ARE YOU SERVING APPETIZERS?

Karen Kenney: 00:00:00

It's the Karen Kenney show. Hey you guys. Welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm Supa Dupa, excited to be here, and I'm just going to give you a little I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:00:17

giving you a little warning that I'm coming in. I'm coming in with this, maybe a touch, maybe a touch of Masshole, Masshole attitude. All right, I gotta get it

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together. I gotta get it together.

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Okay, so first of all, let me say this, if you're new to the show, welcome. I'm so excited because one of my old friends from California, Joseph, who I call hoggy, um, he

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told me that his sister, melody, just started listening to the show, and it's so crazy to me, like when my friends actually sit down and watch like, you know, this is

Karen Kenney: 00:00:55

also on the YouTubes, and I just think it's such a trip. It literally blows my mind. When my friends were like, I listened to your podcast. I love the episode. I'm like,

Karen Kenney: 00:01:04

you actually listen like you listen you watch it. So look at new people. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Karen Kenney: 00:01:12

Loyal listeners. You know, you know how much I love you, and I love that we get to spend a little time together. So thank you for being here as well.

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Okay, this episode, I have no idea what I'm calling this thing. I will know probably by the time I'm done, but I have a, actually, I kind of have a funny name in mind, but I

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don't know if it'll make sense to anybody until they actually listen. But so I'm going to set up, I'm going to set up this, this story, this situation, and I'm going to tell

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you a little bit about what happened, and then I'm going to tell you how I feel about it, some thoughts about it, and remember everything I say, even if I'm telling a

Karen Kenney: 00:01:48

personal story, there is a universal aspect to the personal right? So everything that I share, I shouldn't say everything, but I am I highly? I highly, am I highly believe

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gotta find my words. I highly believe that with most stories, we can find something that we relate to. And if we're really paying attention and just kind of broaden

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out a little bit, we'll find some things, some little nuggets, that will be applicable and helpful to us.

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But I'm going to just share. I'm sharing for a couple of reasons. I'm going to share this story because, on one level, I just like, there are certain things that I will, like,

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put up with and tolerate. And then there comes a time when I say, Okay, enough is enough. Enough is enough, and we're going to address this. But I'm not just addressing it

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for me. I'm kind of addressing it for solopreneurs and yoga teachers and people who trade hours sometimes for time, hours for time. That's how they make their money.

Karen Kenney: 00:02:53

So just, just stay with me, just Buck Buckle up for safety, because I am kind of letting Vicki with 2k from Lawrence, one of my favorite parts of me. I'm kind of, I'm kind

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of giving her the mic a little bit, because I think it's important.

Karen Kenney: 00:03:13

Okay, let me, let me set the scene. Let me set the scenario. Here's what happened. So I did a post the other day so some of you may know, and if you don't know, right, I have

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been a yoga teacher since like 1999 I got my certification in like 2001, but I fell in love with yoga. I was introduced to yoga when I was, like 19 years old running the

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weight room at Boston University. There's a whole story. I think it might be even in my origin story, or something like that, like episode one. I might even even mention this,

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but I go way back my relationship with yoga.

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So I have been a student of yoga for a wicked long time. I've been a teacher for like, 24 I don't know, almost 25 years. It's been a long time. But anyways, here's my

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point. So yoga and I have a long standing relationship. You know who I don't have a long standing relationship with, this broad who doesn't know me and decided to comment

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on my Facebook post. So this is the story aspect.

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So I did a post the other day. So again, for those of you don't know me, been a yoga teacher for a wicked long time. I had a studio. So in the beginning, for those of

Karen Kenney: 00:04:21

you who don't know what it's like to be a yoga teacher, right? Usually, in the beginning, you first, you know learn how to teach. You are doing your hopefully, fingers

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crossed, you're doing some continuing education. But the way you get better is by teaching, right? By practicing, by teaching, and by being a lifelong learner and being a

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student, right? And all these things go hand in hand, okay?

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But a lot of times when you first start out, you don't like, most people don't just start out and like, boom, open a studio. Most people have to schlep their ass all over

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their state, all over their city, right? So you're teaching at a gym, and then you're teaching at some. Studio, and then you're doing some privates, and you're driving all

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over God's creation, just trying to make a box so you can feed yourself and keep a roof over your head, right? So it's not an easy gig, and yoga teaches, by and large, often

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do not get paid well, right? Probably around 25 bucks, 35 bucks a class, whatever it is, and there's I have so many thoughts about the yoga industry that we don't have time

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for. I'm going to try to stay on point, but I want to make my point. So a lot of people start off there, but then eventually, right? Some some of us are like, I'm done

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schlepping myself all over this place. I'm going to open my own studio. And that's what I did for a few years. I drove around all over the place, and then I was like, yeah,

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no, enough of this, right? For like, two years. I think I did it. So I opened my first studio in 2003 and I had a studio, a brick and mortar space, for like, 10 years.

