Asheville Yoga Festival 2019 Helped Clarify My Business Plan
Yesterday, I woke up at 5am (anyone who knows me knows that this is complete and utter bullshit in my mind) to go volunteer at the 6th Asheville Yoga Festival in exchange for a free 1-day ticket. I will tell you right off that I am pissed at myself for never having gone to or volunteered at this festival in the past, especially since I moved here the same year it started and could have been involved since the beginning! All I had to do was put together some signs and pick up garbage for a few hours at this ungodly hour, but I was so happy to be there and watch the festival come alive that I wasn’t even grumpy about the early morning start. By the end of the day, my already-good mood turned into full-blown flying on cloud 9. I was so impressed with the speakers, festival organization, options, and just how lovely it is when the streets are blocked around Vance Monument—city of Asheville, can we PLEASE make this area pedestrian-only permanently? Traffic isn’t necessary in this area at all since there are plenty of other ways to go around.
Anyway, a day pass includes your choice of 3 classes, and I knew that I wanted my Saturday at home to recoup from a particularly insane week (I started real estate classes a few weeks ago which means from 9-5 Tuesdays and Thursdays I’m currently in a classroom cramming for my exam August 13—and don’t even get me started on WHY I thought now was a great time to take an intense 6-week course!), so I picked 3 of the Friday classes that looked most appealing to me:
Business of Yoga - The Modern-Day Hustle with Danni Pomplun
Steep Yourself in Unexpected Potential with Joe Taft
Foundations of Flight with Tymi Howard
I was not disappointed in these choices and learned from and was inspired by each teacher. In the first class, I came up with a list of 24 different retreats I want to host in 2020 and got all sorts of tips about hosting retreats. Now, realistically, I don’t know how many of these will actually happen next year, but I am going to put them on the calendar as soon as possible and then I will reassess in December which ones stay and which ones go or need tweaked or perhaps converted from a retreat to a 1-day conference or workshop. Danni was funny, personable, and started the class by asking us our questions and then basically addressing them all on the fly, which always impresses me when people can do that off the cuff vs. a presentation or something more structured. I filled my notebook with ideas from this class and can’t wait to sit down and flesh some of them out!
The second class was somewhat of a normal yoga class with an emphasis in always breathing into our back ribs. It was easy and relaxed, and I especially enjoyed the fascia portions and realized that I definitely want to incorporate fascia work into all of the yoga retreats we host at Mad Genius Studios—I can see this happening during sharing/learning time since you can talk and roll at the same time :). And breath work. and time to work with props and do Yin and just live inside the yummy little bubble of yoga mind as much as possible. As a big bonus that had me floating on Cloud 9 the rest of the day, Joe actually stopped the class when we were working on handstands against the wall and had everyone look at my “great” handstand. Normally that would have embarrassed the shit out of me, but I was actually proud because I have been working really hard at handstands since January thanks to my home studio, Hot Yoga Asheville, and in particularly Stacy Fiano, who teaches Strength Training classes that have been a gamechanger for me—they’re coming back, right Stacy?!?!
The third class emphasized one of the reaffirming themes I heard throughout the day, and something that has been showing up in my life a lot lately: the concept of failure and falling. We are taught as a society to fear failure almost more than anything and basically avoid it at all costs, which has thwarted our potential and forward progress as humans. Without failure, we wouldn’t have the amazing actors, artists, makers, entrepreneurs, and mad geniuses that exist in every industry and every city. Yet, we’re still suffering from the Industrial Revolution hangover, and so many people with wonderful gifts, ideas, and abilities are wasting away in mundane jobs that don’t showcase their talents and gifts and certainly don’t inspire them, but hey, at least they can pay their bills. Almost everyone I know has a side hustle or 5, but damn, imagine what we could all accomplish if we didn’t have to, as Uncle Lucius sings, “Keep the Wolves Away” (a song that has been playing a ton on my Pandora stations lately—and not just one, but like, several). And if you feel like a failure in life, forget it—you’re not going to pursue your ideas or put yourself out there.
This class was all about arm balances, and I held side crow longer than I ever have (which is not to say, very long at all, maybe 3 seconds) and learned that I can practice crow (one of my nemesis since I started practicing yoga 10+ years ago. I’m coming for you, Crow!). I know we aren’t supposed to be competitive in yoga but the truth is, I am an ex-college athlete and I am a much tamer version of competitiveness than I used to be. Plus, yoga has helped me be much calmer and more zen most of the time, but damnit, I am still a fiery Sagittarius so I AM going to run hot sometimes ;)
One of the things that bubbled up during this class that I had to scribble down in between Tymi torturing us with toe stretches and making us do some awkward—but very helpful—partner work is that from the outside, Mad Genius Studios probably looks like it’s a bit all over the place. We host pop-up anythings, so we don’t fit into one particularly category well, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be a common thread that links any and all events that take place at this magical little place. And that common thread is going to be based on Maslow’s Hierarchy, a psychological theory that has greatly impacted my life and argues human motivation is tied to striving toward self-actualization, which can only be reached out four other levels of needs are met, as shown in this chart by Coachilla.co:
What does that mean? Well, each retreat, workshop, or class is going to have an element of helping people “achieve one’s full potential.” Now, that can mean a ton of different things, but for me, one of the things I need in order to reach my full potential is to take a class where a mechanic teaches a group of us how to change our oil and tires and spark plugs so that we are a little more self-sufficient. Now, this is just a small step forward, but I will feel much more confident and capable when I have these skills under my belt (plus, how fun would it be to find a cute little mechanic who taught us for a few hours while we drank Junmosas?).
Of course, I want people to be inspired to create masterpieces at Mad Genius Studios, too. So, every retreat we curate will have four elements: yoga, healthy food, and be mind-opening and heart-opening in some way. The work we do outside yoga, whether its a business focused retreat or a self-care focused retreat or a creativity retreat, will always be designed to challenge you and make you self-reflect, which so many of us don’t have enough time to do or if we do, it’s just a bash session where we tear ourselves down for things that already happened or that were out of our control or that won’t matter in five years.
I also realized I want to incorporate lessons from The Four Desires and have fire, earth, air, and water elements present to help foster a setting that will inspire growth, clarity, peace and progress. Of course, keeping the chakras in mind will also influence the itineraries we build for each retreat.
I cannot wait to see how many lives we are able to uplift, transform, or inspire in some way through our retreats and events in the coming year(s). I truly feel meant to be the Curator-In-Chief of Mad Genius Studios so I can create a space where yogis, artists, leaders, and creatives of all types in all sorts of industries and walks of life can come and let their mad genius come out and play. Maybe we’re learning from a local chef how to make the perfect cookout menu, or a local songwriter shares her songwriting process. Or maybe one of the prompts that you receive throughout the retreat (I am an ex-high school English teacher, so I LOVE writing prompts) will make you contemplate altering the path you’re currently on.
I am so excited for this clearer vision of what 2020 can hold for Mad Genius Studios. I hope that you will follow along with our progress on Instagram, where I am going to do my best to post frequent video updates at https://www.instagram.com/madgeniusstudios/.