Zoom sessions, like seven hour long Zoom sessions.

And I knew from creating as much online content as I did that that’s not sustainable.

It’s not evergreen content.

People are not going to have a good experience sitting on Zoom calls for seven hour days.

And so I just, I really saw this gap and I said, you know, I can fill this gap.

I can set a high standard for online yoga education.

I can be, you know, one of the first people to make an amazing online yoga teacher training short form evergreen content with live sessions with me.

And that’s what I did.

And I took this huge risk, Marty, because I had no money and I literally had $0.

I didn’t know even how I was going to pay rent.

And I reached out to the videographer I worked for because I knew it would be a lot of heavy lifting to get a 200 hours online yoga teacher training up.

I knew I needed help, and I started.

I opened registration without an actual product.

I don’t ever recommend this to anyone, but I had to take a risk, you know, I had to.

I just felt like I did.

I didn’t have it, the money.

And I promised myself if I didn’t do it, I’d give all the money back to everyone.

And my break even point was eight.

I needed eight people to pay the videographer to film and edit all the videos.

So that was my break even point.

And I remember, Marty, when I launched an open registration, I was like three weeks of the most stress and pressure I’ve ever felt.

Couldn’t sleep at night.

I was just waiting for those eight people.

And by the end of three weeks, I had over 30 people registered.

This is a high ticket item.

It was like, I don’t know, $1,500 at the time, and I had $0, and I was like, I couldn’t believe it.

I was like, oh, my goodness.

And within six months, I was building a six figure business.

And it’s only like continuing to build and build and build, and I don’t know.

I think the big lesson there is, a lot of times our best ideas can come at our lowest points.

And also in business with the economy would like when stuff is going down and everyone’s freaking out, if you can be that person to step up and pull your bootstraps up and take a huge risk, you’re going to come out on top when everything, you know, and that’s what happened.

And, you know, I just look back at that time and I’m so grateful that I didn’t just sit in fear or, like, go try to get a regular job or something like that, you know, I’m just.

I’m so grateful.

So, yeah, it was a really auspicious time, and then it’s just continued to build.

You know, I now have 14 online yoga courses in all different aspects, from anatomy to yin yoga to, you know, arm balances, handstands.

I have a beginner series, and I feel like I have a full, you know, full fledged school.

I also built out a 300 hours online yoga teacher training.

So that’s an advanced teacher training so you can train with me and get the highest level of yoga alliance approved credits as a yoga teacher, which is your 500 hours.

And, yeah, just, I had this vision and I just got to work, and I filmed thousands of videos at this point.

I mean, there are over a thousand videos in my courses.

You know, it’s really wild.

Martin

Yeah, that’s incredible.

It sounds like it was the perfect storm for you almost.

And as you said, it was the big changes in your personal life and then COVID hitting and, you know, that pressure to make something work and then you taking the risk, you know, to just sort of, well, seeing the gap in the market as well, which I think is like big credit to you to see that and, yeah, then go for it, you know, take that risk, that financial risk.

And that’s, you know, the beauty of online education.

And one of the things I love about it so much is, you know, I guess two big lessons.

There is one, you know, the power of building an audience.

As you said, you had 80,000 people that you’d built up over many years.

I assume it took a while to get there.

And then, you know, it’s quite a nice thing to hear, actually, from you in terms of you built this audience and then you almost fell into monetizing it sort of by surprise.

You’re sort of like, oh, wait, I’ve got this course and I’ve got 50,000 new followers.

Of course, why don’t I promote my course? And I find that’s credit to you and shows sort of where you come from as a creator and a teacher of, like, you’re producing value, you’re creating, you know, good content for people, and then you’re saying, hey, I also have these paid products and that’s really cool that you sort of fell into that and then, yeah, the, the power of, you know, a high ticket education product that is evergreen, as you said, you know, at that time during COVID So, so cool that that was able to work for you.

And, and now you’ve got this amazing online series which is across the board and, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s sort of how you, you stood out to me and sort of where your brain caught my attention is, yeah, you’re sort of really pioneering this as a soul creator and teacher with a fully fledged yoga school from, you know, the beginner classes to intermediate to advance through to a teacher training.

