Meet the inspiring Sheridan Teague:
Sheridan is a RYT200 who lives in Tulsa, OK. She has found her niche with Christians Do Yoga where she creates yoga & meditation videos and workshops. She also allows her job at Lululemon to fuel her yoga business as well. When she isn’t practicing arm balances or recording videos for YouTube, you can find her cuddled up with her hubby and dog in their box truck home.
But I think my favorite thing about Sheridan is that she’s my friend. I met her several years ago and it was friendship at first playlist. The girl has a way with a yoga playlist! She throws it back with fun jams from the past but pulls in the new stuff too. We bonded over music first, then yoga, then the rest is history. She inspires me in many ways and she is definitely a big reason that I have continued my yoga journey and found my niche. She is an encourager to all who cross her path and I’m lucky to call her a friend.
Let's hear more about Sheridan's amazing yoga journey!
Amanda: Tell me a little about your yoga journey, what led you to want to be a yoga teacher?
Sheridan: Everyone has their own path, everyone kind of knew where they wanted to go after high school. I wasn’t enjoying school too much — the setting, the classes. My sister-in-law took me to my first yoga class and to be very honest I did not connect right away. I was like “this is kind of different, i didn’t really like it that much”. I took me going back a few more times to realize that that I really loved it.
I think that also comes with different instructors, you connect with different people. I found a class I fell in love with and kept going back. After that I left the class saying, “how can i not share this with other people?”
For the first time I felt super connected with myself. I felt confident and I felt like this was it. This was what I need to be doing as soon as possible! From there I immediately jumped into getting my 200 hour certification, immediately after that I started teaching at different locations and turned that into my full time job! I realized that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and I really love it so far.
Amanda: Well speaking for all of your students — you’re really good at it! Your passion for yoga really comes through in all of your classes and you inspire the rest of us to share yoga with others. Thank you for following your calling!
You went to yoga teacher training, you said “yes” to everything. I talk about that a lot with a lot of my students: you’ve got to say “yes” to everything to find out what you like and don’t like. What I adore about your story is how much I’ve been able to say “yes” to a lot of things then slowly narrow down to what your true calling is and what truly lights you up. Which is what niching down is all about!
Recently you niched down and have worked with Christians Do Yoga. What led to this part of your journey and how has that shaped what you are doing now?
Sheridan: I think just saying “yes” in general is very nerve-wracking. I remember being so nervous to be in front of people. I never thought my job would be public speaking. I think being able to say “yes” has opened up all these different doors for me.
I remember my first time saying “yes” to teaching a workshop. I was so nervous! I was like I’m going to mess up, I’m not going to say the right things...I’m going to stutter. I ended up saying “yes” and then different opportunities just started opening up and I started saying “yes” to those. I realized that the more you say “yes” the more it’s going to help you grow.
My passion is yoga. I love yoga! With that, there does come fear but when you say “yes” you are spreading your love of the practice. You are stepping into shoes where you have the platform to show people what you love. You hope and pray that they walk away feeling the exact same way you felt during your first yoga class .That’s what really pushed me into saying “yes” more often.
From there, I started teaching at a few different studios. At that point I was working at like 7 different studios, it was very chaotic and a little bit hectic. I did feel a lot of energy being sucked out of all that time. Just giving to all these different places. I really started realizing what places I wanted to be at most.
A great friend of mine taught me to narrow down to where you need to be, so you can open up spots for other people to have the opportunity to say “yes”.
Being able to narrow down where I wanted to be, where I wanted to channel my energies has really helped me slim down my schedule to certain places. Then from there, teaching what I love to the people I feel like I can inspire. That’s how I found out I love arm-balancing and wanting to teach arm-balancing to everyone. Which is nerve-wracking!
That’s what I realized my niche was — I wanted to share arm-balances to everyone! Even people that didn’t think they could.. It’s meeting your students at the spot that they are at and making them feel comfortable in the moment and helping them take a little step outside their comfort zone.
Amanda: So many of my students are where you were. They’re feeling scattered, they feel all over the place and they’re ready to really focus in. Talk to me about how the door opened to really narrow down.
Sheridan: Let me start with my Instagram. My Instagram is devotional based. I post a picture and I use this app called Jesus Calling and I post what she has to say for January 27th or something and it has a full paragraph about how God is working in our lives. I would copy and paste and post it on my Instagram, hoping someone would read that and feel like it’s exactly what they wanted to hear one day.
So I work at LuluLemon and one day Kristen Campbell of Christians Do Yoga walked in. She asked me, “did you ever teach Holy Yoga?” I’ve been to a few Holy Yoga classes and I told her I sub every once awhile for Holy Yoga classes but none dedicated on my schedule. She asked if I would be willing to come in and film a few yoga classes that were based on scripture for Christians Do Yoga. I did it and they asked me to come back and record more!
I love it! Being around people that are there for you — I wanted to draw more energy into that. We have a lot of YouTube videos out and people all over the world are watching them! I’m just not in this space — I’m over in Australia and Ireland and all these different places! I left my other jobs to spend more energy with Christians Do Yoga. I still have other classes on my schedule that are full of energy and I wanted to keep.
Amanda: How have you been able to get students into your classes? What ways do you market yourself as a yoga teacher?
Sheridan: Working at Lululemon has been great for marketing myself. I have an opportunity to touch base with people who are already in the yoga community or they are getting into yoga. They come in and they’re looking for workout gear and I’m able to talk with people! Some reveal they’re getting into yoga or about take their first class. I try to gauge their interest of what type of classes. I’ll either guide them to my online classes if they want to stay home and do yoga. Then I can tell them where I teach, point them to my Instagram. Then we built up a friendship — they come back! We talk about where they’re practicing and how they’re doing.
I love word of mouth networking. I’ve realized how draining social media can make me feel. I think taking a step back every once and a while and doing word of mouth is how I flow.
Amanda: As someone who is such a planner and on the marketing side of things. Sometimes my brain goes: have a schedule, stick to that schedule. The more and more I’ve taught yoga teachers in particular not a corporation. Following that energy is really where it’s at — I think it’s great to have an idea about how many times you’d like to post a week and try for it if it feels right. There is something to feeling that energy and saying “okay I need to take a step back”. I have found that with Instagram how interesting it is that maybe you don’t want to post but you’ll share a story. It’s almost like a break — stories are more relaxed and you can have a little more fun with it.
Narrowing your yoga focus also helps with narrowing down what you want to post about on social media! You’ve got your pose photos and your devotional photos because that’s your brand.
Where can we find you and how can students work with you?
Sheridan: You can find me on YouTube! It’s free content — different flows, targeted area flows and take any of the classes. I’m also on Instagram — feel free to follow me and read all my devotionals.
My marketing advice is to be authentic and teach what you love. You feel it inside of you when you’re teaching what you love.
Sheridan narrowed down her focus and energies and is teaching classes and students that light her up. If you're still trying to narrow down your yoga focus, check out my free PDF guide that takes you through the steps.
See you next week,