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And then I stopped, you know, having a studio, I let it go. Lots of reasons why I was kind of transitioning away from that being my full time gig, and I was stepping

Karen Kenney: 00:06:01

into, I'm a certified spiritual mentor, so I was starting to do that and shift my focus, but I still taught a few yoga classes, okay? And then gradually over time, I went down to

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one yoga class a week, and then I stopped teaching weekly classes. I would still teach at my retreats, I would still teach in people's ytts. I would still do workshops,

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you know. So I was still keeping my chops up, and I was still using it, but not weekly. Okay, so at the beginning of 2024, I decided to go back to teaching what like a

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weekly class. Okay, now here's the thing, I love teaching this class. I love my students. I love the people who come. They have been with me for a wicked long time.

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And so that's just the setup Okay, for like, where this comment, like, Why? Why I feel the need to respond to this. It's not so much about this person, because I don't know

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them. It's more about the attitude and the mindset, and that's what I'm pushing back against, and that's what I really want to speak to. Okay, so I do a post, and it's

Karen Kenney: 00:07:09

literally, like, the picture of the space that I teach, and it's a lovely space, and I basically just say, like, here's the class, right? It's running for eight weeks, so

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eight classes from this date to this date, it's 160 so it's 20 bucks a class, and if you want to drop in, it's $25 a class. Okay, there's a bunch of different reasons why

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drop in classes are more expensive than if somebody commits up front. It's just good business. Amongst other things, there's incentive. There's reason it makes sense. No

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other yoga teacher would bat an eye at like, why a drop in class would be more expensive than, say, like, the regular classes. Okay? So some of the comments are like, what my

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friend Tom writes, beam me up, Scotty. He's like, I want to be there, right? My best friend Katie is like, Oh my God. People are so lucky all this stuff. But then there's

Karen Kenney: 00:08:02

this one lady, and this was the comment, are you serving appetizers? $25 drop in? And then the emoji, like with the big eyes. And then, lol, okay, are you serving appetizers?

Karen Kenney: 00:08:19

$25 drop in big eye emoji. Lol. Okay, so I see this now look in A Course in Miracles, there's a line that says, Your ego speaks first and it speaks loudest. Okay, so I am

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really aware that when Vicky with two K's, because what people sometimes don't realize is they think that, oh, you're a spiritual mentor. Oh, like this person or that person,

Karen Kenney: 00:08:47

or this person, or whatever, they're so spiritual or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, yes. And I am also a human being. I am also a human being who is raised in Lawrence in

Karen Kenney: 00:08:56

Boston mass. Let me tell you, my first thought is not, oh, let's just be compassionate. Like, oh, I don't know if this woman had a tough day, right? No, my

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first instinct and reaction is not to be like, wicked nice back. So of course, I read that and like the first thing, the things I hear in my head the first things I hear

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Vicky saying in my head. I'm like, okay, and they make me laugh. And I'm like, not going to say that, not going to share that, right? But I definitely have. So I wait, I wait a

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beat, because remember, the ego speaks first and it speaks loudest, and I often add and it's always wrong or it's always going to get you into trouble. So I'm like, Okay,

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let's just take a beat. And I took a beat, but I do have some responses, and I think I want to share this, because it's going to touch on a bunch of things. You don't have

Karen Kenney: 00:09:52

to be a yoga teacher to relate to the story. I think this is just human behavior these days. I think people. Think that everybody gives a shit about their opinion. Note to

Karen Kenney: 00:10:03

self, people we do not if I am not speaking to you, if you are not my friends, my family, my clients, potential customers, or whatever, you can just keep scrolling. You

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don't have to stop and give me your opinion. You don't have to do it on other people's stuff too. Let me tell you, as a vegan, right? I've been vegan for over 20 years. Do

Karen Kenney: 00:10:27

you know how much commenting I don't do on people's posts when I see them holding up dead fish that they got hooked through the face, and they're dead deers and their

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lobster dinners that I know that poor animal was boiled alive for your taste buds, right? Like, do you know how much I shut the fuck up when I have opinions about everything? Do