And that is incredibly, yeah, as you said, thousands of hours of content to create that and, and handle that and run a business.

So, you know, as a, as a mom, as someone that’s had to do all that themselves, it’s really cool to see.

I’m curious now you’ve got the online series, a good range of those in place.

You’ve got the teacher trainings.

Where do you see it evolving from here? Where do you still want to get to? What are you working on in terms of the business moving forward from here? 

Cathy

I’m in this interesting spot where I am currently have a condition with my spine where I can’t physically practice.

And similar to that perfect storm moment, I’ve learned my lesson enough to know that this is not a time for me to feel sorry for myself and be like, oh, well, I guess I can’t do yoga or I can’t teach that.

This is an opportunity for me to pivot or evolve or change even the online education space in the way yoga teachers have been doing it thus far.

And so to give you an example with my content now, if you go onto my page, you’ll notice something.

And that is, I am not practicing.

I’m using my yoga students and as yoga models and it’s, and I’m doing the same when I lead the lives in my teacher training.

And what this experience is showing me is a couple different things, is, I think as teachers, especially those in some kind of movement modality, where, you know, let’s be real, we are going to peak at a certain point and then we are going to age at a certain point.

And if you want a sustainable career, the irony is it’s a lot of the older people that have the experience and are seasoned teachers that are some of the strongest teachers, but they might not have that physical practice anymore.

And so I think I’m very interested right now in exploring new ways to educate online and maybe even pioneering a new kind of way to teach these kind of physical movements where the teacher doesn’t have to do the movement.

There’s always that pressure, I think, as a teacher, to do while teaching.

But what I’m discovering is that I’m an even better teacher when I don’t have to do, when I can really watch all of my students and be that coach, give them all that personalized attention while I have a yoga model demoing for me.

And so I’m kind of curious how that’s going to shift things for me as an instructor.

And also now that I have a much bigger following, closer to 200,000 now, and I’m on YouTube and TikTok and all that stuff, like, can I influence and help reshape a little bit of that online education model in the way that we’ve thought about it before? Even with AI coming out? Like, are there ways that we can use that and not overuse our own physical bodies where we can educate? So I’m very excited to keep expanding my school.

The other thing is I have trained over 400 yoga teachers in 45 countries.

I have a beautiful network of yoga teachers that I want to elevate in some capacity.

And so I’m exploring how I want to do that, whether that’s through my school or supporting them through their own ventures or something like that.

So I’m really excited for this next phase or evolution of what’s happening.

And I think it’s a good lesson for all of us that when you are either physically injured or something in your life, that it doesn’t, you know, your work and your passions don’t need to stop.

They just need to adapt.

And there’s such an abundance of people, I think it’s hard for us to comprehend.

But as I’ve shared more of my story online about what’s happening with my body, what I get is all of these new, new people, new audiences that is like, oh, I was injured, or, oh, I can’t do these poses because I have this, you know, condition or, and it’s just, it’s like, wow, there’s so many people out there, you know, that you can explore and bring into your community as you shift and evolve and have new, new things to offer.

Martin

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that’s a really, you know, cool new way for people to, to connect with you because you’re short sharing a more vulnerable side of, hey, look, I can’t the practice at the moment, you know, and, and people can see, I guess what people would appreciate most about that is that they’ve seen what you, you can do, what you have been able to do for a very, very long time.

I mean, you’re in impeccable, you know, fitness and shape and, and your practice is obviously so advanced.

And then to come out and say, hey, I can’t practice right now, makes it very relatable or like, you know, it gives a sense of humaneness to the whole experience.

And I think people would really, really appreciate that, particularly those that have experienced some sort of pain or disablement in some form, which most people have at some point in their life where they haven’t been able to practice and do what they want.

So that’s really cool.

And I’m excited to see how that evolves for you.

In terms of, as you said, that’s a whole new perspective of teaching.

A different angle that you’re getting now of like taking the step back, using the teacher guide, and being more closely involved with the students.

