How I Turned a Workshop Flop into a Game-Changing Program

Have you ever launched a project that didn’t go as planned? In this episode, I get honest about how my Plan a Month in an Hour workshop fell short—and how it inspired me to create something even better. I share what went wrong, the lessons I learned, and how listening to feedback led to my new mentorship program: Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing.

You’ll hear:

• Why clear communication is key for workshops and classes

• How to shift from “winging it” to confident lesson planning

• How I learned that you want done-for-you resources (I should have known, so do I!)

• The exciting details of my new six-month mentorship program

Affirmation for this episode:

“There’s no failure, just feedback.”

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Chapters

• 2:18 Plan a Month in an Hour: The Initial Vision
• 3:46 The Workshop Execution and Challenges
• 4:48 Realizing the Mistake
• 8:18 Creating a New Program
• 13:29 Lessons Learned and Final Thoughts
• 14:12 Affirmation: No Failure, Just Feedback

Transcript

0:00

Can I tell you something? I messed up big time with a recent project. It wound up confusing and disappointing.

The very people I value most: 0:07

my ideal clients, yoga teachers who care about their students. But it also taught me some especially valuable lessons. Here's how I screwed up, why it happened and what it means for you. I'm Sage Rountree. And this is Yoga Teacher Confidential. As you may know, I have written several books for yoga teachers. The most recent, at least until Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses, volume two, comes out in March 2025, is The Art of Yoga Sequencing. It's my brain on paper. It shares the sequencing framework. I use to create balanced classes that take students through the three planes of motion and leave them feeling well-nourished with movement in class. I know what it's like to sit at your desk late at night, staring at a blank notebook or screen, wondering how to make your class feel fresh for your students. As you write your lesson plan. It can be frustrating. It can be overwhelming and it makes teaching feel harder than it needs to be. The Art of Yoga Sequencing is here to help you plan your classes easily by thinking of your class in chunks. Then by making small tweaks to these chunks, as you present them week to week. I wrote the book because yoga teachers tell me they either spend way too long thinking about what to teach in class. What I likened in episode 16, to growing your cotton then spinning your thread, to weaving into fabric and cutting it into pieces to sow into a garment. It's so much work to think at this level. That's why I created a resource to save time and reduce planning, stress, helping you focus on what truly matters, connecting with your students. On the other hand, some yoga teachers tell me that they wing it exclusively. They show up and go on vibes only, which you know intuitively isn't really serving your students. As we covered in episode seven of this season of the show, consistency is key for your students' growth and for your class retention and thus for your bottom line as a yoga teacher. So, given what I lay out in The Art of Yoga Sequencing, a series of recipes that you can prepare for your class and season in ways that will serve your students best. I planned a workshop. My vision was to offer this workshop live online with some pre-work and I just knew it would go so well that I was going to do it monthly. It was called a plan a month in an hour. The idea was to Colgate your recipes, your sequences for the various portions of the class, then come to our live hour for a little direction, a lot of coworking and a Q and A to debrief about how it went and any outstanding issues I could help with. This workshop was designed to save teachers time and to reduce the stress of lesson planning. By providing a structured, supportive environment to give accountability and build teachers' confidence and efficiency. Now I sold the first workshop at a great price. I had plenty of signups. I designed a lovely email sequence, pointing the registrants to a private video, showing them how to prepare for the workshop. Uh, pointing them to the book if they needed recipe inspiration. And I put a lot of thought into how exactly I would run this workshop on Zoom. I landed on using my computer as the main host and logging in on my iPad as well. So I could go into a breakout room