Karen Kenney: 00:10:47

you know how many times I just scroll on by people's things and just say, like, hey, right? Hey. I just now look, there are going to be instances where, if I really felt

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like, if somebody was saying something really terrible or hateful or racist or homo, like, I will get involved. I'm that kid. I have that big mouth. I will say like,

Karen Kenney: 00:11:10

hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, right, but so much I just like, zip, zip it Zip. Zip it up. Zip it up. Your your comment is not needed here, right? It's just not needed here. So I just,

Karen Kenney: 00:11:23

like, you know, go, like, okay, like, whatever. So I find it fascinating, fascinating when people feel the need to leave their little smart aleck comments. Now

Karen Kenney: 00:11:35

here's the points that I want to make, and maybe you can take away something from this that you can either start applying, or you're going to recognize some things that

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have, maybe that you've experienced, like, you've been on the receiving end of this too. You might also recognize, like, Oh, I've done this a few times. Like, maybe I

Karen Kenney: 00:11:56

should rethink, like, how I'm approaching things. Number one, though, I got like eight points here to make about this. Number one, I don't know you. Random stranger lady, we

Karen Kenney: 00:12:10

have like couple of friends in common, but I don't know you, right? We're not friends on social media, we're not friends in real life. So I don't even know how you saw my

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post.

Karen Kenney: 00:12:19

Number one, but I don't know you. Number one, number two, more importantly, you don't know me. You don't know me. You don't know my experience as a yoga teacher. You don't

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know my education. You don't know my quote, unquote expertise. Although I I don't consider myself up an expert in anything really. I mean, I might know some things. I

Karen Kenney: 00:12:44

have a lot of years. I have a lot of training, I have a lot of education. But I hesitate to when people are like, Oh, they're teaching a master class. I'm like,

Karen Kenney: 00:12:52

I'm not a master of much of anything except being myself,

Karen Kenney: 00:12:57

being myself. I'm really good at.

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But here's the thing, you don't know me. You don't know who I am. You don't know what my skill set is. You don't know how long I've been teaching you don't you just try to lump

Karen Kenney: 00:13:09

me into some idea that you have of local, New Hampshire yoga teacher or whatever the fuck I don't know, but I'm like, I don't know you.

Karen Kenney: 00:13:18

But more importantly, you don't know me. You might want to go do some homework before you open up your big mouth. You might be like, oh, this person had a TV show, a yoga TV

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show, for 13 years. Oh, my God, this person's been teaching for 25 years, like data. So that's number two.

Karen Kenney: 00:13:36

Number three, you have never been in one of my classes. You don't know if my classes are worth it. You don't know what my classes entail. You are trying and people do this. I

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talked about this like maybe two episodes ago. Remember, stop building cages, and that poem by Hafiz, the small man builds cages for everyone he knows, right? While the

Karen Kenney: 00:14:03

while the sage who has to duck his head when the moon is low, right, spends all night long dropping keys for the beautiful, Rowdy prisoners, right? I'm doing that from my

Karen Kenney: 00:14:14

head, so I think I got it mostly right. So it's like, Don't put me in a box of what you think a yoga teacher, you know, first of all, like, should charge, should be, should

Karen Kenney: 00:14:25

whatever. You've never been to my class. You don't know that in every single one of my classes, at the end of my class, every person gets an arm and, like, head massage.

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You don't know the level of my instruction and how I teach and how I break things down and how I modify and like, like, you know nothing about me, but you thought you knew

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enough that you could go on to a random strangers page. Now, look, there is a low level chance that this person came to one of my classes a gazillion years ago. I don't

Karen Kenney: 00:14:59

recognize. Their name, their face, whatever, so. But I just think it's fascinating that a person will go on and make that kind of comment, and it's not even it was like, it

Karen Kenney: 00:15:12

wasn't like it was super offensive to me. What bothers me about it is the very small minded mindset, which I'm going to get to in a second. Okay. The other thing that bothers

Karen Kenney: 00:15:27

me is that if you see a post like that of somebody who is promoting something that they do, and you don't know them, and you don't have any experience with them, and you

Karen Kenney: 00:15:37

don't know what you're talking about, you might want to just zip it right. And also, when I went to this person's because I was kind of like, oh, do I know them. And when I

Karen Kenney: 00:15:50

went to their profile, their number one thing that gives you know how you can describe yourself. And some people might say, entrepreneur, mom of three, like, God

Karen Kenney: 00:15:59

no. Like, whatever they do. Well, their very first thing is, like, yoga, prayer emoji, prayer hands, prayer hands, yoga, prayer hands, like, it's their first thing. And I

