IAM784- Pioneer Uses LYT Method to Offer Yoga Training

Lara Heimann is an international yoga pioneer and Physical Therapist focused on evolving the practice of yoga to empower movement and balance amidst a modern lifestyle of technology and sedentariness. With an advanced degree in physical therapy and more than 25 years of yoga practice and education, Lara is redefining the modern practice through her comprehensive LYT Method, emphasizing smart alignment, functional movement, and spiritual wellness. She offers online daily classes and robust online yoga teacher training in addition to leading in-person workshops, training, and masterclasses internationally.

• CEO Hack: I take care of myself, my daily habits and lifestyle are key
• CEO Nugget: Believing in yourself and accept not everybody will agree with you
• CEO Defined: Being a leader, a pioneer to your and the brain to your brand

Website: https://lytyoga.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lytyogamethod/ and https://www.instagram.com/lara.heimann/

Online subscription yoga classes: https://movementbylara.vhx.tv/

Full Interview:

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Transcription

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[00:00:02.20] – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you’ve come to the right place, Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you’re in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

[00:00:29.89] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Laura Hyman of Lit Yoga. Laura, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:39.89] – Lara Heimann

It's great to be on the show. Thanks for having me, Gresh.

[00:00:42.60] – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on. Before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Lara so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Lara is an international yoga pioneer and physical therapist focused on evolving the practice of yoga to empower movement and balance amidst a modern lifestyle of technology and sedentariness. With an advanced degree in physical therapy and more than twenty-five years of yoga practice and education, Lara is redefining modern practice through her comprehensive lit method, emphasizing smart alignment, functional movement, and spiritual wellness. She offers online daily classes and robust online yoga teacher training in addition to leading in-person workshops, and training in master classes internationally. Lara, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:28.20] – Lara Heimann

I'm so ready. I'm so ready. Thanks for that intro.

[00:01:30.90] – Gresham Harkless

No worries. Thanks for doing so many awesome things. And before we kinda fully jump in, I want to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about how you got started. Could you take us through what I call your CEO story? We'll let you get started with all the awesome things you're working on.

[00:01:44.29] – Lara Heimann

Yeah. I mean, I think I'm one of those accident CEOs. Maybe there's a lot of them. I think there probably are. Where I had a great career as a physical therapist, was working in what would be considered, like, corporate, you know, for-profit world, and simultaneously had always been a fitness instructor of some sort and also very athletic. I started teaching and practicing yoga about twenty-five years ago. And what I noticed as time went on was there was a gap in the teaching of yoga. In other words, like, there was very inconsistent, quality. And a lot of it had to do with what I saw as this huge, just burst of yoga on the scene. Twenty-five years ago, it wasn't a lot. And then all of a sudden, everybody started doing yoga, they had yoga teacher training, and these trainings were really not setting people up for good success, as real instructors of movement in the body.

Just like very little movement education. And that led to a lot of, teachers who don't really know much about the body even though they're teaching movement for the body in the majority of yoga classes. So I saw this real gap and I just felt like it was my calling. I can't It was almost like I was dragged but it was unwillingly I didn't really want to start a movement but, you know, you see a gap, and your passion is there, and I just saw a real calling. I had a calling. Like, I was like, I've got to teach people how to teach yoga with this from this place of knowledge. And you don't have to be a physical therapist, but when something really well you're able to distill it into parts that people understand. And so I knew that I had a gift for doing that. And so I just started a teacher training, and then I was like, well, I gotta start a studio because I'm gonna have all these teachers and it's just kind of snowballed from there. And that was a little over that was about almost ten years ago that I started the whole ball rolling, creating a method, because the way I teach yoga is its own method based on a physical therapy background.

So, like probably other CEOs, started learning stuff, not having a business background. Being like, oh, I gotta have a business plan. I gotta have this. I gotta have this. You know? Like, I'm taking money. I knew that what I was giving was a quality product, but there was a lot more organization needed for that growth. So I just started reading, you know, everything I could about marketing, learn to talk to people. And yeah. And then it just kept going and I kept growing. I had to move to a bigger studio then I saw that people who weren't in my area, I'm in Princeton, New Jersey, wanted to learn this style but couldn't take three weeks out of their life and come and study. So I created an online teacher training and I also created online classes. And now we have a class we have people that are taking classes in almost seventy countries around the world. And so, yeah, it really started with this just compulsion to want to spread good movement knowledge, not necessarily wanting to be a business person, but I've really enjoyed it.