for chats while participants worked in the main room. In the breakout room, people could come and ask me questions without the sound of our discussion, affecting the folks who were co-working in the main room. I was so excited and nervous, but remember: nerves mean you care! I care a lot. The day came. I set up my ring light. I logged in and welcomed everyone. I gave an overview of the sequencing framework. I told folks to get cracking on their lesson plans. And I sauntered virtually into the breakout room. While I was in there. I did notice someone was talking in the main room, but I figured it was a mute button issue. Very common on Zoom. And I focused on the folks who came into the breakout room to ask me direct questions. People came into the breakout room and said, I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to be doing. I asked, did you get the emails with the pre-work? Yes, they said I talked them through it and they began planning. By the end of the session. I thought that went pretty well. Boy, was I wrong, y'all. Now the yoga Sutra is tell us avidya, wrong seeing is the root cause of suffering. It's like the ur-klesha or the über-klesha, all the other kleshas relate back to not seeing things as they are. And that's where I got in trouble. Because there was some literal non seeing in the Zoom room. People didn't know that they had pre-work to do in order for the live hour to make sense. And that's because the careful email sequence I designed, I had automated and I had loaded? It landed in their junk folder. Their spam filter hid it from them and they didn't see it. This took me a while to suss out because about a third or even about half of the participants had seen the pre-work. So they had more context for what was going on in the workshop. And as a consequence, they spoke up. It's thanks to one of the participants who wrote me the next day to express her frustration that I realized what had happened. She rightfully felt peeved that she had taken time off work to attend the workshop, but had no idea what was going on. To her, it felt like there was no there there. Because she was missing a critical piece of information, what to bring to the workshop. Once I realized the scope of my error, I wrote all the participants and I invited them to a redo for free. I was really eager to make it right for everyone. I believed, I still do believe, in the concept. I love co-working and focused sessions. And I think what the right level of context and preparation, you can easily plan a month in an hour. For the redo. I abandoned the email sequence that hadn't broken through to people and sent everyone emails directly so they could prepare. I dropped to the idea of the breakout room and decided I would just stay in the main space. Almost everyone had followed me into the breakout room in the first session, just to ask questions or to hear other people's questions answered anyway. So I was going to keep it simple. I was so excited to get my do over and to make it right. The first Tuesday of the next month I set up my ring light. I logged in and I waited for participants to arrive. And I waited. And I waited about five minutes in. I started to worry that my tech was failing. Had I given folks the wrong link for the do-over Zoom meeting. About 10 minutes in. I began to accept that I was being stood up. No one was coming and that's when the light bulb went off. I needed to go back to the drawing board and rework my offer. The message I got from people's initial enthusiasm. What led them to sign up for the first session is that they wanted to get lesson plans. They were eager to walk away knowing just what they could teach for the full month plan a month in an hour. Yes, please. They just wanted it done for them. Not done with them and not done by them: done for them. And when they realized the workshop was a done with you experience, setting them up for a done by them future, they didn't come to that do-over session. I get it. And I don't think this is bad. I love to have work done for me. That's why meal kit, subscription services sell so well. They reduce the amount of decisions and legwork that you need to do to get dinner on the table. It can be an efficiency and a blessing to have things done for you. And by seeing how they are done, you can start to learn the deep structures that inform why they are done that way. So that in time you can begin to do them on your own. I realized this is what my audience wants, this is what my audience