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thought to myself, well, somebody hasn't been paying attention in class, or maybe your teachers haven't been teaching you about what yoga is. And the very first

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premise of yoga right in the Yamas number one is Ahimsa is non violence and thought, word and action, indeed, right? Compassion, non harm. So clearly somebody was not

Karen Kenney: 00:16:31

practicing in that moment. Clearly this person just thought, Oh, whatever. I'm gonna go make a comment. Like, murmur, okay. So, like, again, I'm not trying to personally

Karen Kenney: 00:16:43

attack this person. I'm only going off of what I have to respond to. Again, I want to keep making this clear. What I'm mostly pointing to is this small mentality, which

Karen Kenney: 00:16:55

I'm going to make my point right now, sometimes people feel threatened by other people's bigness or other people's confidence, or other people's ability to

Karen Kenney: 00:17:07

charge more than them, or to whatever that like, like, it's just like, well, it's almost like $25 drop in big eye emojis, almost like somebody with their like, I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:17:18

doing this action where I'm like, jamming My fists into my hips. Like, who do you think you are? Who do you think you are charging $25 for a drop in, right? Like, are you

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going to serve appetizers? Like, because I better be getting more for my money than just a class if you're going to, who do you think you are, right? I'm like, Okay, first

Karen Kenney: 00:17:39

of all, first of all, if you're getting threatened or upset, and I can't, I see other yoga teachers do this to other yoga teachers all the time online, making snide

Karen Kenney: 00:17:55

little comments about their pricing and how they think that. So the people who are complaining they think the other teachers should be charging more appropriately, or

Karen Kenney: 00:18:06

like, Oh my God, how can you charge so much? I'm like, sweetheart, let me tell you something that says way less about my price and has way more to do with how you think.

Karen Kenney: 00:18:17

It's not on me and it's not my problem, because people happily pay me that amount. You know why? Because the people who do think or know that I'm worth it, and those

Karen Kenney: 00:18:29

who don't, they don't have to come to class, they don't have to sign up or pay it, but they're certainly not writing to me, telling me that they're not coming to my classes

Karen Kenney: 00:18:38

because they think $25 Is this too much? Okay? The next thing I want to say is this, yoga is mostly a woman majority field, right? Often, women owned. Women taught

Karen Kenney: 00:18:57

women students. Why would a fellow woman not want another woman to make good money and to earn good money and to get paid. We can't ever get paid what we're quote, unquote

Karen Kenney: 00:19:11

worth, because what we are worth is priceless. Who we are as an extension of the Divine is one of God's kids. There is not a money number that could ever match that who

Karen Kenney: 00:19:20

you are as a human being, and your worth it is priceless. But we live here in the illusion of time and space and capitalism, and we have businesses, and we gotta either

Karen Kenney: 00:19:32

batter or, like, put money, put numbers and symbol like money is just, have you ever thought about how ridiculous money is on some level, it's just pieces of paper. It's

Karen Kenney: 00:19:41

just like coins, right? That we've decided these things have value, but that's that's how it works here. So this is what we get to work with. I have to pick a number and say,

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This is what I charge, right? So who are you? Who are you to go and try to tell another person? Oh, like, oh, oh, I can't believe you charged so much money, right?

Karen Kenney: 00:20:04

Like, I just saw this too, with Sarah Blakely. You guys know who Sarah Blakey is? She? She's a creator of Spanx, and I'm in a program with her husband, Jesse. It'sla and

Karen Kenney: 00:20:16

Sarah just created, right? So Spanx is humongous company that she started with, like, $5,000 a pair of pantyhose with the legs cut off, and a fucking dream. And she

Karen Kenney: 00:20:27

went out there and she, I mean, I'm not a big fan of, like, quote, unquote, hustle culture, the way it gets delivered to us, but man, do I love a person who's not afraid

Karen Kenney: 00:20:36

to work hard and follow their dream and have the guts to go after a thing, right? So she built this empire right of women's, like, clothing, support, articles, whatever. So

Karen Kenney: 00:20:48

she recently just launched a new thing, and they're called sneaks, s, N, E, x, and she basically has created the first, like, comfortable heel, like right, a heel for

Karen Kenney: 00:21:00

women that she took into account. It took her so many years to do this right. People have no idea the amount of travel design, sweat, tears, like everything that she did.

