Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #19 – Yoga Biz & Looking to Lakshmi – Yoga in Australia with Amy McDonald

Welcome to Episode #19 of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast! This week, I welcome Amy McDonald onto the show. She is a yoga teacher from Australia, and is also a yoga business coach! In our conversation, Amy unveils top tips for yoga teachers on how to get started, best business practices, and even what yoga teachers are doing wrong that hinders their growth. Mindset, As Amy says, “If you can understand a little bit about Patajali’s yoga sutras, then you can absolutely learn how to make a Facebook ad.” 

If you’re looking to tune into a podcast that is jam-packed with joy, laughter, and tips and tricks for how to have abundance and prosperity in your yoga business, then this is the conversation for you.

Tell me more about Amy McDonald…

Amy McDonald is a spiritual business coach and yoga teacher from Australia. She’s also the host of the Abundant Yoga Teachers Podcast. Amy has been teaching yoga since 2009 and has taught freelance classes, corporate yoga, and yoga classes in studios— she’s even taught yoga classes in a men’s prison! She has led workshops and retreats in Australia, Bali, Singapore, Thailand, the UK, Europe, and the USA. And she doesn’t just teach yoga classes, she also teaches yoga teachers how to succeed in their careers. She offers business coaching, social media confidence courses, workshops, and more. She is dedicate to helping yoga teachers grow in their businesses to create abundance. 

What to expect in the Yoga In Australia episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast

Amy is no rookie when it comes to yoga. In fact, Amy first began practicing yoga when she was 8 years old, taking kids yoga classes in Australia. She became a yoga teacher in 2009, and became a yoga business coach in 2016. She doesn’t just work with yoga teachers in Australia, she also helps teachers across the world including in Europe and Canada.

My conversation with Amy McDonald, a yoga teacher from Australia was relevant, pertinent, applicable to all yoga teachers who are tuning in. And even if you’re not a yoga teacher, or a yoga teacher from Australia, I believe that our conversation will still applicable for you and any entrepreneurship idea you’re working on or mulling over, or maybe even if you’re just dealing with negative self-talk or low self-esteem. Amy and I discuss mindset, limited self-thinking, self-worth, and more. You can also expect a lot of laughter in this episode! There are golden toilets. There are kitchen tools for modifying your DNA. What? Seriously? Tune in to find out what in the heck we’re talking about. You won’t regret it!

For the skimmers – What’s in the Australia episode?

• Advice for new yoga teachers
• Things that yoga teachers are doing wrong 
• Mindset Matters: Do What You Love and Have Prosperity
• The Number One Question Yoga Teachers Ask Amy
• Setting the Scene: Yoga in Australia
• Look at Lakshmi: Have Targets & Goals

Thank you so much for tuning in the Yoga in Australia episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast with Amy McDonald. I hope you laughed along with us! 

Favorite Quote From Amy McDonald

“The yoga teaching says is as long as it’s dharmic, as long as it’s in alignment with your own purpose and with morality, of course you can generate prosperity.”

Connect with Amy McDonald

https://www.instagram.com/amyyogabizcoach/

www.amymcdonald.com.au

Abundant Yoga Teachers FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1585131075060442

https://www.facebook.com/ozyogablokes/

Want more?

https://wildyogatribe.com/thepodcast/

Everything you need is just one click away! Check out all the resources here: https://linktr.ee/wildyogatribe

Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #19 – Yoga Biz & Looking to Lakshmi – Yoga in Australia with Amy McDonald 

[00:00:00] Lily Allen-Duenas: Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. I’m your host, Lily Allen-Duenas. Together we’ll talk about the world of yoga and we’ll talk to people from around the world. Join us for authentic conversations about the global yoga ecosystem and we’ll cover yoga philosophies and methodologies along the way.

[00:00:28] Inhale. exhale. We’re about to dive in.

[00:00:38] Namaste family. And welcome back to the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. Today, I am so overjoyed to welcome Amy McDonald onto the show. She’s from Castlemaine from Melbourne, Australia and she is a spiritual business coach and yoga teacher. She’s also the host of a popular [00:01:00] yoga podcast called The Abundant Yoga Teachers podcast.

[00:01:05] Amy’s been teaching yoga since 2009 and has taught freelance classes, corporate yoga and yoga classes and studio. She’s even taught yoga classes in a men’s prison. She’s led workshops and retreats in Australia, Bali, Singapore, Thailand, UK, Europe, and the USA. And she doesn’t just teach yoga. She also teaches yoga teachers how to succeed in their careers.

[00:01:31] She offers business coaching, social media, confidence courses, workshops, and more. She is dedicated to helping yoga teachers grow their businesses to create abundance. So thank you so much, Amy, for joining me on the show. 

[00:01:48] Amy McDonald: Are you kidding?! Thanks for having me. And that was the, can you send me that bio I’m using that one from now on?

[00:01:54] That was great, thank you!

