IAM2404 – Wellness Coach Helps People Experience Happiness Every Day through Mindfulness, Movement and Mindset

Chloe Markham is an award-winning wellness coach, yoga teacher, and joyful living coach. She is the founder of The Yoga Revolution and Joy Unplugged, programs designed to promote mindfulness, movement, and mindset to help people experience happiness every day.

Chloe launched a Substack six months ago, where she writes about wellness, joy, and mindfulness, and she encourages others to join her there as it serves as an antidote to social media.

She describes herself as a “modern-day classical philosopher,” helping clients use yoga and other tools to elevate their daily lives and experience more joy.

Chloe believes that the key to success in her business is maintaining a clear perspective on the “why” behind what she does.

She advocates for a flexible approach to morning routines—allowing for brevity when needed and letting go of guilt if the routine isn’t followed.

Furthermore, Chloe stresses the importance of learning to slow down, tune into one's body, and create the space to self-regulate, as this is key to long-term success and well-being.

Website: Chloe Markham

LinkedIn: Chloe Markham

Instagram: the.yoga.revolution

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Transcription:

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Chloe Markham Teaser 00:00

I like to call myself this modern-day classical philosopher. Like, how do we go from practicing yoga to, like, exploring the joy of living and being alive and use these tools in a very deliberate way to help us get that joy and that magic every day?

So, yeah, that's kind of the tears of how I work with people. But I like to think that joy of being alive thing is sprinkled through everything.

Intro 00:30

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:57

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I have an awesome guest on the show today. I have Chloe Markham. Chloe, excited to have you on the show.

Chloe Markham 01:05

Thanks for having me, Gresh. Good to be here.

Gresham Harkless 01:07

Yes, I'm super excited to have you on. And Chloe's doing so many awesome things that I'm super excited to dive in.

But of course, before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Chloe so you can hear about some of those awesome things that she's working on.

And Chloe is an award-winning wellness coach and yoga teacher, joyful living coach, and writer who's passionate about helping people reconnect with a more joyful life.

And as the founder of the Yoga Revolution and Joy Unplugged, her signature program, she blends mindfulness, movement, and mindset to inspire happiness every day.

Known for her lighthearted approach and relatable style, Chloe believes in making wellness accessible and enjoyable for all.

And one of the things I was doing before we were preparing for this interview, she has over 900 five-star reviews across Google, Facebook, and MindBody, which is absolutely amazing.

She's also a fellow podcaster, which I absolutely love. And I was actually listening to one of her podcasts before I hopped on this.

And I think it gives a little teaser to what we're going to talk about a little bit probably later on in the show is about morning routines and how powerful those are.

But one of the things that really kind of resonated with me more than everything else is she believes life's too short to not feel alive, joyful, and balanced every single day.

So Chloe, excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Chloe Markham 02:18

Hey, yeah, absolutely. I love that little intro. That was mega.

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Gresham Harkless 02:21

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you did all the hard work. I just read it. So I appreciate you for making it easy for me to be able to read that out and see all the awesome things that you're doing.

Chloe Markham 02:30

Of course, yeah.

Gresham Harkless 02:31

Absolutely. Well, so to kick everything off, let's rewind the clock, hear a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

Chloe Markham 02:37

Yeah. Okay. I mean, it's a long and twisty road, as I suppose it is for a lot of folk, but I remember it's so funny.

I was, um, I was working for a marketing agency hating my life and, uh, they made me redundant and I was like, hey, give me the office manager's job.

And they were like, okay, I got the office manager's job. And like three months later, they said, we're going to make you redundant. We can't afford you.

And I was just, I was in this environment where everyone was miserable. I don't know if you've kind of been in that place the office where what I like to say is where plants and souls go to die.

I was just thinking there's got to be a better way. So I started my first business, which was called Milk and Honey, and I was an employee engagement consultant.

And this was my thing, right? I was ready and excited to be the person that was going to make working in an office like that a more enjoyable thing.

Meanwhile, I went to Bali and I took my yoga teacher training just as a thing, just as a fun thing to do.

The whole time I was there, squirreling away, like, how do we make it better for people in offices?

And then I came home and I started teaching yoga. And within six months, I had people out the door, like waitlists and massive classes.

And so much joy came from these classes that I was teaching. And so much despair came from me trying to sell myself as an employee engagement consultant in a very B2B kind of like, corporate world that I hated.

It just naturally pushed me down this yoga route. And then, yeah, cut a long story short. I had a studio, a brick and mortar studio. COVID hit and, um, I shifted my business model online.