Karen Kenney: 00:21:14

So they're like high heel shoes that look like sneakers, and they're wicked cool. Like, I'm not even a heels person, right at all, but I would buy a pair of those. I was

Karen Kenney: 00:21:24

like, these things are badass. They look good. They everybody who's tried them on say they feel fantastic. But here's my point, they're a high end item. I want to say those

Karen Kenney: 00:21:34

suckers started like either 250 or 350 and then they go up to like 575, and people were bitching and moaning in the comment section on her day, where she's so happy and

Karen Kenney: 00:21:45

announcing this thing. And people like, Oh my God, how about making a shoe that the rest of us can afford? Like, MER mer mer mer mer, right? And I'm like, oh my god, people,

Karen Kenney: 00:21:55

you have no idea.

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I mean, I hope she comes out with a vegan one. I should check that's my biggest thing is, like, I don't wear leather or suede or any of that. I don't think there are any

Karen Kenney: 00:22:06

vegan options, so I'm not going to get a pair, and I don't need high heel shoes, but I would love to try a pair on, just to see what they're like. But I appreciate her hard

Karen Kenney: 00:22:13

work, her innovation, her creativity, the way that she treats her, her employees and her, her team members. Like, so well, like, I'm like, You guys have no idea the level of

Karen Kenney: 00:22:23

generosity that this woman shows, what she has put into this, but people want to do their little snarky comments. People want to do their poor me. I can't rip her. You know

Karen Kenney: 00:22:34

what I'm saying. And look, I get it, but not all. Like, I'm probably never gonna have a Mercedes Benz in this lifetime. I don't want one, but what if I did? Right? There's just

Karen Kenney: 00:22:44

certain things that cost more money than others, and sometimes you get what you pay for, not always, not always. Because, trust me, I've invested in some things with some

Karen Kenney: 00:22:55

people. And I was like, That is not that is not a good ROI return right on my investment. But anyways, here's my point. Why wouldn't we want to support other women

Karen Kenney: 00:23:06

who are trying to, who are trying to, like, like create stuff and like do stuff, especially in yoga, where the teachers are notoriously often paid so terribly and low,

Karen Kenney: 00:23:17

right? And so it kind of brings me to to to my next point, which is this, as long as I've been teaching, I want to say that I have almost always been in my area, one of

Karen Kenney: 00:23:34

the most. I don't want to use the word expensive, but like, I have charged probably the most for my classes. When I had a studio, when I first started out, I did what

Karen Kenney: 00:23:45

everybody else did. I took a look around, I looked at what other people were charging. And I was trying to, like, look at the market and say, like, Okay, well, this is

Karen Kenney: 00:23:55

what people are used to paying so and then eventually I was like, screw this. Like, No, I know what I'm bringing to the table. I know that how much that I study and go to

Karen Kenney: 00:24:06

classes and keep my education up and apply and make mistakes and learn and try to do it like all this stuff. And I was like, No, I've played. I've put in 1000s and 1000s and

Karen Kenney: 00:24:17

1000s and 1000s of hours of learning that. I mean over 10,000 hours of teaching, right? I mean all the money I've paid for classes and trainings and workshops and retreats that

Karen Kenney: 00:24:30

I've been to or, you know, like all of it. So here's my point, the cost of living has gone up, hasn't it? Hasn't the cost of living gone up since 1999 why? And I'm just

Karen Kenney: 00:24:44

going to say it straight so if there's little ears around you, might want to block them for a second. But why the fuck do people expect yoga teachers to keep keeping

Karen Kenney: 00:24:55

their classes the same rate of pay that we have been for the last? 1520, 1020, what? Why? Why do people think that yoga teachers, for whatever reason, shouldn't raise their

Karen Kenney: 00:25:07

prices? I find this mentality like fascinating. Now I could try to project and say, Okay, it's probably this because it's a group class. Oh, it's this or blah blah blah

Karen Kenney: 00:25:20

blah, blah. I just don't think it's fair. I don't think it's good business, right? And people lose their shit over like, a $2 change. I'm like, I don't know what to tell

Karen Kenney: 00:25:33

you, but most people I know that go to a yoga studio, or have a favorite teacher, or have a favorite place where they practice. They say things like, Oh my God, I don't

Karen Kenney: 00:25:45

know what I would do without this class. This class has saved me. This class has helped me. This class is better than therapy. This class helps me to be a better

Karen Kenney: 00:25:53

mom. Because I come here and I, you know, I get to breathe and move and like the physical, the mental, the emotional, the spiritual, I go back home a better person.

