04: How To Create More Time In Your Day – Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets

What Is This Episode About…

In this episode, we are going to talk about creating more time in your day by focusing more on working on your business instead of in your business. When we were starting out with our yoga studio, we used to handle everything ourselves, from teaching classes to managing the finances.

That worked for some time, but it was obviously not sustainable, so we solved that by first hiring a front desk person, and then launching our teacher training, which collectively enabled us to set up the systems and processes that allowed us to free up more time for working on the business. This is gonna be an informative one, you won’t wanna miss it. 

Key Points Discussed:

• Teaching, managing and in-house marketing (00:51)
• In the intensity of doing it all, it becomes pattern (04:04)
• Letting go of the stranglehold on the business (09:21)
• Being able to make strategic decisions and level up your game (10:20)

Learn More About The Content Discussed…

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When Was It Released…

This episode was released July 25, 2019

Episode Transcript…

Disclaimer: The Transcript Is Auto-Generated And May Contain Spelling And Grammar Errors

00:00 Hey everybody. So if you’re listening to this, you are most likely a superstar. Meaning you’re doing it all, you’re teaching, you’re running your business, you’re, you’re rocking out. But what that means is you’re working yeah.

00:12 In Your Business and you’re not working on your business. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. What’s up, everyone? You are listening to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets. I am Chris Yax and I’m John Yax. We are part of a small group of yoga entrepreneurs who are committed to making a living, doing what we love, without feeling guilty about making money or ashamed of being successful because we know the real value of yoga and how the world needs it. Now more than that, this podcast is here to teach the strategies and tactics so we can thrive financially as yoga entrepreneurs. We are the Yax brothers and welcome to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets. So when we first started, started

00:51 out like this is our weekly schedule, we would, so I would teach this is Chris, by the way, I would teach like three-morning classes on Monday. John would teach three evening classes on Monday and then we would flip flop. And the next day. So we had another teacher, she would be the quasi front desk person, that day manager. And that meant on Tuesday I would teach the evening classes. John would be the manager, she would teach the morning classes. And so we would rotate that where each of us was teaching. I mean we’re by 45, so if I close to 15 classes a week, the other teacher who was kind of the front desk quasi manager, that meant that when she was a manager, we had a lot of stuff to clean up that day. Because uh, she just wasn’t her thing, you know, no hard feelings. No. You know, no judgment against her.

01:41 But there was, she just, that wasn’t her mind. Like she loved teaching. She was gifted at it and uh, that that’s what she did really well. The other stuff, yeah, there’s some room for improvement. But anyway, so that was like not, so we are teaching 12 to 15 classes a week. We were managing, we were doing the in house marketing. We were looking at sales reports, we were doing the evening closeouts. We are checking the finances. It was like, I mean if you if you’re in that position, you know like what I’m describing and the intensity of it, but it’s a labor of love, right? Like you’re like, oh, of course, I’ll do that. Why wouldn’t, why, why would I do anything else? Because it’s your baby. And you know, like, man, I am serving people in the way I want to serve people and you love it to death.

02:25 And so did we, and you may be at a position where, you know, it’s not sustainable over the long term. And what’s that saying with when you become an entrepreneur, you give up your nine to five or you give up 40 hours a week to work 80 hours a week gladly. And the, it is like, it goes like in line with, I would rather be in control and work 80 hours a week that can be in no control and work 40 hours a week. And that was us. We were doing everything. I remember we, we, uh, when we hired a front desk people, we had a front desk

02:59 team, we would come back, Chris or myself would come back every single night to do the closeout because we were like, nope, no one’s doing the closeout. We’re going to turn our attention to that money. Oh my gosh. Yeah. But that was the reality

03:13 for us and you know, and it worked for a time, right? It was what’s needed in the beginning, right. When you like John and I both have two kids, right. And when they were first born, the time and the energy and the effort that’s required of our wives, right? Like they were, it’s full time. Like, and for us to like, it takes a team to raise a child and like think about it in its inception when it’s in the beginning, right. You need that time, you need that energy. You need to give it your love and your attention to keep it alive. Right. Whether it’s a baby or your business, right. Which is like a baby, right? And so like, but there’s also a period of time, like with our kids now, our oldest, we had a relative at the same time, so my oldest will be five at the time we’re recording this and John’s like five already would have five and a half and our youngest are three, three, three and a half, four-ish, right?

04:04 So three and five essentially. And you know, the necessity of us to like be with them every day, all day long. Like it just changes over time and it’s no different for the business. And what ends up happening with the businesses that there are ways in which you know you need to grow. But in the rat race, it’s not the best term in the like inundation in the intensity of doing it all that becomes a pattern. Like you feel comfortable doing it all because you’ve been doing it all. We felt comfortable doing it all because that was just the norm after a couple of years of operating. But there’s also because it’s in like literally in the fabric of our DNA as human beings, this desire to grow and expand. And so what you come up against is I literally don’t have the time to devote to this next phase that I can feel myself growing into that I then push away because I’m so comfortable doing it all that I don’t have time to do anything else. Literally, I’m, my bandwidth is maxed, Chris. It’s the, uh, it’s the lobster analogy. There was a, a, there was a,

05:15 a monk that, uh, that I got this from, so I’m paraphrasing it, but the lobster is comfortable, right? It’s comfortable in its shell and when the lobster grows to a certain point, this soft insides of the lobster push against the shell, meaning it becomes, so it grows to a point where it’s, it’s, it has, it’s in pain, right? It grows against the shell that it’s in because it’s getting too big for that Shell. Well, guess what happens? The shall have to break. When the shell breaks in, it knows it’s time to break. The lobster will go down into a crack or a crevice or a little cave on, on the surface, on the, on the surface. I’m on the bottom of the ocean

05:58 and hide out there where it sheds its shell-like it cracks out and breaks a shell. So now it’s soft and vulnerable, but it stays hidden away until it starts to grow. It’s next, it’s next shell. This is the exact same thing we feel as entrepreneurs, as business owners, where we are comfortable and what was comfortable for Chris and I was doing it all meaning we had no time for anything else. We’re doing it all. But there was part of us that was growing into that shell that we had created and we had to break that Shell. Now, this is, this is ongoing, just like a lobster grows into it and then, and then once it has, it grows into that next phase of being too big for that show that breaks it again and does this as continual. It’s a beautiful analogy for our lives, right?