And I can see why that will offer something unique for you again for your school.

So, yeah, excited to see how that continues to evolve.

I’d love to sort of pivot a little bit because we’ve spoken a little bit about your social media following, but obviously you’ve done quite well in that area.

Tell us about your content creation strategy.

What’s, how has that evolved? What’s your strategy? What’s working for you? What do you like to do? Yeah, everything.

Content would be cool to hear.

Cathy

I love creating content.

I was an actress when I was young.

I lived in LA.

And so I just love, I don’t know, I love filming, I love being on camera, I love editing, I love all of it.

And so for me, it’s very fun and creative and a creative outlet.

And that’s why I think I’ve lasted as long as I have and continue nearly daily for the last ten years post content.

And so my process, I have streamlined because I am running a business as well.

I’ve got kids, so I do batch content, meaning I’ll film about one day a week and I pre plan the content.

I actually teach also social media.

I have a 60 day social media bootcamp.

And every time I run that, honestly, it just makes me better.

Like, you’ll notice my account’s really growing because every time I run it, I’m applying everything I’m teaching and, you know, doing the work again.

And so one of the tips that I do is I diversify my content.

Meaning for instance, like I am a yoga teacher, I could have just a page filled with tutorial based content and a lot of people do that and some of the accounts do really well.

But so that’s an example of just like one style of content.

But I like to have very different styles of content.

So you’ll see some comedy in mind, you’ll see some lip syncing, you’ll see some high concept, almost like skit ideas where I bring in other yoga teachers and we do these kind of skits and stuff.

And I even every once while bring in my kids or something like that.

And why I do that and why I think it’s so important to diversify your content is be back to this whole thing.

It’s like things change so quickly, things evolve, even like tutorial based content is now so different.

Like you can’t do anymore.

The three steps to getting crow pose.

Like that stuff doesn’t fly anymore.

People don’t want to see it anymore.

So even like you want to stay in front of creating content and just keep it fresh and change it a lot and test new things, I think it’s so easy to just be like, oh yeah, that works.

So I’ll just keep doing that.

But people get bored after a while and so like you have to test different things and evolve and be able to adapt and shift and everything.

So I think like, you know, if you look back and you scroll back to the 2500, 3000 posts I posted, you’ll see all of the changes and all of the evolution and you know, even things like I used to at least a space to film, it was a really pretty, just clean white space.

But after COVID, like people want to see you in your home, like they don’t want that clean, you know.

So it’s like you have to change with, you know, and, and then also creating your own templates like the way you edit or the way you present your content rather than copying other people’s I think is another useful thing so that you actually become a trendsetter and then people come to you to look to, you know, be influenced or inspired, I think is another thing.

So I know that that was a lot of tips, but I think just for everyone’s mental health on social media, starting to plan your content a little bit.

So I’ll write down some different hooks.

Like hooks are the kind of things that grab you in the first 3 seconds or for my tutorials, I’ll write down some of the things that I know.

I’m really good at teaching.

That’s kind of easy for me, but maybe new to other people.

And I’ll kind of write those down.

I’ll put together a short shot list for each of them so that when I go to film on filming day and I just carve out like maybe 2 hours, I know exactly what I’m doing and I just film and I bang it out and then that way I can kind of, then I just edit throughout the week and post.

So it’s like I have about one to 2 hours of planning my content, one to 2 hours of filming my content and then editing.

Another big tip I’ll give you all that I teach my boot campers is I call it going down the rabbit hole.

So we want, if you want to be a content creator and you want to grow your social media following, which, if you’re in the online space, you have to do, I think, is you want to stop being a consumer on social media.

Like, stop, stop mindlessly scrolling, but intentionally be scrolling on social media and saving great music and sounds and looking at trends and seeing hooks that are compelling and just collecting it.

And I call it going down the rabbit hole where maybe 30 minutes a day, you’re just kind of getting lost on Instagram or whatever platform you’re on and getting so that you’re always very in touch with, with what’s happening.

And so that’s what I do.