Karen Kenney: 00:26:02

Oh, my God, my body feels so much better. My back that hurt me for like, 15 years, and I'm thinking to myself, This isn't worth 20 bucks. This isn't worth 25 bucks. Now here's

Karen Kenney: 00:26:16

the problem. Maybe you've just been going to a shitty yoga teacher and a shitty yoga studio. So you can't do the math on why it's worth it, but if you'll go and spend 25

Karen Kenney: 00:26:27

bucks on wine and fries and burgers and like whatever, but you think yoga teachers are charging too much, you need to check. You need to it's a priorities thing, man. It's a

Karen Kenney: 00:26:40

priorities thing. So I, I've been, I have thought about this for so long, right? And I talk about it with other yoga teachers and yoga studios and stuff that I own, and I get

Karen Kenney: 00:26:53

it. You know, there's this mentality that people who are spirituality adjacent, or spiritual teachers. I mean yoga after all, whether people like to keep it secular,

Karen Kenney: 00:27:06

because it's just like Big Booty yoga like trying to get my I'm trying to get that yoga button, I'm trying to get my workout in. And so it's all about the playlist and all that,

Karen Kenney: 00:27:15

right? Whatever. But yoga at its essence, yoga at its core, it is not a secular so much. It's not a religious practice. But look, it is a spiritual I'll even give you

Karen Kenney: 00:27:29

some wiggle room, but I'll say it's a spiritual leaning practice, right? You are on the field of spirituality when you are a yoga teacher and you are practicing and

Karen Kenney: 00:27:39

teaching yoga. Now, for some reason, people think that people in the field of helping, healing, serving, like spirituality, should do things for cheap. And one of the things I

Karen Kenney: 00:27:54

have always said is I said, nowhere is it written that God wants me to be broke, that I have to be like, like, you know, not being able to pay my bills in order to do my

Karen Kenney: 00:28:07

business. I don't think that's how it works. I don't have to be Mother Teresa who takes a vow of poverty in order to do what, like this service, right to to offer and exchange

Karen Kenney: 00:28:19

time. And that's the other thing. People get it twisted. They're looking at it like from their point of view, which is, I come to class for 60 minutes or 75 minutes or 90

Karen Kenney: 00:28:32

minutes, but that teacher didn't just spend 75 minutes right on that class. There's driving to the studio. There's getting to the studio early, they're staying late.

Karen Kenney: 00:28:44

They're sweeping the floors. There's and if you own the studio, oh, my God, it even goes bigger than that. So you think we're getting paid like, $25 an hour, or 20 whatever the

Karen Kenney: 00:28:58

thing is, and you're doing, like, oh, but all these people are here, like, you're making all this money. It's like, yeah, you know what? We pay rent, we pay overhead, we

Karen Kenney: 00:29:08

pay for yoga insurance, we pay for our websites, we pay for our business cards, we pay for, like, all this stuff that you're not at. Canva, so we can make flyers. So I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:29:20

just trying to, like, step back and broaden the view, but mostly the hot beat of this episode is this, if you don't know what you're talking about, why don't you just

Karen Kenney: 00:29:31

shut the up. Look at my little mug right here. I don't even drink coffee, but my friends give me really funny mugs, right? But look at this one. This is a four finger

Karen Kenney: 00:29:43

mug, so it's even better. It says, try my new recipe. They're called is, they're called shut the up cakes, right? It's like, seriously, people. I just think the internet

Karen Kenney: 00:29:57

has come become like a little bit of a wild west, where. People just think, well, I can just go mosey on over to somebody else's land and just say something. I can just show

Karen Kenney: 00:30:08

up and just say something. I'm like, This is not a town hall meeting. You were not invited to my page. You were not invited to share your opinion. That's not how this

Karen Kenney: 00:30:17

works. I know there's a comment section, but you don't know me, and most people don't know what the they're talking about. And here's the thing, what I'm trying to get at

Karen Kenney: 00:30:32

is this. Here's the takeaway for our own practice, myself included. Myself included everything I say on this show, I always say it's for my ears first. It's for my ears to

Karen Kenney: 00:30:46

the next time you are tempted to make a little sarcastic comment, to quote, unquote, be a dick, under the guise of I was just joking. I was just trying to be funny. Why

Karen Kenney: 00:31:01

don't you just slow down, take a deep breath and ask yourself, Why am I really about to post this? What's coming up in me, what's getting triggered in me that I feel the need

Karen Kenney: 00:31:17

to leave this? You know, it's like, it's like going over and like pissing on somebody's front lawn right or, like, going over and I'm just going to drop this, I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:31:24

just going to drop this piece of crap right here, and then I'm going to slink off into the shadows. It's like, really, like, if you had a sincere question, I am happy. I would

Karen Kenney: 00:31:35

have explained all this in a very calm manner.

