The morning of my interview with Santa Monica-based yoga instructor Laura Conley, my year-ahead astrology notebook told me to, “Ground your inspirations and live them first.” Ah, foreshadowing. That advice summed up the essence of our meeting prior to our arrival. We met at Groundwork coffee house, which we both agreed was symbolic of our journey toward building careers in the yoga industry.
Both Laura and I have recently experienced severe life redirects, Laura having leapt into yoga from the world of pharmaceutical sales, and me from the Los Angeles advertising realm. In my interview with Laura, we explored the idea that laying a foundation of passion, or in other words the groundwork for your dreams, is a necessary step in going full force down whatever the hell fork leads you to doing what you love. Never mind taking the path less traveled by… for her, it was about carving out a new path with a machete-like force.
This brings me to LESSON #1: Say YES to it all.
Laura: One of my main strengths is the drive to further my career and for personal growth. In both pharmaceuticals and yoga, it takes being friends with front desk staff, caring about genuine human connection, and cultivating a community. It’s that drive to network, and when you’re starting out, making it a point to never say no.
It’s not always about what you’re in the mood for, because guess what – you’re not always going to “feel like it” when an opportunity presents itself. Maybe your day is done, or your big breaks are out of the way, but you have to go the extra mile to change your life. Maybe I had already worked a 12-hour day, but I always took a yoga class with an instructor I wanted to learn from and network with anyway. The way my career in yoga took off was by never saying “no” to opportunity.
Lesson #2: Being who you are leads to doing what you love.
Laura: In college, I studied psychology. My mom always said to study something that you love, not something you necessarily feel should be your career path. That advice led me to taking classes I was passionate about, rather than those I felt I should take. It taught me that if you are leading your life by doing what you love, then eventually you will end up where you want to be.
After college, though, I was really eager to get a 9-to-5 job. I wanted to have a job by June 1st, have a 401k, and be “an adult.” I thought to myself, "What would that look like on my resume to have a summer break after graduation?" I think our culture made me feel that I had to have all of that together.
At 22, you don’t understand how much time you have left to discover yourself and what you’re meant for. It takes time to turn your passion into your career. When I started allowing myself to take that time, it led me to a career shift that I am now 100 percent fulfilled by. I wake up every morning jumping around and singing because I know I’m living my calling.
For your yoga practice, for meditation, and for life in general… this whole thing is a journey we’re on together. Every day is a practice. It’s not a perfect. If you give yourself that freedom, you can really be yourself. If you don’t know yourself, figure out a way to explore that. Ultimately, that exploration will reveal to you what it is you are supposed to be doing (your dharma), leading you to ultimate happiness and fulfillment. Explore your interests. Take time to listen to those whispers if they're not a scream and shout.
You know what your life calling is – it might be a scream, or it might be a whisper that’s been squashed because it’s safer to take a different route. But that voice is there telling you what you are supposed to do.
“If there’s no dream whispering at you, go wandering; your roots may need fresh land.”
LESSON #3: Not everybody’s going to like me, but there are people who will.
Laura: Wow, the biggest lesson I’ve learned on this journey: learning to not take stuff personally. If you teach yoga, someone won’t like your music and they’re going to tell you about it. They won’t like your sequence, and they’re going to tell you about it. And that’s all ok.
Alright, I’m paraphrasing here – “Not everybody’s gonna like you. If you’re trying to get everyone to like you, you’re effed.” -Abe Lincoln
The ability to take it all in (whatever it is) and to learn from it, is the most important thing you can do. That’s such a freeing thing, to just know that not everyone is going to like me. However, there are people who will.
LESSON #4: Surround yourself with people who believe in you more than you believe in you.
Laura: I had put together that my pharmaceutical sales job was unfulfilling even during my 200-hour yoga teacher training. I felt like a fraud and a fake who was wasting time. In my 300-hour training, I had a daily conversation with my husband to explore “how do I teach yoga?” My husband, my family, and my friends were so supportive of me making the switch. My husband worked with me to budget for making the plan to make my career dreams work because he knew it would make me happy.