[00:01:59] Lily Allen-Duenas: I had [00:02:00] so much fun reading all about you and checking out your website and all your offerings, your link trees. And I crafted that last night before we were getting on today. 

[00:02:08] Amy McDonald: Be careful you haven’t set yourself a dangerous precedent for future guests. Folks, if you’re going to be a guest on this, get Lily to write your bio. 

[00:02:17] Lily Allen-Duenas: Happy to be of service.

[00:02:20] Thanks Amy. Again for being here, just to kick it off, would you like to share with us how yoga first came into your life? 

How yoga came into Amy’s life

[00:02:26] Amy McDonald: Sure. Yoga came into my life when I was eight by means of my best friend at the time having a bit of an alternative mother. So my best friend was doing yoga and my mum thought it would be a good idea for me to tag along because I was an anxious and stressed out little cute.

[00:02:44] And they thought maybe yoga might be helpful. So I started out doing kid’s yoga. Yeah, way back I can, back in the eighties. 

[00:02:52] Lily Allen-Duenas: Wow. That’s fantastic. I haven’t talked to someone yet who was introduced that early to yoga. Wow. [00:03:00] 

[00:03:00] Amy McDonald: Yeah, I was lucky I caught a break. I think if it wasn’t for my friend, it wouldn’t have happened.

[00:03:05] Lily Allen-Duenas: So did you just continue on and off throughout the years? Up until you’re an adult. 

[00:03:10] Amy McDonald: Yeah, I took, one night a week it was that sort of yoga person, Wednesday nights was yoga night. And then after I finished university when I was working in Melbourne, I’d go to classes on my lunch breaks for a variety of different things, but I wasn’t particularly discerning other than I liked having to like a certain teacher who didn’t really know much about the difference between different styles or anything like that.

[00:03:32] And then I got more discerning with the classes that I decided to take in, ultimately signing up for a 200 hour yoga teacher training in 2009. 

[00:03:42] Lily Allen-Duenas: Amazing. Was that in Australia or somewhere else? 

[00:03:46] Amy McDonald: No, that was in Thailand in Chiang Mai. And it was a residential one, so it was, I don’t know, just over a month and living at this very peculiar.

[00:03:56] Health retreat. Very peculiar. They had all sorts of [00:04:00] modalities and some, I’m not a particular, not really a new age person. So there was some wacky stuff that they taught in other classes, people doing all sorts of things like modifying their DNA with special, giant egg whisks, and all sorts of wacky stuff.

[00:04:14] And we just lived there on that site for. However many, 40 days or whatever, and did really long days of practicing and learning and studying. And it was a little bit like survivor in that people got, someone had a bit of a breakdown and she got kicked off and someone had an ethical dilemma with the teacher and he got kicked off.

[00:04:33] So the group shrunk over time, but I made it through, I almost didn’t, but I made it through, I’d got my qualification in the middle of 2009. 

[00:04:41] Lily Allen-Duenas: You are a survivor and I am so glad Amy, that you brought up that example of modifying DNA with egg whisks. That’s rather unique. 

[00:04:51] Amy McDonald: Wow. It was weird.

[00:04:52] Yeah, it was a weird place.

[00:04:53] Lily Allen-Duenas: But I did spend a month in Chiang Mai myself doing a 180 hour time massage training. So I’m very [00:05:00] familiar with Chiang Mai. It’s beautiful there. 

[00:05:01] Amy McDonald: We got the weekends. We got Saturday night and Sunday free time. And so I would go into, because it was way out of town. So I would go into town, stay in a hotel for the night and just feel like a normal person eat what I wanted when I wanted to sleep as much as I wanted, not do anything to do with yoga and then get in the, the song tower and head back to this wackadoodle retreats into bizarre, but good.

[00:05:25] The training was, it was very good. 

[00:05:26] Lily Allen-Duenas: I’m glad there was that. And it certainly kicked off your path as a yoga teacher. And what made you want to shift, or actually, maybe it wasn’t a shift, maybe more of an additional modality of being a spiritual business coach as well as a yoga teacher.

[00:05:39] When did that shift happen? 

The path as a spiritual business coach and yoga teacher

[00:05:41] Amy McDonald: I came back from that training and I opened a small studio, just a home studio and did that for a while. I was also working as a freelancer, writer and editor. And then about a year later, I moved to the country to the little house that I have now and studied to be a life coach.

[00:05:57] And so I had a couple of different qualifications under my belt, and I [00:06:00] started taking yoga and life coaching retreats in Bali. I’ve run a few of those with a friend and a few by myself. And then I signed up to do a 300 hour yoga teacher training and some more coaching qualifications. And it was in those environments.

[00:06:14] Just meeting up with my friends, that qualification was in Jakarta. We’d go for a week every couple of months and see them. And we were all at a similar point in our yoga careers that I would just give them informal business advice based on my writing qualification, project management skills, life coaching stuff.

[00:06:32] And similarly with my coaching colleagues, we would meet up quarterly in different places around the world. And I would just do the same for them just as friends to friends. And they started to advise me that maybe this is something I should specialize in, that I had a knack for it.