Karen Kenney: 00:31:39

And actually, I was excited, like, at first, like, and it was funny because I said, Sweetie, check out this comment. And then I told my best friend, oh, my god, their

Karen Kenney: 00:31:49

responses were so great. But here's the thing, if you have a sincere question, I would be happy to explain all of this to you, but to just come over to a stranger's

Karen Kenney: 00:32:00

page and say something snacky, and then, like, run off. Like, nah, that's not that interesting to me. And one of the things I said is, at first I was like, wow, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:32:09

Vicky. Was like, Vicky had Vicky had some things to say. People. Vicky with 2k from Lawrence, had some things to say. But then I literally just stopped, and I started

Karen Kenney: 00:32:19

laughing. And I was like, Oh my God, thank you so much, random lady, because you just gave me great podcast. I'm like, you just gave me a podcast episode. Because that's

Karen Kenney: 00:32:28

the thing you gotta know about us storytellers and US writers. It is all it is all material for us. Everything that kind of happens. I'm like, I am going to draw from

Karen Kenney: 00:32:41

and I'm going to use in my own creativity. So I'm actually would like to take a moment to say thank you to the random condom comment, not condom. Oh, my God, the random

Karen Kenney: 00:32:57

comment, lady, because you gave me you gave me good material for my podcast. So you guys, again, I did this using yoga as an example. But how many of the times have you

Karen Kenney: 00:33:13

kind of been the person with your hands on your hips doing like Well, who do you think you are when you don't know the whole story, you don't have the bigger picture. You don't

Karen Kenney: 00:33:23

know this person's reality. You don't know their background. So before we go casting stones at everybody, why don't we just slow down and take a breath and get curious about

Karen Kenney: 00:33:35

why we feel the need to, you know, inflict ourselves. And that's one of the things that I say as a spiritual mentor. Why, like when I talk to people in the nest, you know, my

Karen Kenney: 00:33:44

group, spiritual mentoring program, one of the things that I say, why a daily DSP, right? A daily spiritual practice is so important? Because when you take time in the

Karen Kenney: 00:33:56

morning to spend time with yourself, with spirit, right? Yourself your source with spirit, when you start to kind of get your mind right, and get your mind in online with

Karen Kenney: 00:34:07

love instead of fear, when you spend some time with the God of your own understanding. In the morning, when you start to, kind of like, be more present, right? That's what

Karen Kenney: 00:34:15

I'm doing this whole month, this whole month of September, and the good, beautiful and holy challenge I've invited get a bunch of people in there. We're having so much fun.

Karen Kenney: 00:34:24

But this challenge has been amazing because it's helping people to start their days looking for the good, the beautiful and the holy. It's totally training their minds. And

Karen Kenney: 00:34:33

if we don't learn how to train our minds, this is what happens a DSP could be the difference between you waking up and then going out into the world in an inspired way,

Karen Kenney: 00:34:45

versus you going out into the world and inflicting yourself on other people. And the internet is famous. It is notorious for people just using it as a way to inflict.

Karen Kenney: 00:35:00

Licked their own sadness, hatred, anger, like whatever, just kind of like projectile vomiting all their shit right onto others without slowing down and saying, Why do I

Karen Kenney: 00:35:15

feel the need to share my opinion on this? What? Again, what is coming up in within me that is making me uncomfortable, because my $25 price wasn't the problem. It's whatever

Karen Kenney: 00:35:29

that person's response was to that price and the story they wrote about it, the meaning they assigned to it, and whatever sense of lack of abundance that they had within

Karen Kenney: 00:35:40

themselves. So I I'm happy to have been a possible mirror for somebody, but apparently they kind of missed the point. Right again, yoga, prayer hands, we might want to right

Karen Kenney: 00:35:54

if we're going to call ourselves yogis, if we're going to say that we practice yoga, we gotta go beyond the asanas, people. We gotta go beyond the postures. If you're gonna say

Karen Kenney: 00:36:03

that you practice yoga, go pick up some books on the Deepa, meaning, read the sutras. Find out about the yamas and the Yamas, because that's the practice. I always

Karen Kenney: 00:36:14

say, Do you know how many flexible assholes I know?