And started coaching and developing the things that I'm doing to include more kind of philosophy and mindset and mindfulness and yoga is great but it's one of many tools.

And what can we do to use these tools to elevate our every day and live joyfully and yeah, remember that we are finite beings having this incredible human life experience. How can we tap into that every day?

Gresham Harkless 04:49

Yeah, I absolutely love that. And so I wanted to drill down a little bit more, hear a little bit more about this path that you've been forging.

Can you take us through a little bit more on how you're working with this Irenia client?

Chloe Markham 04:57

Yeah, for sure. So at the moment, actually, I started this six months ago. And it's one of my most favorite things.

And I'll talk about why in a sec. But yeah, I started my Substack about six months ago. And the reason I'm excited about it is I've always been a writer, it's just a case of finding the right output for that.

And so that's kind of the, and please come and join me on Substack. I love that place so much. It's such a wonderful, antidote to social media generally, do you know what I mean?

So I write and then I have my membership which is how I show up for my people, right?

This is yoga and mindset and mindfulness in this light-hearted way that's in between those two polarities, like in between the over spiritual sleepy stuff and the super fitness you've got to look like a bikini model stuff.

And then I'm really enjoying working with people in a bigger way. And it's almost like, I like to call myself this modern day classical philosopher.

How do we go from practicing yoga to exploring the joy of living and being alive and use these tools in a very deliberate way to help us get that joy and that magic every day?

So yeah, that's kind of the tears of how I work with people. But I like to think that joy of being alive thing is sprinkled through everything, even if you are on my email list and you get emails from me once a while, it's like, yeah, it's all about the joy and feeling better every day.

Gresham Harkless 06:39

Yeah, I absolutely love that. And so do you feel like you have this ability? I don't know if this is part of your, I call it your secret sauce. It could be for yourself, the business or a combination of both.

But do you feel like you have an ability to understand that, hey, these are all quote unquote ingredients in the thing that I'm trying to create, but I'm not going to lose sight of why I'm doing the thing that I'm doing.

Do you feel like your ability to be able to understand that and realize that, hey, these are just ingredients that can be more or less or not even there? Do you feel like that's part of your secret sauce?

Chloe Markham 07:07

Yes, 100%. It's so interesting that you say that because I think this perspective, one of my secret sources is perspective, right?

Is being able to understand like, we don't want to get lost in the weeds of, for instance, a morning routine or your yoga practice or fitness practice or whatever.

Why are we doing it? Why are we showing up? What is it that we actually want? It's absolutely a driver of why I do what I do.

Because I think, ultimately when we, I've said this before, it's like getting to the end of our days and being like, thumbs up.

That was fucking wild. Right. That was amazing. And I had a good time and I loved everybody I loved.

And, I surrounded myself with wonderful things and I took opportunities and I live joyfully. That's what I want when I get to those days.

And I think that most of us do too, when we scrape away all of the ideas of what we look like and how we spend our time and la la la, it's about joy.

I don't know if that answered your question. I feel like I've gone off piece, but yeah.

Gresham Harkless 08:09

Yeah, no, it definitely, answered my question. And I think I love that quote, you know, that I remember I read years and years ago.

It's like, do you want to show up at the end of your life and be fully clean and never tried anything, never went against the grain or did all those things?

Or do you want to come out battered and say, wow, it was a wild ride. Let me do that again.

And so I wanted to drill down a little bit more and switch gears and ask you for what I call a CEO hack.

So this might be some of the tools that could be an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

Chloe Markham 08:40

One of the biggest things I would say, and we're talking about these tools to help us be more autonomous, to heal our nervous system, to build our habits back, is a morning routine.

Because so often as entrepreneurs or folks working really hard on business, we forget to prioritize ourselves or we get to the end of the day and like, damn, I haven't done it again.

But I think a morning routine is the perfect place, number one, obviously, to set the standard for the rest of your day.

I mean, if we get out of bed and instantly jump into Instagram notifications or our emails, it's a very different experience and it sets us up for a very different day than if we do something purposeful and mindful and slow for us rather than for the people in our phones.

But also, I think it's a place for us to even kind of learn new skills or build this, what we're talking about, this kind of autonomy back or our nervous system stuff back or work on the things that we want to work on.

And I've been doing morning routines for almost a decade, but over the last six months, I've really refined it even more.

I don't know if you've heard of the Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, but he talks about this savers routine, right?