needs: 8:22

support that reduces their workload, not adds to it. And that's what I have created. I have made a done for you group program that gives you a whole recipe box full of lesson plans, key to The Art of Yoga Sequencing. When you enroll, you get immediate access to all of them. And then each month there's a featured recipe that I break down for you. It's done for you on steroids. I show you how to iterate this one lesson plan across four weeks so that you can sprinkle the right level of variety on top of the consistency that your students need to grow in their practice and that your brain needs to really know the sequence to teach it notes free. If you like, and to build your confidence. So you can energetically hold this space comfortably for both yourself and your students. One of my beta testers, my cat test kitchen chefs has said they already feel more confident just knowing there's a lesson plan. You get that confidence because it's done for you. Then every month, there's a live call to break down the featured recipe and to help you figure out how best to serve it to your unique student population. And that way I'm doing it with you. On the live call and in the comments on the lesson plan. I support you in deciding exactly how you will prepare and serve the menu. Maybe you're just going to choose some of the ingredients out of it. Maybe you're going to prepare it wholesale. It's totally up to you. And what will help your students best? The program runs six months so that you have plenty of time to see the deep structures and to build your confidence in creating and then iterating your own lesson plans. We will get you to feel uncomfortable planning a month in an hour. But we'll do it slowly so you can digest the concepts. In line with the cooking and recipe analogy. I've named the program after Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It's called Mastering The Art of Yoga Sequencing. As we work through the book together. In fact, the full title is Mastering The Art of Yoga Sequencing, a mentorship membership, or as I call it in my planning notes. M M M or. What I love about this program is it doesn't just draw on The Art of Yoga Sequencing. It also offers you a separate collection of themes, keyed to Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses and its all new second volume coming out in March. I called this theme collection the bar cart, 'cause theming your class is like pairing beverages with food. It's not necessary to have a theme. You could serve water with your meal. But serving the right drink to match the flavor profile of a dish really elevates it. So themes are like the wine pairings or the tea or kombucha pairings that draw out the flavors in the recipes and create a full experience for your students. And because technique matters when you're preparing recipes, we work on technique inside the mentorship membership too. You may know. I wrote a book, honestly, it's my favorite of all my books. Books don't have feelings. So I can say that, called The Professional Yoga Teacher's Handbook. In that book, I walk teachers through every stage of their career. We cover techniques for choosing continuing education techniques for landing a job. Techniques for handling boundaries with students, techniques for teaching with clear queuing. Techniques for leading workshops techniques for handling your finances techniques, we're creating your website. It's heavy on skills and advice. And in the mentorship membership, I give you a full range of exercises to refine your techniques across all levels of your career soup to nuts. Start to finish. You know that yoga is a way to connect to unify body, mind, and spirit. These books and the way we cover them inside the mentorship membership, cover body, mind, and spirit, too the Art of Yoga Sequencing handles the body part. What shapes to suggest in your class? The Professional Yoga Teacher's Handbook speaks to your mind, helping you make smart decisions and present yourself well as a yoga teacher. And the themes and Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses, speak to your heart and spirit. Imagine stepping into your class every week with a plan you're confident in a plan that feels fresh and exciting for you yet consistent and supportive for your students. That's what Mastering The Art of Yoga Sequencing is designed to give you. I am really, really excited about this program. And I am grateful to all my students in plan a month and an hour for leading me toward this vision. I'm currently fleshing everything out with my beta testers, my test kitchen chefs, and the full program will start in March. If you're interested, be sure to sign up for my newsletter to be the first to hear when enrollment opens, there'll be a special bonus for weightless people signing up. Look at sagerountree.com/newsletter or check the show notes. Now let's talk about you. What could you take away from my mistake with plan a month in an hour? It's that you should validate your ideas. Make sure there's actual demand for what you want to offer your students. And listen, listen carefully to your students when they tell you what they want and need from your classes and your workshops. Before you launch any new class or introduce a new workshop, take the time to ask yourself, do my students need this? How will this serve them? And most importantly, how can I make it as easy and enjoyable as possible for them to say yes, Here's an affirmation for all of us. There's no failure, just feedback. There's no failure, just feedback. Speaking of feedback, the feedback we get and the feedback we should ask for as yoga teachers is the topic of a future episode. For now that's the story of my Plan a Month in an Hour misstep and how it turned into something so much more powerful, so much more helpful, so much more a service to you at my students. I'm really grateful for the feedback that helped me create what I know will be a game changer for you. Meanwhile, I hope you'll join the waitlist for the mentorship membership. It also counts as about half of Carolina Yoga Company's 300- hour yoga teacher training. Carolina yoga company is my brick and mortar studio, also known as Carrboro Yoga Company. Carrboro is the small town where I live. So if a 300 / 500 hour yoga teacher training is on your goals list for your yoga career, you'll be invited to continue studying with me and my colleagues. And you can earn your 300 hours certificate, which would qualify. You to register with the yoga lions as R Y T 500. More importantly, the program will help you help your students best. If you sign up for my newsletter at sagerountree.com/newsletter, you'll be in the loop when enrollment opens. Thanks for listening to me describe my Plan a Month debacle. I'm really grateful for your attention for your ears and for your five star ratings and comments. If you have any constructive feedback for me, DM me at @sagerountree or write me at info@sagerountree.com. There is no letter D in my last name. This is Yoga Teacher Confidential, I'm Sage Rountree, and I'll see you next time.