Karen Kenney: 00:36:22

This? Just because you do the poses doesn't mean you're doing yoga. All right, that's what I'm gonna I'm gonna take Vicky. I'm gonna boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, we're

Karen Kenney: 00:36:32

gonna back her up. We're gonna put her back in her place. Okay? Thank you so much. Thank you so much for letting me share. And if anything that I said, like, if you're, if

Karen Kenney: 00:36:43

you're a fellow business owner, and you know what I'm talking about, and like, look, I mean, come on. I mean people, people are always going to have their opinions on what

Karen Kenney: 00:36:52

they think other people should charge. And that's like, fine, but like, you've never again, if you, if you have an experience, right? Maybe come to a class, have the

Karen Kenney: 00:36:59

experience, then afterwards you can say whether or not you think it's worth that amount, but in the meantime, like, just keep it Hey, hey, right? Something that I often

Karen Kenney: 00:37:08

say when I when I see something or read something, or even sometimes when my dogs, if I'm trying to do something, and my dogs are like, going ballistic, I'll very calmly,

Karen Kenney: 00:37:19

just look over them and I go, hey, hey, I have an idea. Why don't you shut the up, right? And I think this in my head sometimes about humans too. I'm I try to look, look, I

Karen Kenney: 00:37:33

love everybody. I try to love everybody, but I don't always like people's behaviors, right? So all feelings, all emotions, are welcome, but not all behaviors. And so

Karen Kenney: 00:37:42

coming on over to my page and just dumping something like that that's not really, I don't, I don't sign off on a seal of approval with that, right? So thank you for

Karen Kenney: 00:37:51

listening. I hope this has been helpful, at the very least, I hope it's been entertaining. I always think I want my I want my podcast to to educate, or to either

Karen Kenney: 00:38:02

educate, enlighten, entertain, like something right? To evoke emotion, to evoke a response, to feel like it has been helpful in some way, and sometimes it's just fun to

Karen Kenney: 00:38:14

kind of riff off of human behavior, man, because that's what I'm in the business of. Right is helping people to see how we have all these stories and how they affect, like

Karen Kenney: 00:38:24

how we show up in the world, and how we are responding to what's going on in our world. And I can't control what other people do. All I can control is how I respond to it.

Karen Kenney: 00:38:35

And this felt like the way that I wanted to respond number one, but also that I feel like, if maybe, maybe I have a sense that there's somebody out there that needed to

Karen Kenney: 00:38:46

hear this, so I'm trusting S T, o, t, J, spiritual team on the job. I'm trusting that. And if it's you, if you're the person who hears this and was like, oh my god, I

Karen Kenney: 00:38:56

needed to hear this, please do write me. Please send me a message. You can always reach me on my website. Just go to my contact page right? It's Karen. Karen

Karen Kenney: 00:39:07

Kenney, k, e n, n, e, y.com, if you're somebody who is interested in getting on my email list so that you find out my shenanigans and what I'm up to, and what

Karen Kenney: 00:39:17

events or things that I'm doing, or you just want to get this podcast delivered right into your inbox every Thursday morning, you can just go to Karen kenney.com/sign up one

Karen Kenney: 00:39:29

word, and then if you want to join the nest, you always hear me, right? I talk about my spiritual mentoring group program called the nest. It's an ongoing program you can join

Karen Kenney: 00:39:39

at any time. It's 50 bucks a month. I always say just come give it a try. And if it's for you, you will love it and you will stay. And if it's not for you, you don't have to stay.

Karen Kenney: 00:39:47

You just pay your one month, and then you're free to leave as you want to. I'm not interested in building awkward or codependent or whatever weird things, right?

Karen Kenney: 00:39:56

If you want to be there, you're there. If you don't, you don't have to be i. And then that's just going to Karen kenney.com/nest, N, E, S T, all right, you guys, it has been

Karen Kenney: 00:40:08

a total blast. Uh, wherever you go, wherever you go, may you leave the people, the place, the animals, the environment, and the social media platform better than how you first

Karen Kenney: 00:40:25

found it, wherever you go, may you and your quality of thoughts and your quality of words and your quality of actions, May who you are showing up as and how you are being,

Karen Kenney: 00:40:37

may it be a blessing. Bye. Hey. Thanks so much for listening to the show. I really love spending some time together. Now, if you dig the show or know someone that could

Karen Kenney: 00:40:49

benefit from this episode, please share it with them and help me to spread the good word and the love. And if you want to be in the know about all of my upcoming

Karen Kenney: 00:40:59

shenanigans, head on over to Karen kenney.com/sign up and join my list. It'll be wicked fun to stay in touch. Bye.