Elsie Escobar and I go back a decade in our training as Anusara Yoga teachers. We recently discovered that we are both a little on the tech dork side of yoga teachers. Elsie has the most downloaded yoga podcast: Elsie’s Yoga Class. Which is why if you google “yoga podcast” Elsie’s website comes up #2 – under Yoga Journal. It used to be #1, but Elsie’s podcast is her seva and not her business. Elsie’s business is podcasting.

Here we share our conversation with you… yoga teachers who are at least a little interested in:

• Making a better living
• Navigating the changing role of dharma in a world gone techie
• Figuring out which tech stuff  you would groove with… and which to leave to those with more tech-bhakti

While Elsie and I both love to spend hours figuring out new and groovy software… we get that you’d probably be on your mat or reading the Shiva Sutras or taking a walk in the woods.

In this conversation we get a little techie both in terms of yoga philosophy and the 4 aims of life…. applied to this day and age when Artha, Kama, and Dharma come in more forms and configurations that ever… 

Let us know how the conversation lands with you… or how it continues between your ears (or heart, or gut). We’re planning Part 2 of this series more on the nuts and bolts…a little more hard core – so enjoy the soft core part 1. And answer in the comments:

Tech Shadow Issues

Chances are I have had a leg up on you in the tech realm. My dad worked in the computer industry. He turns 75 this on Boxing Day and he started working on mainframes before a personal computer was an idea. My handwriting is illegible because we had a Commedore 64 before I learned script. My family started emailing in 1994  because my older sister was working in a G.I.S. lab in Alaska and needed to use it for work. I started surfing the web to gather data in 1996 to gather carbon footprint data from government archives on the movement of EPA outlawed factories across the border. There wasn’t much else on the web in 1996 -but you get the idea.

Most teachers + practitiones in my Yogahealer Business Course start with tech shadow issues. Tech shadow issues can cripple a yoga teachers ability to make money and have more impact. When our perspective shifts to seeing technology as the means for communicating with a more interested, committed audience… a whole other conversation is able to happen. To me, this conversation is more interesting, but doesn’t exclude your local in-person conversations. When we use technology well for connection it has a positive impact on in-person connection.

Every time you take the seat of the teacher you enter a conversation. Every yoga class is a progressive conversation that gets good with deep listening by each party. When we see that our influence extends outside the classroom to our marketing material, our Facebook posts, our tweets – we get insight into how we can make a much better impact by getting how to use technology for what it’s really good at doing – connecting us!

Money Shadow Issues

The money issues many yoga teachers have is a business model issue. The money issues aren’t really money issues. They are business model issues. I wrote that twice in case you didn’t catch it the first time. Business model issues are business strategy issues. And if you aren’t willing to talk about your career in terms of it being a business… than it’s going to be a lot more work. In the podcast I unpack the business models that don’t work well for most teachers to make the kind of living they hope and dream of.Models that don’t work for most yoga teachers:

• Rockstar model
• Yoga studio owner model
• Run around town model

Listen to the podcast to see if you’re set up in any of these models. Then listen to how you can change your model into a model that can make the money you want. Once you have your model issue taken care of… it’s back to technology. You’ll need the technology to put that model in place. When you know what technology you need you can ignore the rest. This is huge people. If you only need to use a few things, everything else is optional -and unnecessary to meet your income and dharma goals. Which brings us to Dharma.

Dharma Talk

If you’re a yoga teacher dharma is a big deal. Dharma grows with your growth so it doesn’t ever become a smaller deal if you walk your talk. As we grow and our dharma grows we start to really use technology to provoke and engage in positive impact. It’s awesome. So your tech shadow issues end up becoming dharma issues. I’ll leave you with that… and let you catch the real conversation which is happening with darling Elsie on the podcast.