And I've kind of taken that as the foundation and I've built on it. But the principle is, and read the book if you're interested, but we start with silence, then we go to affirmations, visualization, exercise reading and scribing or writing.

So there's our savers, right? Simple. But sometimes I find that a little bit flat. And so there's a couple of things I want to touch on with that.

Like if you are feeling shit and you wake up and you have no energy and life is heavy and you're miserable.

How do we then do a morning routine? There's two things to that, right? Number one, take that save as routine and do it for three minutes.

So you go through each one of those steps. So we start with silence and affirmation, visualize, la la la, go through the steps, but you do it for a total of five minutes. You do it for 30 seconds each step.

It has the same result as if you did it for an hour. Then something I've been writing about a lot lately is this idea that, okay, we have, we're a morning routine kind of person.

And we show up in this way to the world. So therefore I'm a bad person when I don't do it.

So for instance, right now I'm in a long distance relationship. And when I go and visit my boyfriend in London. I can be there and I'm not in my habitat.

And I'm tired and we've been going out and seeing people, whatever we're doing. And so I get to my morning routine and I'm like, oh my God, I can't. I can't do it.

So for the rest of the day, I'm a bad person because I've missed it. I'm a bad coach. I'm a bad yoga teacher because I missed it. So I think there are two things here.

Do it and also be allowing of yourself to not do it. and to not be guilty when you don't do it, and to love yourself, and to allow yourself to not do it.

So there's this dichotomy, and again, it's about understanding where you are, what you're doing, how you feel, what you need right now, and that's such a huge question that I take with me into every day.

Gresham Harkless 12:11

Yeah, so you might have already touched on this, but I want to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, a little bit more word of wisdom or piece of advice.

I like to say it might be something you would tell your clients if you were talking with them, or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

Chloe Markham 12:28

Number one for business people is to do it for the love. I mean, I don't know, this sounds trite, but to do it for the love, not the money or the accolade or the followers.

Because I think that when we get focused on the kind of external outcomes of what we do, we lose sight of why we do what we do.

So I think, yeah, ultimately stay focused on why you're doing what you do, on the difference you want to make and how that lights you up.

Because I think when you start to communicate that, and I've seen this in my own business so often, people resonate with it and people get behind it and there's magic in that.

And so like, yeah, slow down more often and learn how to slow down, and how to be in your body more, to learn what it is you need, to learn when to take a break.

And no one's going to do that for you. There's no mechanism or magic source to help you do that.

It's about tuning in more often, learning how to tune in more often, and having the tools to help you self-regulate.

Gresham Harkless 13:40

Yeah, I love both of those nuggets. And so I wanted to ask you now one of my absolute favorite questions, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO.

And our goal is to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Chloe, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Chloe Markham 13:52

For me, a CEO is a very corporate thing. I suppose we're talking about founders, right? Or like, difference makers and I think that that would be what comes up for me if I remove that scary corporate thing out of my head There's a reason I work for myself, right?

But yeah, I think it's about difference making for me. It's always about when I get to the end of my days.

What is the positive impact I've had on this planet and on the people I've interacted with and I think you know everyone's mission is going to be slightly different isn't it.

But I think when we are creating something when we're in this kind of CEO founder position, it's how can I make a positive impact in whatever way that is?

And I love that. And I think that's it, right. The impact we want to have when we're in our eighties and nineties.

Gresham Harkless 14:50

Chloe, truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know.

And of course, how best people can get a hold of you, find out about all the awesome things that you have and you're working on.

Chloe Markham 15:05

For sure, Gresh, it's been a total pleasure. And I just think people need to rest, right? Learn some tools with me, come into my world. Find me on Substack, chloemarkham.substack.com. My website, chloemarkham.co.uk.

I'm actually offering anyone listening to this a two-week free trial of my membership, The Yoga Revolution, which is yoga, but mindset, mindfulness, these morning routine tools, yoga nidras, which I love.

All of this good stuff. I go live every month. So that is chloemarkham.co.uk/ceo-yoga and there's my morning routine blueprint as well somewhere in the show notes right.

But yeah come find me on Substack because that's where all the goodness is and what I write about.

I share classes on there too so I would love, yeah, for people to find me and to join my little joy collective, as I call it.

Gresham Harkless 15:59

Yeah, absolutely. And of course, to make that even easier, we're going to have the links in the show notes as well, too, for the CEO morning, your membership as well, too.

So that everybody can find out about all the awesome things that you're doing. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Chloe Markham 16:10

Thanks, Gresh. Much love. Thank you for having me.

Outro 16:13

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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