[00:06:50] And what I was advising them on seemed to be working. I had it all put together. I had a sort of skill set that enabled me to be quite good at that. And [00:07:00] so I started developing a business around those lines in about 2014 and then quit my very secure, very growing up, very professional and safe corporate job at the beginning of 2016 and decided to just go all in.

[00:07:13] And these days, the majority of my work time, if you like, is in the business coaching space. But I also still teach some classes here and there as well to make sure I don’t get too rusty. And I still have, still grounded in that practicing what I preach. 

[00:07:29] Lily Allen-Duenas: No. Yeah. I think that time on the mat is always going to be valuable.

[00:07:35] And no matter if it’s in meditation or in front of Alma, it doesn’t have to be Asana, of course. But losing that I think would definitely be like losing a part of yourself at this point, since you’ve been doing it since age eight, especially. Wow. So I love that it happened organically. It sounds like people in your life just intuitively offer just some of your advice and your expertise and wisdom tuning in and tapping into all [00:08:00] of those credentials and qualifications and skill sets you have.

[00:08:03] So what is some of the advice that you would usually give a new yoga teacher on how to kick start their journey as a yoga teacher? That’s one of the questions I get. I put people pose to me the most frequently when I’ve had a couple of listeners actually write in about it saying, can we talk more about what you do for new yoga teachers?

[00:08:23] Because I think it’s such a, they can feel some resistance to entering that space. So I’d love to hear your thoughts. 

Advice to new yoga teachers to start their journey

[00:08:29] Amy McDonald: Sure. As far as the craft of being a yoga teacher, I really believe that there is an apprenticeship phase that doesn’t have to last for too long. Sometimes it’s maybe only even six months, but sometimes it’s two years where you just want to teach your heart out where you just say yes to everything, not unpaid stuff.

[00:08:48] Unless you desire to do that, but say yes to all the gigs, you can get, say yes to teaching at gyms and yes, to teaching at studios for maybe not a whole bunch of money to the degree that you can afford to. Teach as much as [00:09:00] you can, because you will get exponentially better. The more you teach. And then once you get that experience under your belt, you can start to be more discerning.

[00:09:08] I know when I first started, I taught classes in my, what was my lounge room, but it became my air-quotes yoga studio. I taught classes at this women’s gym, just to the trainers who would clear all the machines out of the way during the lunch break. And I would play these God awful Buddha bar CDs on their request.

[00:09:27] It was like teaching yoga to the whale music and the pan pipes and the wolves howling. It was horrific. But I did that twice a week. I taught yoga at a hens brunches where they are all drunk on mimosas. And no wonder you can’t do sukasana, you can’t stand up. Like I would teach whatever I could get my hands on.

[00:09:46] I taught at a terrible weekend retreat. It’s a spa destination here near where I live that had all of these women come on that ate all the food and did all the yoga. Like I did everything and really kill myself as a result. Horrific, never do that [00:10:00] again. But I think for brand new teachers, just teach as much as you can.

[00:10:03] Don’t worry about sucking. I always say I got a cat and a cow backwards for a good, I don’t know, 18 months, like I got them the wrong way around. They don’t matter, just you will get your lefts and right. It’s mixed up. So just, it’s just yoga. It’s just a yoga class. It’s just a new skill. Any other say yes to any opportunities that come up and trust that you’ll get better, particularly.

[00:10:28] The more regularly you teach. 

[00:10:30] Lily Allen-Duenas: Absolutely. It is like flexing a muscle. If you haven’t ever done it. Of course it’s not going to be perfect. And I think if you jumped right into teaching, in a really nice studio, there might be extra pressure and intimidation.

[00:10:45] Amy McDonald: I don’t know about that though. I have been to some very nice yoga studios with some very bad quality yoga.

[00:10:52] I don’t think you can necessarily correlate. The aesthetic of the studio with the quality of the teaching. I’m just putting that out there. 

[00:11:02] Lily Allen-Duenas: No, I’m so glad that you brought that up. Preach. That is true. Just because you have beautiful painted walls and all of the statues, it does not mean that the quality is going to be where it could be.

[00:11:15] But just from the internal landscape, I think that I love what you taught, the hens club and these are, oh gosh, teaching to whale sounds. What was that? That’s terrifying to me. 

[00:11:26] Amy McDonald: It’s probably like nineties spa music, that like really bad stuff really bad. 

[00:11:33] Lily Allen-Duenas: So how about Amy?

[00:11:35] What do you think yoga teachers are interested in, we know no matter what phase of their career they’re in, what is something you think yoga teachers are doing wrong? 

What are yoga teachers doing wrong?

[00:11:44] Amy McDonald: Woof. Okay. I think that one of the things that I’ve seen that can be problematic. And I think, maybe I’m in a bubble because I hangout with the people who listen to my show and the people in my Facebook group. I could be in a bit of a bubble, but I [00:12:00] suspect that there is still this lingering.