06:43 It, a beautiful analogy for a, for business, beautiful analogy as entrepreneurs, right? We’ll grow to that point. We’ll get comfortable and we’ll find that rhythm. But then there’s a point where we know we need to expand. And this point of expansion for us is when we said we’re doing teacher training. Yeah. It was actually even a little bit prior to that because the first thing we did was like, there’s no way we’re hiring anybody to teach these classes but we do need help. So we’re going to hire a front desk person. We’ve got to go for it. Yup. And so we ended up having to hire the front desk person. So like, but what ended up happening is then that freed up, you know, six hours of our time to devote to working on the business and then all of a sudden it was like the next level of expansion.

07:23 Like we grew into that show or we’re like, you know what? Like, and now we have a couple of front desk people, but man, like the next level for our growth, that next level of discomfort of that Shell means we’re going to have to bring new teachers in. Right. And then we did that for a while. We’re like, man, we’re spending all of this time now teaching them our system, right? Our methodology, the framework, and we like, we’ve got to like, we’ve got to change that because we can’t grow anymore because it’s taking so long to develop the teachers. So then we’re like, okay, well now here’s our teacher training. Right? And like as you’ve obviously assumed, if you’ve been listening to the last episodes, like teacher training was literally the pivot point. The thing that has like is the reason for our success because of the consistency and because of the culture that was created from it.

08:10 But so, you know, initially it was like there’s no way we don’t have time, but looking back, the time that we devoted to it gave us exponentially more time because all of a sudden we had these phenomenal teachers who are teaching in the spirit and creating the consistency that our students could come into and experience the results of like a healthy pain-free body had clear focus mind. And like all of a sudden, it’s so crazy. I was just talking to a guy the other day and he was like, you know, when I first came I did like one class and I was like, Eh, whatever. And then, but I came with a friend, so I kept going and I did about five times in the, in the two weeks and, and I tell you what, it’s changed my life. I was like, oh yeah, like what specifically? It was like relationships. And I’m like, isn’t fascinating. Like people think I’m just going to go on and stretch and all of a sudden like their relationship change, right? This is like the secret that we know as like yoga studio owners and yoga teachers like come in, come in for the physical,

09:08 their work gets better. Their relationship with their significant other gets better, their sex life gets better, their relationship with food gets better. As everything changes, you know, that’s the secret sauce. Yeah. Don’t tell anybody. Right. So what ended up

09:21 happening was because we were able to develop those teachers and because we were willing to let go of like the stranglehold we had and because we were willing to let go of the stranglehold we had, not just in teaching but in the front desk, we freed up our time to be able to make strategic decisions like looking, like getting, literally getting out of the circle of work, of having to be in the day in and day out of running the business so that you can look at the business from a higher perspective and see what’s working, what’s not working right. And that like the growth that we’ve experienced because of that time savings. Right. It’s so funny ’cause it’s like the ego seeing things 180 degrees from the truth. I can’t do this because I don’t have any time. Well, what ends up happening when you do it is that you’re literally, you free up your time to devote to working on the business and taking it in the direction that you know, as you feel it, you know  like it’s this next level. Like, you know, it’s time to grow and expand and then how do you do that? Well it’s

10:20 a function of freeing up your time, being able to make strategic decisions on your business, being able to study the things you need to study, to, to level up your game, to expand into the leader, to into the person that you need to be in order to grow, in order to, to grow yourself, to grow your business, to grow as a leader in your, in your community, in your business. Yeah. So if you’re

10:42 listening to this and you’re like, man, like yeah, I’m right there. I’m working, you know I’m teaching 10 to 15 classes a week. I’m at the front desk. You know, I’m looking at reports, I’m trying to figure out the next promotion I’m looking at like the holiday season coming up and like what are we going to do? And I’m looking at it like all this stuff like man we feel you. We totally feel you. And if you are no like you know in your heart like there’s this next level for you. Then like start looking at like like what is the like, what’s the next thing that I could do to free up my time and maybe it’s not like getting new teachers in there. If you don’t do that already. Maybe it’s like it’s looking at the front desk and seeing could you get help on that side of it or maybe it’s reporting and looking at how can you free up a couple of hours of your day and get someone in there to help you. Because I like doing it and leaning into that discomfort of that next level of growth will free up the time and it’s been for us, how we’ve continued to grow is our willingness to let go of what we’re doing now to grow into the next phase of our, of our growth as a business and US personally.

11:49 All right, so thanks so much for joining us today and a tune in for next episode. We’re going to be

11:54 interviewing a friend of ours who has a studio and she just recently implemented some strategies that made a huge difference in her business, so you’re not going to miss it. All right, we’ll see you in the next one. Thanks guys. Peace. Yes, thanks so much for listening to yoga entrepreneurs secrets. Do you have a question that you’d like us to answer raw and uncut on the podcast? If you want your questions answered, all you need to do is head over to apple podcasts and do three simple things. One, rate and review telling us what you think of the podcast. Two, in that review, ask anything you want related to yoga, and three, if you want to shout out, leave your Instagram handle or name and that’s it. Then listen in to hear your question answered. Live, raw and uncut. Join us next time on Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets podcast. Okay, thanks.