- Teachers who say they are not business people are usually describing the mat and the desk as two separate lives lived by two different women. There is one of her.
- The five things the business side needs are things she already does: reading the whole body, practising unwatched, being patient over years, consistency under pressure, and serving beyond what she is paid for.
- What is actually missing is information nobody ever gave her, and permission to point an existing discipline at a new room.
- Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade. She already believes this about her practice.
- How you approach one thing under pressure is how you approach everything under pressure. The contract avoided for four months is a pattern, not a character flaw.
The thing teachers say to me most often about the business side is some version of *I’m just not a business person.* Said apologetically, as though owning up to a missing organ.
For me that’s the wrong way round, and it’s worth taking apart, because the belief does more damage than any real gap in knowledge.
What does a yoga teacher already do that the business side needs?
We get asked about this constantly, and here’s what I notice after twenty years of watching teachers do it.
A teacher will spend eleven years patiently working at one posture. She’ll practise on a Tuesday in February when nobody would know if she didn’t. She’ll look at a student with a sore shoulder and know the problem is in the ribs. She’ll stay twenty minutes after class, unpaid, because somebody needed to talk.
Then she’ll tell you she isn’t disciplined, isn’t patient, can’t see patterns and isn’t good with people’s needs.
In my experience she’s describing the mat and the desk as two separate lives lived by two different women. There’s one of her, and she’s already good at the five things this actually takes.
- Joining the dots — she reads the whole body, not the sore bit. Numbers drop in the winter term and the answer is almost never in the winter term.
- Accountability — she practises unwatched. The only kind that works is the kind you hold yourself to.
- Action over a decade — she knows a posture takes years. Yet the business side gets one frantic January and is abandoned by March.
- How you do one thing — she’d never claim to be rigorous in class and sloppy everywhere else. How you approach one thing under pressure is how you approach everything under pressure.
- Serving higher than anyone else — she already does it. She just doesn’t do it on purpose, or further than anyone else bothers to.
So what’s actually missing?
Two things, and I’d say neither of them is character.
Information nobody gave her. What an hour actually costs. What a studio can afford to pay. Where students genuinely come from. None of it is hard once it’s in front of you.
Permission to point the discipline at a new room. Which is hers to give, and is mostly deciding the desk is part of the practice rather than the opposite of it.
How should you start?
One thing. Not a plan for all of it.
Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and badly underestimate what they can do in a decade. You already believe this about your practice — you’d think it odd if somebody expected to arrive at a posture in eight weeks. It’s equally true at the desk.
Pick one. Give it a date you chose. Tell one person.
You might read all that and decide the business side still isn’t for you, and carry on exactly as you are. Plenty of good teachers have. But take it as a decision, rather than because of a sentence you once said about yourself and never checked.
Frequently asked questions
Do yoga teachers need business skills? Fewer new ones than most assume. What’s usually missing is information nobody supplied, not aptitude.
Why do so many teachers say they’re not business people? Because the two sides get treated as separate lives. It’s a sentence said once and never checked.
Where should you start? One thing, on a date you chose, told to one person. Not the whole of it in January.
Is it wrong to treat teaching as a business? Running it properly is what keeps the teaching alive through a bad year. The apparatus protects the craft.
Where this sits
YogaPros has been the professional body for yoga teachers since 2006, with over 10,000 members across 100+ countries.
*This article is general professional guidance. It is not a substitute for professional legal, tax, or insurance advice specific to your situation.*