[00:12:04] Even a conflict between the capacity to generate a prosperous livelihood and doing something that you love and teaching yoga. I often have people message me saying, is it really possible to make a full-time living, just being a yoga teacher? There’s a lot of doubt that it’s possible.

[00:12:23] It is possible. I’ve seen so many people do it and not only in a, and I don’t like the term full-time living because I don’t believe that you need to use all of your time in order to generate the prosperity you desire to run your life. But not only have I seen people do that I’ve seen people absolutely exceed what they were working, what they were earning in the job they had previously.

[00:12:47] So I think it’s important to recognize that absolutely you can generate abundance in your life by being a yoga teacher. And if you do it in the right way. And it’s not a hugely complicated recipe. This is [00:13:00] not making souffle’s, but if you do it in the right way, it shouldn’t take all of your time. I’m talking about max, eight classes a week, and maybe the occasional workshop, maybe a couple of weekend retreats, or even a week long retreat per annum.

[00:13:14] We’ll get you to six figures. It doesn’t have to be a hard slog and you don’t have to scratch it out or think that it could only be your side hustle or something that you do for pleasure, but you’ve got to maintain your other job because that’s where the money is. If you want to generate abundance as a yoga teacher.

[00:13:34] You can do it, you can do it because I’ve helped and seen so many other people do it. So I think that’s one, it’s a mindset piece that it’s not possible to love what you do and have prosperity at the same time. And I don’t, I think there’s a falsehood, so I think that’s one. The other thing that I see.

[00:13:54] The other did. The other thing that I think is problematic with yoga teachers. And this probably is in part [00:14:00] because the yoga industry is heavily represented with women, at least in the west. And so this plays out as often a self-esteem issue, who am I to be up in front of all of these people who am I to promote myself?

[00:14:15] Who am I to blow it up on social media or declare that I know something? Who am I to charge more than my teacher and that limited self thinking gets in the way blocks people from being able to reach out and serve the people who are looking for what they have. There are people out there who are looking for exactly the type of yoga that each and every one only each and every one of us can offer.

[00:14:41] No one else can offer the same class than I can, no one else can offer the same class that you can, even if you and I taught exactly the same sequence in the same venue at the same time, it would be a different class, but unless we have the courage to, to show who we truly are to a wider [00:15:00] audience, we can’t call in those students who are looking for what we have.

[00:15:03] So I think, self-worth can be problematic with yoga teachers and. There’s no reason why not you? Why not me? Why not? All of us, the world is a very big place. We have now globally accepted that online yoga classes are viable and useful and enjoyable. This is not the same as it was in 2019.

[00:15:27] We all now have access to a global marketplace to offer our yoga to should we desire? And there are bound to be. Enough people in the world that are interested in each of our own unique individual offerings. If we have the courage to let everybody know that we’re here.

[00:15:47] Lily Allen-Duenas: Preach, I love that. I felt like I wanted to like fist pump the air when you’re talking a few times there.

[00:15:54] That was awesome. I love learning and love talking always about mindset and about how to just [00:16:00] say my worth, I’m enough. I’m worth enough. I deserve to be here, that feeling of worthiness and kind of what we deserve or don’t deserve. It just can get so muddled with all of these constructs and external and internal dialogues.

[00:16:16] We’re digesting. So thank you, Amy, for sharing that, 

[00:16:19] Amy McDonald: I think the other piece on it is. And I know I got this from my dad who meant very well when he indoctrinated me in this way. But I grew up with parents who taught me that hard work is good work. And so when we decide that we’re going to make our.

[00:16:37] Generate prosperity, doing something we love we’re in this double bind. How can I love it? It should be hard, right? If it’s good work, if I’m going to make good money, then I should be toiling for it. So we get ourselves into this sort of double bind of being jammed, into almost being resistant to prosperity because surely I couldn’t just enjoy myself into wealth.

[00:16:58] But of course there’s [00:17:00] nothing in the yoga teachings that says that’s true. What the yoga teaching says is as long as it’s dharmic, as long as it’s in alignment with your own purpose and with morality, of course you can generate prosperity. There’s nothing spiritual about being broke.

[00:17:16] Not for householders, right? You need to caveat around that. If you’ve chosen a, if you want to go to be a Mindich and if you’ve chosen to be an acidic in the forest, then yes, it’s spiritual to be broke. You take on a vow of poverty, go rock that. But for us, the household is lay people, no, we can have art though.

[00:17:32] We can have the generation of wealth, as long as it’s through the lens of Dharma, as long as it’s morally correct and righteous in that way. Go. Do it. Put yourself out there. Call in on new students. 

[00:17:43] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yes. That’s so true. And Amy, I do. I wanted to revisit something you just said too. Cause when you said, okay, you can make six figures just teaching, eight class max, a week, few weekend retreats here and there.

[00:17:55] A couple of workshops. I feel like some of our listeners, while [00:18:00] they maybe were fist pumping with me, their eyebrows might’ve shot up. But wait, how, so if they’re, if you’re saying just eight classes a week, few weekends retreat, few workshops, and earning up to six figures or beyond what I don’t want to limit it or maximize that.

