15. Can Yoga make you a better leader

Ivy Evenden is the owner and founder of Liquid Room, which is based in Sandringham in Melbourne. Ivy's a good friend of mine, and I've been so inspired with her energy and zest for life and business as I've watched her journey.

Ivy didn't start out wanting to own a business, but after mastering her own yoga practice she embarked on her Yoga Teacher Training, and from there she discovered a passion for teaching. Around the same time, she learned about the benefits of floating, and the rest is history.

Liquid Room opened in 2016 as a yoga studio, and the float component of the business soon followed.

Ivy had to put her grand plans for 2020 on hold when Covid hit, like many Melbourne-based businesses. She believes that being proactive is really important in business - the last thing she wants is for her clients to lose faith in her business because it's not innovating or at the very least, pivoting as things change.

As a business with monthly memberships, the challenge was to retain paying members, and not only keep them paying their monthly fee, but to provide so much value that pausing or cancelling their membership wasn't even an option. Personalising their service was really important, as was sharing the journey. Ivy describes it as almost a humanitarian approach - letting people know how they're helping to keep the business afloat

Ivy only lost 10% of her existing clients during Covid, AND she attracted a number of new clients, who continue to practice with her today.

She explains her philosophy as to why her clients stayed loyal while there were a number of cheaper online platforms to choose from:
"There are a lot of online platforms to choose from, where people can pay ten dollars to join. But when people come to your business, they come because they love the experience; they come because they trust you; they like the special treatment of being a regular. When shifting to an online platform, that personal approach needs to remain."

Ivy insisted on making her classes live throughout lockdown, as this allowed her to acknowledge individual clients by name.

By making classes about more than just the shapes participants can contort their bodies into, Ivy has a refreshing view on the role that yoga can play in being present and developing resilience. By challenging ourselves, physically, we learn to trust our bodies, which Ivy describes as our 'anchor'. By focusing solely on our bodies, and the challenge of the poses, we are brought back into our bodies and the present moment. 

In terms of how this can benefit us as work, yoga can not only make us calmer and less reactive; there is a subtle confidence shift that occurs when we take on a regular yoga practice. By constantly challenging your body - and your beliefs about what your body can do - the curiosity, confidence and resilience that you develop on the mat is something that naturally spills over into your personal and professional interactions.

Keen to give it a go? If you're in the local area, I highly recommend Liquid Room in Sandringham.

You can listen to my full podcast interview with Ivy here.
Visit Liquid Room's website here.
And to discuss how we can work together to develop your career as a leader, click here.