[00:05:11.50] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Yeah. I definitely appreciate that. And I always felt like true entrepreneurship is kinda seeing a gap and seeing an opportunity and rather than, sometimes being forced to to kinda create that opportunity even though we don't do that. But I love the fact that you kinda talked about the process to get there because I think so many times people don't hear or see the twenty-five years. They don't see the ten years of process. They don't see, you know, that passion, obviously, that you have, but also the expertise and hour and time that you put in in terms of creating this methodology that helps that's helping out so many people.

[00:05:45.89] – Lara Heimann

Yeah. And I think the other thing is that you know, I'm in a position where I'm really successful now, but it's not measured to me. Of course, financially, it's great, but it's measured to me that I have successfully been able to get this message to, you know, many people and that they have then felt empowered by it and that many people like, it's like, you know, pass it on type thing. And like you said, no you know, yes I'm successful now but if you add up all of the many hours that have been over twenty-five years it was like less than minimum wage right? I mean it's like that's what people don't they're gonna have to put a lot of those, at sweat hours, sweat equity in before, and you have to look for the gap because you gotta do something different and that is and I saw the need because so many people said to me like I can't go to anybody else when you go on vacation because I feel like I'm gonna get injured.

And I'm like, that well, that's messed up. You know what I mean? Like, so it was just enough people saying that this was a need. And it's, you know, everybody has a body. So I also tell people who are getting into it now, and it's a much more I don't wanna say saturated market because I think that's a negative term, but it's also, like, if you just look at it for what it is, there's a lot of people in it. And I just say, like, everybody's got a body. You've got, you know, almost, you know, seven billion people. There's a lot to spread so don't let that, stop you. Just again find what people need and go to that.

[00:07:21.39] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And again being able to kind of sharpen the saw so to speak as a saying seven happens to highly effective people allows you that opportunity to really, not just see the gap, but fulfill that gap and do it uniquely and especially as well. So I know you touched a little bit on, you know, how you serve the clients that you work with. Are there any additional things that you kinda do, your team do to kinda serve those clients? And what do you feel is kind of what I call your secret sauce or the thing you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:07:51.30] – Lara Heimann

Well, we're really, really into community building, which is, I think, anybody that's successful I mean, I'm sure there are, like, CEOs who are small businesses and they don't need community, but I can't imagine. You don't need some kind of community. And in something like what I'm doing, which is a very individual product lesson that is given to a larger community. And so the individuals could feel more lost in it if it wasn't felt like we're we're always bringing you in the fray. We are here for you. So our customer service, it's like a white glove. You've gotta be there for people. We're always trying to refine that. We're doing, lots of work in our teacher training and in our online, platform to be as inclusive as much as possible.

Yoga has been known over the years, especially in Western yoga, to be really a lot of white women. And so we are really proactively expanding that. We've offered scholarships, for the BIPOC individuals for our teacher training because we want everyone to come in and we want to make the action steps to do that. So community building is huge. Everybody needs community. And you can do it online. That's what's kind of funny. I would have been the biggest doubter of that fifteen years ago because I was like, what is the elasticity, you know, all the techno-technological stuff? But you can do it if you're there for people.

So I think my secret sauce is people think I am doing so many things. I have so much energy, and I'm reaching out to people, but all I do I get energy by connecting. So it's really a self-fulfilling cycle. Like, if you look at it as an exhausting thing, then it will be. But for me, it's like communicating with with my, you know, I call it my family, my network of people is what brings me joy. But it's the secret sauce because then people want it. They're they're like, they are seen. That's what people want. They wanna be seen. And so I think that that's a big part of probably any successful business person is is figure out what it is your clients need. And I just intuitively knew that and and and it but it also fuels me.

[00:10:11.60] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's extremely powerful. It's so funny you said that because I was gonna switch gears and I want to ask you for one of those tools. I call it a CEO hack. So what might be an app, book, or habit that you have, something that makes you more effective and efficient and adds to your toolbox?