[00:18:15] But do you think that, like, how is that possible besides the mindset element? Is it really just finding. The clients that can align with your price point and what your offerings, what do you think are some of the magic ingredients that go in that recipe? 

How is it possible to make six figures by teaching yoga?

[00:18:29] Amy McDonald: Sure. Let’s be clear. I’m not talking about pounds or Euros.

[00:18:31] I’m talking about dollars, so that’s going to adjust up or down. But what I mean is this is for freelancers. And so if you’re getting paid, I don’t know 25 Euro, 25 pounds or 40 bucks or whatever per hour at a studio. No, you’re never gonna make it. That is great to do during your apprenticeship, but once you decide, okay, I’m ready to really launch myself.

[00:18:52] You will have to teach a hell of a lot of classes to make yourself good money. If you’re going to teach for an hourly rate at studios, if you go [00:19:00] freelance and you just like, this is just about opening your calculator on your phone. I think you’ll be surprised how many classes a week. Okay. Maybe how much do you charge a class?

[00:19:08] 18, 20 bucks. Okay. How many people can you fit in the room? 18, 20. Okay. How many weeks of the year do you want to teach? 46 or 52. All right. It’s actually. That much. I think we’ve hyped this idea of oh six figures. Living in a city like Melbourne, six figures, doesn’t make you, buying a gold toilet with six figures.

[00:19:29] Maybe you’re eating out once a week. Maybe you take an annual holiday, but you can pay your rent and you can get your haircut when you fancy. And it’s not super. Luxurious living. It’s just living in 2021. But I think that if everybody just gets out the front and she does the runs, the numbers you’d be surprised.

[00:19:47] It just adds up fast. And if you put into the mix like a half-day workshop every two months, three hour master class or mini retreat, something of that nature, maybe that’s 60, 65 [00:20:00] bucks. Maybe you have 20 people along with those. If it’s a huge success like I did with my friend the other month, we ran three of them back to back cause they just kept filling up.

[00:20:07] And if you take a retreat somewhere where the venue, the overheads are minimized. Because remember with retreats people are purchasing the experience, not the thread count. We get confused and we think we need to book these luxury venues, which we pay bazillions for. When in fact people are coming for the experience and a large part of that is the environment and the atmosphere that we create and the classes that we teach.

[00:20:31] So if you choose your venue, with that in mind, you should walk away with a good profit. So really just putting those together, maybe some one-to-one. It’s very doable. 

[00:20:43] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, I did. I’m really bummed though, that we got to take that golden toilet off the table. That was always on my. 

[00:20:47] Amy McDonald: Look, I can help you come up with a plan.

[00:20:52] Lily Allen-Duenas: Just kidding, that was never on my must purchase, but.

[00:20:57] Amy McDonald: You’re more of the like 92 rolls Royces [00:21:00] kind of yoga person. 

[00:21:02] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, not even that. I think it’s just like having good holidays. I’d love to travel just like you and I am more accustomed to spending significant amounts of time traveling. So it’s just different here in this landscape, but I’m glad that you brought that down to earth for sure.

[00:21:19] Amy, just pick out, take out your phone, use your calculator, figure it out because I think sometimes we can get so intimidated by lofty. How could we ever, but then when you break it down, you’re like, oh snap, I’m going to be okay. So yeah, there’s a lot of elements to it. Of course, the marketing, the, SEO, branding all these different things, elements, but there’s a lot of people out there with great skills who you can tap on the shoulder, hire out.

[00:21:44] You can do a lot of learning yourself. There’s Lynda, LinkedIn, and YouTube. And are there generally any resources that you really like to point people to, Amy, when they’re getting started as freelance? 

Resources to get started as a freelancer

[00:21:53] Amy McDonald: Honestly, like here’s what I would recommend because yeah, you need to learn some stuff, but none of it’s [00:22:00] rocket science.

[00:22:00] None of it is more complicated than getting your head around. If you can understand a little bit of potentially you can figure out a Facebook ad. It’s not rocket science, there’s some basic skills. A lot of people I work with have this fear. I don’t know technology, or I don’t want to be a slave to my computer.

[00:22:16] That’s all mindset stuff. It’s an unnecessary sort of […]. Listen to my podcast. I’m always hungry for topics. So if there’s something that you’re working on, DM me on Instagram, I’ll do an episode on it. This is all it’s honestly, if I can do it, I don’t, I’m not a techie person. We can figure it out.

[00:22:36] It’s not that complicated. I think part of it is just understanding, okay, what are my targets? So the imagery I like to use here is if we look at a picture of Lakshmi, she’s got the coins pouring out of her hands, but they’re clearly going into clearly defined containers. She has a sales target.

[00:22:55] She knows where the money is going. So when we get clear on, okay, so say for example, right [00:23:00] now for me and my business yesterday, I launched two new classes. Point with COVID. I can fit 10 people in each. So I’m looking for 20 people. That’s my target. I’ve got to find 20 people in the next two. Then my classes are full through December.