And for me, I don’t even necessarily stay in my niche.

The yoga industry, I don’t even stay in there.

I look at all different types of creators, just kind of whatever’s in my feed, and that’s been very useful.

You know, I want to comment on something you mentioned earlier about how in some ways, it almost looks like I went backwards by today’s standards.

Like, I built an audience first and then monetized it.

And I do think that’s a miss, that that is the way to go.

And that a mistake that a lot of new people coming onto social media are doing now is they think they have to have a product and they think they have to have a freebie and, you know, a link tree.

And.

And so they come onto social media with a few hundred followers and they’re already selling.

And I think that that’s the biggest mistake, you know, that you want to first grow an audience and build trust.

And honestly, that could take years.

It took years for me to do that so that when I finally had a product, people bought it from me because they trusted me.

Right.

And that’s.

That’s something I can’t recommend enough.

Like, build your following.

Don’t try to make money off of it right away.

Build your following, establish your credibility.

Start even partnering with brands to be exposed even more.

And then a lot of my products actually come out of my community.

They ask me for it, you know, like the social media bootcamp.

I didn’t want to do that.

I’m a yoga teacher, but people were asking me for it, so I developed a training for them.

So that’s like, build your community and then serve your community.

Martin

Such good advice.

Like, one of our other guests, Igor, said the exact same thing.

He’s a creator, has a big YouTube channel, and he said the exact same thing.

You know, just build.

Build a community, provide content, get good, get better at creating content, you know, as well, like, it’s taken you years to refine your approach, your strategy, and, yeah, I think we live in a world, you know, where we see those things, how I got 30,000 followers in the last 30 days, or, you know, and it creates this illusion of, you know, what.

What the game is about.

And, you know, for me, it’s create value and stay in the game for a longer period of time.

You know, like, that’s, I think, a short term approach a lot of people have that you’re saying is like, they think they need to create content and then try and sell something straight away, and if that’s not working, then it’s like, oh, it’s not going to work for me.

But, yeah.

Martin

How many years have you had your instagram account? 

Cathy

Nine or ten years.

I think 2015 is my first post.

Nine years? Yeah.

What’s.

I’d love to hear.

You’re obviously very passionate about it.

You love a lot of it.

But what would be one of the hardest things for you about promoting yourself as a creator? You know, putting yourself out there.

What’s.

What’s one of the hardest things you found across those last ten years as being a content creator? 

Cathy

I think it’s for me knowing how much of my personal life to share and my struggles, especially as I’m running a business.

So I remember when it was very clear to me that I couldn’t practice yoga right now.

I was a little scared to share any of that because I’m also running a business.

Am I going to alarm people? Are they going to think, oh, she’s not going to do her next teacher training, you know, and so.

But yet, at the same time, in our culture right now, we all really value transparency, authenticity, realness.

And so it’s like finding that balance of sharing what’s happening without also alarming people, I think, for me, has been my biggest struggle.

I’m, you know, I could have not said anything.

I could have kind of, I’m online.

No one can really see what’s going on.

I have a ton of content.

I could have just kept re editing and repurposing, but I think that I didn’t want to take that approach, and so it felt really risky to me.

But it’s been well received, and I think shifting gracefully and using the yoga models has.

Has definitely helped.

Martin

Interesting.

And I think the tough thing about that one is there isn’t really a rule on what’s the right amount to share.

Like, I mean, no one’s got the answer to that.

You know, like, you know, it’s such on a case by case basis, and I think every content creator or anyone, you know, marketing their own business from a personal brand perspective, and even from a business corporate perspective, yeah, being obviously transparent is very valued, but, yeah, where is that line? How much? When is it beneficial? When is it not beneficial? So, yeah, that’s a tough one for sure.

But it sounds like you found you’ve struck the right balance there of showing the challenges, but also saying, hey, this also means that we can offer something new and something different.

And I think that’s, as you said, in those tough times, there’s always opportunities that present themselves, and it sounds like you’re taking that opportunity.

I’d love to hear a little bit more about your community that you’ve built, because that’s been a big part of your strategy since you’ve started, is you’ve not only done the online exposure, but you’ve had events.