Two weeks later, sitting at coffee with my boss, he told me our company was having lay offs. I shouted out, “I wanna be laid off!” He told me no – you’re not becoming a yoga instructor, and he was all about the safe job, saving for a house, you know – typical American dream cash. Then, on a national conference call, someone said, “If you want to be laid off, come forward, and we will give you severance cash.” Lay me off, right now. The severance pay ended up being the exact same amount of money we had planned to save before I would quit my job to teach yoga. Ask and ye shall receive on a silver platter. It wasn’t even should I do it or not – it was so blatantly obvious that this was my path. Everyone in my life, because I have a wonderful, supportive community, reacted by saying, “How can you not!?”
LESSON #5: The fact that I am passionate about what I do means I have something great to offer.
Laura: My students have taught me to continue to be myself and to be comfortable with my abilities. I haven’t taken 16 teacher trainings or gone to India (yet). They teach me that because I’m doing what I love, I have something great to offer. Their progress reassures me and makes me more confident about teaching from what I have experienced. The competition is fierce in Santa Monica – if I paid attention to “who I was up against,” I would never teach.
My students have also taught me patience – I’m such a doer, talker, fixer, but it is so important to have the patience to hold space for them a d whatever they’re going through. I never really understood what holding space for them meant until now. Being a yoga instructor is largely about being a vehicle for change – for letting people go through their own shit, because I know I have needed that time too. I love creating a space that allows people to be, which is what yoga is. I’m teaching to inspire on a bigger level than “is your hip externally rotated correctly?” That’s not what’s inspiring. Helping people find that yoga can be a lifestyle if you let it be is the driver for me.
“Yoga is a light, which once lit will never dim. The better your practice, the brighter your flame.” B.K.S. Iyengar
About Laura Conley (Yoga Teacher, RYT 500 & Lululemon Ambassador):
You can find Laura teaching in Los Angeles at YogaWorks, Equinox, and Unplug Meditation, or contact her for private sessions (including day-of-wedding yoga and baby shower yoga). Laura owns Power Lunch Yoga, which brings personalized yoga to the workplace. Find her on Facebook, or email her at [email protected].
©Emily Hudson, WorldLifestyle
Both Laura and I have recently experienced severe life redirects, Laura having leapt into yoga from the world of pharmaceutical sales, and me from the Los Angeles advertising realm. In my interview with Laura, we explored the idea that laying a foundation of passion, or in other words the groundwork for your dreams, is a necessary step in going full force down whatever the hell fork leads you to doing what you love. Never mind taking the path less traveled by… for her, it was about carving out a new path with a machete-like force.
This brings me to LESSON #1: Say YES to it all.
Laura: One of my main strengths is the drive to further my career and for personal growth. In both pharmaceuticals and yoga, it takes being friends with front desk staff, caring about genuine human connection, and cultivating a community. It’s that drive to network, and when you’re starting out, making it a point to never say no.
It’s not always about what you’re in the mood for, because guess what – you’re not always going to “feel like it” when an opportunity presents itself. Maybe your day is done, or your big breaks are out of the way, but you have to go the extra mile to change your life. Maybe I had already worked a 12-hour day, but I always took a yoga class with an instructor I wanted to learn from and network with anyway. The way my career in yoga took off was by never saying “no” to opportunity.
Lesson #2: Being who you are leads to doing what you love.
Laura: In college, I studied psychology. My mom always said to study something that you love, not something you necessarily feel should be your career path. That advice led me to taking classes I was passionate about, rather than those I felt I should take. It taught me that if you are leading your life by doing what you love, then eventually you will end up where you want to be.
After college, though, I was really eager to get a 9-to-5 job. I wanted to have a job by June 1st, have a 401k, and be “an adult.” I thought to myself, "What would that look like on my resume to have a summer break after graduation?" I think our culture made me feel that I had to have all of that together.
At 22, you don’t understand how much time you have left to discover yourself and what you’re meant for. It takes time to turn your passion into your career. When I started allowing myself to take that time, it led me to a career shift that I am now 100 percent fulfilled by. I wake up every morning jumping around and singing because I know I’m living my calling.