[00:23:12] Great, clear target. Now I can just start playing with and experimenting with all the things I can think of to call those people in, ahead of nice walking, meeting with a colleague, he’s going to tell his team about it. Great. I’m going to put up some things in some local Facebook groups. Great. I’ve got a hundred or so people on a mailing list, email them.

[00:23:31] Great. I’ll run some Instagram ads. Fabulous. I’ll tell my book club. Okay. So it’s, none of this. This is just networking and sharing and doing things that women like from a feminist learning perspective, this is where we’re great. We love telling people what, the products that we like, the services that we like, this is just that.

[00:23:53] And so I don’t think it needs to be unnecessarily complicated. If you know what you’ve got and you [00:24:00] know what your targets are, just keep trying stuff until you get what you want. And don’t take it personally when something doesn’t work out the way you thought it would, if your ad tanks or someone goes around the town and pulls down all your posters.

[00:24:13] It doesn’t make you a bad person. It just gives you an opportunity to try something else. We would never tell a beginner who falls out of a, I dunno, topples over in Vira three. Oh, you’re rubbish that you should just quit now would just say I’ll try again. Or he’s a modification and the same is true for marketing.

[00:24:29] It’s just about experimenting, seeing what works, being aware of the results, leaning into what’s successful and abandoning what hasn’t worked. 

[00:24:37] Lily Allen-Duenas: I think that is some pure gold that you just shared there. Amy and I hope that some of my listeners had a little pen and paper down, hopefully jotting some things down because I think that it’s, I love how you related it to Lakshmi with the Quinn’s blowing out of the hands and you’re like, they’re going and exactly where she wants them to go.

[00:24:55] Love that visual. I think that’s something that is going to stick with me. So Amy, I do want to ask too [00:25:00] about Australia and about the yoga scene in Australia. I, that’s such a big focus of my podcast and I know you’re so present with your community and not just as a teacher, but who teaches, but also helping them to grow, flourish and be abundance.

[00:25:13] So can you tell me about the yoga scene in Australia? 

Yoga scene in Australia

[00:25:16] Amy McDonald: Sure. So we have a thriving yoga scene here. And lots of diversity. I think we’re a little behind because we’re a little far away. We don’t get as much, certainly in the past two years, but definitely before then, too, not as much international flavor.

[00:25:30] So we’re a little behind on some things, something that it seems to be. That’s something that I’m aware of is things like trauma sensitivity. We’re a little bit behind on that front here. I’m excited about Australia getting more up to speed. I’ve seen some practices that haven’t been great particularly out of the major cities, but definitely there’s great schools here.

[00:25:50] Great independent providers. We’ve got some good festivals, nothing like that to the magnitude of say in the states but they’re growing. We started to see [00:26:00] the big yoga product chains. We’ve also got some really beautiful, independent Australian made yoga retailers, which I think is really exciting.

[00:26:08] Particularly seeing women in those businesses and creating great sort of social enterprises along those lines. Yeah, I think we’ve got a pretty broad range of modalities. All of the major schools represented. But perhaps just a little behind, because we’re a remote island. We’re a big island in the middle of nowhere.

[00:26:26] So sometimes it takes us a little while to catch up. 

[00:26:31] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah in Australia, I feel like it’s so different depending on which coast you’re on or which area do you feel like the yoga scene varies depending on if you’re in a big city or closer to a coast or something like that. 

[00:26:46] Amy McDonald: I’m sure that’s true for.

[00:26:48] I’m sure that’s true everywhere. If you took a yoga class in Byron bay, it’s going to be very different from taking a yoga class where I live. I live near a, such an under Astram, there’s lots of Swami this and Swami that, teaching yoga here, which I love because it’s the sort of yoga I did when I was eight.

[00:27:04] But it’s going to be very different from the sorts of yoga that you get in Sydney, that might be more. There’s a really strong sort of power yoga back there. Do you even look, do people there? So I think cities are generally more diverse, right? I think that’s a global truism.

[00:27:20] But having said that, I’ve got clients who live quite remote and some of them like really remote parts of Australia who specialize in teaching yoga to people who live remote or people who do Fife or fly in, fly out, they work in super remote places and do 10 days on and 10 days off out in the mines or the middle of nowhere.

[00:27:43] So there’s that element too, which I really love supporting people to get yoga to, unlike groups. So that’s fun, but yeah, I think it’s to answer your question about regionality, I suspect that’s true the world over the cities tend to have greater diversity in the regional areas, perhaps less so.

[00:27:58] Lily Allen-Duenas: I can see [00:28:00] that. Yeah. I do think it’s more of a global truism, but I just wasn’t sure about coast to coast. Cause I know that I haven’t been to Australia before, but I’ve had friends who’ve done their year working there, before you turn 30, you can go spend a year, working in Australia.