You’ve done lots of events in person as well.

What do you love most about the community that you’ve created? 

Cathy

I think one of the things that gives me chills when I think about it, and I heard a social media coach talk about this, and I cannot remember his name, but he said something like, you don’t build your community, your community builds it.

And I just thought, wow, that is so right.

I had no idea that a community would come out of what I was doing.

Like, I didn’t build my teacher training and say, oh, I’ve got to think about community.

It wasn’t even on my mind, to be honest with you.

And then what happened was the community kind of formed itself.

Now, I fostered it.

For instance, in my teacher training, I have.

It was one of the smartest things I did was I have small groups.

I put everyone into groups of five over the course of the teacher training.

And these small groups, they just, you know, they practice together, they meet up, they chat, and they’ve become like friends for life.

And everyone loves their small groups.

And I think that sense of community started to build, and then the small groups kind of came together, and I would host social media challenges under my school, and everyone would, you know, not everyone, but people from the trainings would join them.

And every time I launched a new series, I would have an Instagram social media challenge.

So, you know, just really offering different ways for people to connect.

You know, we have a hashtag, hash #CathyMadeoTT, and I use WhatsApp chat, the community chat, to keep everyone connected.

I do a monthly newsletter, and so the community really formed itself, and it’s so beautiful.

Because anyone who’s doing anything, okay, a creator or a teacher, like minded people attract to you, you know, maybe even for the same reason.

It’s almost like a magnet.

And so those people have a lot in common.

You know, even though they’re all different from all different walks of life and backgrounds, they have a lot of common.

They have this shared thing that they love, and that is just priceless.

And so continuing to offer opportunities for them to get together is what I think is really great.

So it started with me hosting retreats.

What would happen? I mean, they’re open for anyone to take, but generally, a large percentage of the people that come on that are alumni from my school.

And so that was, like, the first time we would meet in real life.

And you train 500 hours online, and you finally meet that person in real life.

I mean, there are no words to describe that feeling.

And then so people would come on the retreats again, and it was just this really amazing thing.

And then people on social media would see the alumni, other alumni would see, and then they’d get FOMo and they’d want to go.

Right? And so I decided last year to start an annual, I call it the Cathy Medeo Yoga alumni event.

It happens in Miami.

It’s going to happen every year in October, and it’s like a weekend event, and I bring in teachers from the school.

So it’s like my starting point of starting to start a platform for them.

My vision is that it turns into a yoga, like conference or festival, that we open it up to the public as it builds.

So that was like, we did the first one last October, 25 people flew in from all over, and we spent the whole weekend together.

I rented a beautiful space called Sacred Space Miami on Sunday, and we had the, like, festival that day.

We had five different teachers teach, and I taught the last class.

And it was just phenomenal to watch everyone come together.

You know, they have their own friendships and relationships.

Like, I’m like the mama bear, and it’s just phenomenal.

So I want to keep that energy and momentum and excitement going every year.

And I even have a vision of.

Because people have asked me of taking that alumni event to other places.

Like, I get kind of pockets of people.

Like, I have a large pocket of graduates in the Germany Sweden area, so I was thinking of doing one there because that’s kind of too far for them to come just for a weekend, even the New York Northeast.

So I want to kind of build maybe two or three of these alumni events and just give the alumni a space to come together and also teach.

And then again, maybe if it does well, I can grow it out and we can actually sell tickets to the public and give them a space to teach.

Martin

One more thing I’d like to ask you, because you’ve obviously got a lot of experience from building up an online education business and your own brand.

For anyone that is starting an online education business, an online course business, or considering getting into content creation and starting in this space, what advice would you give to them? What would be one piece of advice? 

Cathy

Production over perfection.

We talked about this.

I’m a perfectionist and I have a high standard for, like, when you go onto my online courses, they look good.

The sound quality is perfect, the lighting, the editing.

Like, they look good.

I have a high standard, but it didn’t start that way.

I had to, you know, through producing a ton of content, I just, it got better and better and better and so you have to start somewhere.

