It’s been a boom for content providers in the wellness community – whether you’re posting free workouts, meditations, sound healing, yoga, or stress management. It’s all available at all hours of the day and night – like never before. As someone who is in the community and provides content online and in person I felt the urge and pressure to start delivering videos, workshops, breathing sessions almost immediately.
This was met with email requests from a number of different organizations in and around the wellness community from gyms to clothing lines requesting free content for their followers.
I’m not someone with a massive following so anything to boost my limited followers seems like a good idea these days since I’m all in on my business of breathing, stress management, and Wim Hof workshops. I’m less than a year in to giving up my full time nine to five in tech sales. I worked for a start up and got certified in Wim Hof method on the side and began teaching workshops on my weekends. I wanted to offer this method and share it with as many people as I could, I converted.
My life took a major turn for the better when I adopted the Wim Hof Method as a daily practice – breathing and cold exposure help put me on a better path. I lost weight started sleeping better and became a much happier fitter version of myself. So when I decided to become certified I assumed I would continue to work my comfy tech job sitting in front of my laptop 8-10 hours a day and teach workshops on the side to help spread the practice to others that could benefit. It took me about 4 months to realize that I couldn’t stand having a monthly quota, living for a paycheck, weekends, and paid time off. That’s when I decided last March to leave my job and go all in on teaching Wim Hof Method. I gave my company a soft exit where I would stay until they replaced me and had my last day the first week of June.
Now I’m coming up on a year of freelance living in the health and wellness space, specifically breathwork, stress management, and Wim Hof Method. I teach weekly breathing sessions at co working spaces, one on one private sessions in person and Facetime, and I have weekend workshops with breathing, ice baths, and mindset training (sometimes I even offer sauna use as well). It’s been up and down mostly up but there have been weeks and nearly months with little income compared to what I was making before in tech with my comfy six figure compensation package with salary and lucrative commission structure. I’m so much happier doing this work, but with a baby on the way it definitely has it’s moments.
I settled into a nice groove with work once the new year started a handful of private clients and I started to develop up my corporate offering – landing my biggest corporate breathing session in January. Everything was moving in the right direction, workshops on the weekends, speaking events, and a growing following of support. It was all peaking with the Wim Hof episode on Goop, and I was getting requests to run workshops out of the city, I led my largest workshop to date in January of 54 participants.
Then as quickly as the growth came everything shifted this month, I canceled upcoming workshops I got a number of emails requesting refunds. Gyms that I work with regularly are letting go of staff and it all happened within two weeks. I know this scarcity mindset well, how are we going to pay our bills. I felt a similar sensation to a lesser extent at the end of a slow sales month knowing I’d fall short of quota I started reaching out to any and all leads that I thought might have interest in moving forward. This move always felt desperate on my end and I’m sure it reeked of it on the receiving end.
I know as someone that provides a service meant to calm the nervous system my work is important especially now. We are all stressed and cooped up, so the inclination to provide that service and help relieve anxiety and do this work seems appropriate and timely. However, in this morning’s breathing session I was feeling a bit empty as I struggle to fill my energetic cup. The issue is happening for all of us and I worry for those that feel the calling to share as much content as possible right now. We are going to burn out especially if we are offering all of these free classes and saying yes to every offer for more. Instead of giving away 4 classes a day lets take a breather and maybe take a class or two ourselves or just take a day off.
I know this is tough because I feel the scarcity mindset as well, how am I going to pay my bills I’ve got a baby on the way. I believe in what I offer and know if can help change people’s lives. That will not change in two weeks from now nor will it change in a month from now. Trust yourself and let’s find a way to support each other in this time. We can do a better job of supporting our communities if we work together. It’s ok to say no or to ask for money when a business approaches you for content. That’s how we pay our bills so lets keep that in mind when we are put in these positions. It will empower our standing if we are all together in this.