[00:28:14] And they really said there’s just such a difference in. In energy or mindset mentality, or I am forgetting exactly, of course the words that were shared with me. But do you feel like there’s a different level of openness or awareness or a different kind of demographic would be attending? 

[00:28:30] Amy McDonald: I guess importantly, I think Australia has the population of California spread over the landmass of the US.

[00:28:39] So there’s a whole lot of space and maybe there’s a bit of rivalry between Perth and Sydney and Melbourne on the other side of the coast, but it’s not the same as I don’t know, for example, east coast, west coast, US. We’re just different by nature perhaps. One area that I’m particularly passionate about when it comes to yoga in [00:29:00] Australia is just getting more men.

[00:29:02] On the mat. I know I have a colleague, he was a former client of mine, Greg Coley. He lives in Queensland and he specializes in yoga for blokes. His catchphrases, “No, Sheila’s no Lycra just like yoga for men.” And I think that’s a really cool space, like looking at yoga for men as a way to provide.

[00:29:22] Social opportunities for guys. That’s not going to the pub. That’s not competitive. That’s great for mental health but in a way that is perhaps less stigmatized than I don’t know, going to a counselor. So I think that’s a really exciting emerging space for regional and rural Australia.

[00:29:40] I’m excited to start doing some of that myself, and I’ve got some other colleagues who do that. So I think that’s a really exciting opportunity for Australia currently. 

[00:29:48] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, I’m glad you shared that. That is awesome. It’s a great catch phrase. Great tagline. Definitely catchy. 

[00:29:55] Amy McDonald: It’s Greg’s. It’s not mine.

[00:29:56] Lily Allen-Duenas: No. I will. And listeners, of course, I’m going to link to [00:30:00] all of Amy’s everything she’s mentioned and how to contact her and her website and her socials will be linked here wherever you’re listening to the podcast. And on my website, wildyogatribe.com. And I’ll try to drop a link if I can remember Greg Coley as well, because that sounds like a fun thing.

[00:30:14] If you’re in Australia, tune in definitely. And in the Queensland area or visiting, make sure you check that out. That sounds great. And Amy, I would love to ask, I try to ask every guest I have on the show. What is your definition of yoga? How do you define it? What does it mean to you, yoga?

Amy’s definition of yoga

[00:30:33] Amy McDonald: Oh, there’s so. Oh gosh. I could answer this in so many different ways. It depends who you ask, right? You might be the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind. Not so much for me. It might be a skillful action. I lean far more towards the Bhagavad Gita than I do potentially.

[00:30:52] But I think for me personally, what it means is being a good [00:31:00] person, trying to do the right thing with my life, trying to be self-reflective and trying to, and I guess, oh, the trickiest part remembering that I’m actually not just me, this is actually about the collective and trying even in my practice not to become too self identified with my physical body.

[00:31:24] I think that’s the trickiest bit of all for me, but I guess, that’s part of the joy of the journey. You get sizable challenges. You’re never going to get bored working on the challenges that yoga presents. 

[00:31:35] Lily Allen-Duenas: No, and they never really go away, the challenges.

[00:31:41] Oh, it’s amazing to me how I feel like I’ve worked through something and then I don’t even notice I’m not working on it anymore because I’ve already started working on so many other things. And then of course later I’m like Oh, I feel better in that area. Wow, I’m not so negative and in myself talk or something.

[00:31:59] And then [00:32:00] with that realization immediately, it resurfaces again. And then I struggled for another six months. I don’t know. I think it is such an amazing humbling journey. The journey of self-awareness and clear seeing. 

[00:32:14] Amy McDonald: And it’s all the other cool stuff, right? Like headstands and hanging out with your yoga friends and nerding out with yoga books and learning more about the epics and meditating and praying.

[00:32:25] It’s all of that too. But I don’t know, maybe the approaches become more subtle. The more you practice. It seems to be. My experience so far, but who knows what’s coming next? 

[00:32:36] Lily Allen-Duenas: Who knows? So how do you feel when you step on your yoga mat?

How Amy feels when she steps on her yoga mat

[00:32:40] Amy McDonald: Because I haven’t been able to travel to see my teacher.

[00:32:43] Who’s based in the states. I’ve been doing his online classes and it struck me the other day. Cause I live alone and we’ve been in and out of lockdown pretty much for a year and a half, which means I can’t have anyone over to my house. I can’t hug anybody. It’s been a really long time to be [00:33:00] isolated. And I got into my mat and I pressed play on one of his classes.

[00:33:04] And I just had this huge kind of kriya, of feeling of coming home. It really felt like oh I didn’t realize I was longing for this familiarity to this degree. It was so incredibly soothing to just feel like I, my spice shrunk way down to just right here and now, and it was fantastic. Sometimes it feels like that. It feels like coming home and other times it feels like a chore. And I’m thinking about what I have to do next and how can I cheat myself of a few that are to get out of here quicker and go get back to the other thing. So this is the oscillation between those two poles I say. 

[00:33:39] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh I like that.