Do not let you know perfection stop.

You just get started and keep making a ton of content.

People just want to keep consuming so much content every day.

The market is not saturated.

You know, get out of your limiting beliefs and just do the work.

And another idea I was having as we were talking is you’ve probably heard this advice of, like, just get really good.

Like, just do one product and make it really, really good.

I want to challenge that a little bit because I think part of the success of my school is that it wasn’t just one product.

It’s that you go to my school and you’re like, oh, this is like, this is robust.

This is a lot of courses.

This is a.

A journey I could take versus people just make one course or a series, it sells a little and then they’re like, that failed and then they just stop.

You know, if we go back to my origin story with activate your core, my first online series, it only sold 30 units, you know, but I didn’t stop.

I just kept going and kept producing content and kept making it better.

So, yeah, production over perfection. 

Martin

I think that also adds an air of credibility to your brand as well.

When people can see it’s not just a one trick pony, you’ve got multiple areas that you’ve covered and also tailored to different skill levels as well, because not everyone’s going to be at the same level.

I know you’ve got the beginner courses in intermediate and more advanced stuff as well, but, yeah, I can imagine in the early stages, as you said, get that first one up, you know, don’t get caught up on the tiny details, they’re gonna hold you back.

Get out of those limiting beliefs.

And for sure we all have them.

You know, like starting this, this podcast myself.

You know, there’s, there’s always that little voice in the back of your head sort of saying, ah, but, you know, it’s been done already, or, you know, there’s, there’s no one’s going to want to listen to that.

But yeah, the more I speak to people like yourself, the more I start to see you see the bigger picture.

You know, you’ve been in this game for ten years and it’s easy for us or people to look at you and say, ah, but they’ve got, you know, she’s got almost 200,000 followers on Instagram.

Must be easy for her.

But that’s like, you know, just such a short view.

And it’s the tip of the iceberg what everything you’ve done behind it and, you know, the, the perfect storm moments that you’ve had along the way that have, it’s just, it’s unrealistic to look at and have all of those thoughts that come into your head of why you shouldn’t do it and why you shouldn’t start.

And, you know, I think for sure one thing I’ve taken away from chatting to you today is just get in the game, create good content, get better at creating good content and stay in the game, you know, like, stay, stay in it for the long haul because, and I’ve seen that, you know, a lot more from, from other, you know, people in this space to saying, like, look, my, my YouTube account did grow 30,000 subscribers in the last month.

But let me tell you why that’s not the thing you should be focusing on.

Because for two years before that, I got, you know, only 10,000 subscribers and some videos got like 100 views or something like that.

And, you know, no one wants to hear that and no one wants to accept that, that, yeah, it’s a long road.

Of course you can, you can, you can strike some luck along the way.

That’s, that’s a cool thing.

And if you do, then that’s great.

But you, I think it’s better to just be focused on ticking away, staying consistent.

I mean, the fact that you’ve done this for ten years is wild.

Cathy

Yeah, and I taught ten years, but so I’ve been teaching 20 years.

And that’s the other thing.

Like, if you’re teaching something like online education, like, it’s both.

You have, you want to be really good at marketing and social media, but then you want to be really good at what you do.

Really, really good.

And that comes through years of doing it.

So get on the saddle.

Don’t get off, you know, like, there’s no way to become a good teacher except for teaching.

Like, that’s it.

You have, you can, you know, learn as much as you want, but you got to get in there.

You got to get in there and just do it over and over and over and over again.

Martin

Well, thank you so much, Cathy.

This has been super fun to have you on and chat across all these topics.

Just before we finish, if anyone wants to learn anything more about what you’ve shared today, where should they go to? 

Cathy

They should go to my website, cathymadeoyoga.com.

But you can also find me @cathymadeoyoga on all social platforms.

So Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and then, of course, YouTube, which I know is a search engine, but you can find me there.

Cathy Madeo Yoga.

Martin

Thank you so much.

Cathy.

It was such a pleasure.

Cathy

Thank you so much.

It’s such a pleasure to chat with.