For your yoga practice, for meditation, and for life in general… this whole thing is a journey we’re on together. Every day is a practice. It’s not a perfect. If you give yourself that freedom, you can really be yourself. If you don’t know yourself, figure out a way to explore that. Ultimately, that exploration will reveal to you what it is you are supposed to be doing (your dharma), leading you to ultimate happiness and fulfillment. Explore your interests. Take time to listen to those whispers if they're not a scream and shout.
You know what your life calling is – it might be a scream, or it might be a whisper that’s been squashed because it’s safer to take a different route. But that voice is there telling you what you are supposed to do.
“If there’s no dream whispering at you, go wandering; your roots may need fresh land.”
LESSON #3: Not everybody’s going to like me, but there are people who will.
Laura: Wow, the biggest lesson I’ve learned on this journey: learning to not take stuff personally. If you teach yoga, someone won’t like your music and they’re going to tell you about it. They won’t like your sequence, and they’re going to tell you about it. And that’s all ok.
Alright, I’m paraphrasing here – “Not everybody’s gonna like you. If you’re trying to get everyone to like you, you’re effed.” -Abe Lincoln
The ability to take it all in (whatever it is) and to learn from it, is the most important thing you can do. That’s such a freeing thing, to just know that not everyone is going to like me. However, there are people who will.
LESSON #4: Surround yourself with people who believe in you more than you believe in you.
Laura: I had put together that my pharmaceutical sales job was unfulfilling even during my 200-hour yoga teacher training. I felt like a fraud and a fake who was wasting time. In my 300-hour training, I had a daily conversation with my husband to explore “how do I teach yoga?” My husband, my family, and my friends were so supportive of me making the switch. My husband worked with me to budget for making the plan to make my career dreams work because he knew it would make me happy.
Two weeks later, sitting at coffee with my boss, he told me our company was having lay offs. I shouted out, “I wanna be laid off!” He told me no – you’re not becoming a yoga instructor, and he was all about the safe job, saving for a house, you know – typical American dream cash. Then, on a national conference call, someone said, “If you want to be laid off, come forward, and we will give you severance cash.” Lay me off, right now. The severance pay ended up being the exact same amount of money we had planned to save before I would quit my job to teach yoga. Ask and ye shall receive on a silver platter. It wasn’t even should I do it or not – it was so blatantly obvious that this was my path. Everyone in my life, because I have a wonderful, supportive community, reacted by saying, “How can you not!?”
LESSON #5: The fact that I am passionate about what I do means I have something great to offer.
Laura: My students have taught me to continue to be myself and to be comfortable with my abilities. I haven’t taken 16 teacher trainings or gone to India (yet). They teach me that because I’m doing what I love, I have something great to offer. Their progress reassures me and makes me more confident about teaching from what I have experienced. The competition is fierce in Santa Monica – if I paid attention to “who I was up against,” I would never teach.
My students have also taught me patience – I’m such a doer, talker, fixer, but it is so important to have the patience to hold space for them a d whatever they’re going through. I never really understood what holding space for them meant until now. Being a yoga instructor is largely about being a vehicle for change – for letting people go through their own shit, because I know I have needed that time too. I love creating a space that allows people to be, which is what yoga is. I’m teaching to inspire on a bigger level than “is your hip externally rotated correctly?” That’s not what’s inspiring. Helping people find that yoga can be a lifestyle if you let it be is the driver for me.
“Yoga is a light, which once lit will never dim. The better your practice, the brighter your flame.” B.K.S. Iyengar
About Laura Conley (Yoga Teacher, RYT 500 & Lululemon Ambassador):
You can find Laura teaching in Los Angeles at YogaWorks, Equinox, and Unplug Meditation, or contact her for private sessions (including day-of-wedding yoga and baby shower yoga). Laura owns Power Lunch Yoga, which brings personalized yoga to the workplace. Find her on Facebook, or email her at [email protected].
©Emily Hudson, WorldLifestyle