[00:10:27.39] – Lara Heimann

Well, for me, my habit of taking care of myself as, like, a nonnegotiable is, you know, it's completely the reason I'm here and doing I, just taking good care of myself, my body, what I put in my body, how I feel myself, my energy. It's everything because so much of what I do is based on my creativity, which is based on, like, really clear headspace and having, like, like, fully engaged. And if I didn't take care of myself, which is it's weird if somebody's in a kind of body movement, but a lot of people can let it slide, and that is just a nonnegotiable no matter what. And then when you say habits, like, no matter how I feel, I will move because it's so I'm so hardwired that feedback loop is there. I know if I start moving a little bit, I will at least feel better. And so that is that's, like, every single day, I'm doing something. It doesn't have to be super hardcore, but it's some kind of movement and eating well and all of that so that I'm I have a lot of energy.

[00:11:35.60] – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something if you were to hop into a time machine, you would tell your younger business self.

[00:11:45.70] – Lara Heimann

I am a people pleaser. So I would say to myself early on, and some of this is age, but I do think, like, if somebody had said to me, like, you're not gonna be not everybody's gonna like you and be okay with that. You know? Like, I think that some decisions I've made or hiring people and things have been I've been so, like, in my heart about it, and it wasn't always, like, the best choice. And I just was like, oh, I, you know, my best friend says it's my kryptonite, but I see the good in everybody. And she's like let me tell you that person's not like she's kind of like the voice like why did you hire that person you know. So I'm grateful I've had her because she has been that kind of inside of me. But I would say that a nugget would be, I think you're leading something, you're growing something, not everybody's gonna love it, not everybody's gonna love you. And if you're somebody like me that has, you know, just con conditionally wanted to be, like nice to everybody and have everybody like receive me well, that would have been a hard nugget to swallow but really important one. Like it's okay.

[00:13:00.29] – Gresham Harkless

Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show so, Mara, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:13:09.60] – Lara Heimann

I just think we're I'm a leader, a pioneer, and it's like it's like a part of the car, you know, that is really important. Like, can't drive the car like, the car can't work on its own. So it's it's the brain of the organization, but you've got all the other parts too. And the brain is, you know when I talk about movement, I'm like, we're we create movement in our brain first before it's put into our body. So I think the CEO is the brain. I'm the brain. I'm the vision, and without it, it would just be a bunch of parts that could move but the brain is gonna actually take it all to the different stages.

[00:13:51.89] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Laura, I truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and your team to find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

[00:14:08.29] – Lara Heimann

Well, thanks. I would say first, just look up, my LIT Yoga, LYT, which stands for Lara's Yoga Technique, but fortunately also is a great acronym for feeling really lit up, which is I think what we're all after in life. You know, nobody likes to feel dim and dull and fatigued and low. And especially now in this pandemic, we need so many things to help us feel recharged and charged up. And so, I know because the research supports it and this is the way we're made is that movement is medicine and movement will help you feel better. But movement, not all movement is equal. So learning from somebody like me who's a physical therapist and based on these principles of how we have evolved to move is really important and you can find all that out on the Lit Yoga and the Lit Daily, which is an online platform.

You have over three hundred sixty-five classes that are organized in all different ways, you know, based on body parts, based on beginner, based on, if you want, high intensity. And there's a two-week trial so you can try it out and see. Like, even if you've never been exposed to yoga, I've had so many I work with professional athletes around the world who are not into yoga, but they love this because it's a kind of different type of yoga. Because yoga is really about raising consciousness and that's like being awake, being lit up. So that's what it's all about. So you can find me there. You can find me on Instagram. I do a lot of, little sequences and drills there and and nuggets of movement wisdom and other stuff too. I'm also a chef, a natural food chef, so I talk about that a little bit. And my Instagram is lara.heimann.

[00:15:48.20] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that, and I appreciate you, for for sharing all that with us. We will have the links and information in the show notes as well so that everybody can follow up with you. But I appreciate that, last kind of, nugget, so to speak, where understanding how important movement is and what it can do to kind of create that environment, create that, higher consciousness as well too is so important to be able to kinda be aware of that, but also obviously take the actions and do it safely and knowledgeably as you're able to do as well too is definitely so important. So I appreciate that, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

[00:16:22.29] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by Blue 16 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 iTunes, Google Play, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. Grab CEO gear a www.CEOgear.co This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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