[00:33:40] Yeah, oscillation again, everything changes. So that’s something you can rely on even in your practice. I guess my last question, I would just love to see, Amy. What is something that when your yoga business clients come to you for help with, what do you think is the number one question they ask [00:34:00] you? And why do you think that it’s so prevalent for yoga teachers?

Number one questions clients ask for help

[00:34:03] Amy McDonald: The thing is that people have all sorts of different business models, they have different backgrounds, they have different passions that they want to bring forward. They have all their own, some scar of vansana that they come along with that we work on. And that’s one of the delights for me is that all of my clients are wonderfully different.

[00:34:23] I wonder if perhaps the overarching question is, do you really think it’s possible for me? Which comes back to what we were talking about earlier is self-belief and. This is where, and I say this often, this is where your business actually easier sadhana that they’re not separate. And the more you understand that if you can lean into overcoming and understanding in your business, that can be just as transformative, perhaps even more so as anything you could do on the cushion or the sticky mat, because in understanding that.

[00:34:57] Do you really think it’s possible for me? It has got nothing to [00:35:00] do with each of us on an individual level and the degree to which we turn the light down or stay quiet or don’t show up to things or don’t post on social media, or don’t take that opportunity to be on someone’s podcast or don’t propose a pitch to the editor or whatever.

[00:35:17] We’re limiting someone else’s ability to be able to access yoga. So it’s not about, do you think it’s possible for me? Any of that small self thinking has to be moved to the side so that yoga can come through and we can’t wait. We can’t wait for the transmission of yoga to happen until we’ve resolved our self-doubt.

[00:35:36] We need to put self doubt to the side so that the transmission can come and prove to ourselves over time that yes, actually it is possible for me. 

[00:35:45] Lily Allen-Duenas: Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing, Amy. Is there anything you’d like to tell our listeners any offerings you have or anything in particular? We hadn’t mentioned that you would just like to make note of.

Amy’s offerings

[00:35:55] Amy McDonald: Well come hangout.

[00:35:56] I need, I should have declare this at the beginning. My ulterior motive, like really [00:36:00] my evil cunning plan is that I want there to be more yoga in the world. I want more people to be going to yoga. There’s no, there’s less road rage for me. If someone else’s classes are full. So I really, I have this evil pyramid scheme where I want more people to have more classes and more students coming to them.

[00:36:16] So come hangout with us, listen to the pod, propose topics for me, I’m always doing free stuff. My Facebook group actually. It’s actually a really good Facebook group. I’m not a huge fan of Facebook these days, but it’s a group of people who like to troubleshoot and help. If you’re looking for what mic do I buy?

[00:36:32] Should I upgrade to the paid version of such-and-such I’m looking for a photographer in God knows where there’s lots of great feedback and good community vibe there. So just search for abundant yoga teachers. That’s the Facebook group, same deal. That’s the name of the podcast and hit me up on Instagram.

[00:36:47] If there’s something that you’re working on, you need help with, love getting DMs. Yeah, just come say, Hey. 

[00:36:52] Lily Allen-Duenas: Awesome. Thank you so much, Amy, for joining me today, it has been a joy to be with you. 

[00:36:59] Amy McDonald: Thanks for having me. 

Wild Yoga Tribe outro

[00:37:04] Lily Allen-Duenas: My conversation with Amy McDonald, a yoga teacher from Australia was relevant, pertinent and applicable to all yoga teachers who are tuning in. And even if you’re not a yoga teacher, I hope that this conversation was still applicable for you and any onsite. Entrepreneurship idea you’re working on or mulling over, or even if you are thinking about self doubt or self esteem, there’s just so much juicy bits.

[00:37:31] In this conversation, we talked about mindset, limited self thinking, and more. We shared a lot of laughter over golden toilets and modifying your DNA with kitchen utensils. Thank you so much for tuning in to the yoga in Australia episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast with Amy McConnell. Be well.

[00:37:53] Thank you for being on this journey with me. It has been a privilege to be with you. I know that your time is [00:38:00] precious and I am both humbled and honored that you chose to spend your time with me here on the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. As you’re on your own inner journey. Remember that you are not alone. There are so many of us on this path to awakening, this path of self discovery and expansion.

[00:38:19] And we are right here alongside you. Remember to hit subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And if you feel called, please share this episode with someone that you think could benefit from it. Leaving a review would also be so appreciated. If you’re on social media, I am there too. At the Wild Yoga Tribe, you can tap into all the amazing resources on my website, the wildyogatribe.com.

[00:38:48] And you can meditate with me on Insight Timer and get your flow on with me on my YouTube channel, where I’ve recorded free yoga. If you would like to schedule a private yoga or meditation [00:39:00] class with me or a coaching session, you can find the link to do so to book in the show notes or on my website.

[00:39:06] Again, the wildyogatribe.com. Thank you. Once again, dear listener for being with me, may your day be light and bright. May you be peaceful and happy and led on the right path, free of suffering and free of sorrow. Be well, dear one. Be well.

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