We were lucky to catch up with Ashley Sondergaard recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ashley, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

It’s 2020, Covid reared it’s ugly head and we all started at home workouts and sourdough baking. Seeing friends and influencers rocking their at home wellness routines, I felt overwhelmed as a now stay-at-home mom of 2. Everyone seemed to have their self-care practices. I knew that I needed self-care, but I didn’t have the time to experiment with practices. I was STRESSED!

I’d always been a lover of astrology and started to deep dive into my personal astrological birth chart. And then a lightbulb turned on. What if I could use my birth chart to customize a self-care routine? I created a plan for myself and then started working with friends and family to create customized plans for them as well. I knew there was a business idea here! Since I had already established myself as a yoga teacher, the challenge came in pivoting my work to astrology and self-care. There were lots of skeptics for such a niche combination, and I worried the wellness market was too saturated, but I kept going. I updated my website, adjusted my offerings, and studied astrology more seriously.

One of the best decisions I made was to start a podcast sharing lots of difference self-care practices called Yoga Magic. 2.5 years later, the show is regularly in the top podcast charts and has brought me hundreds of clients from around the world. My advice for young professionals is no matter how odd the idea is, if you work hard and believe in your craft, you’ll see results!

Ashley, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a longtime yoga teacher, cosmic self-care coach and host of the podcast Yoga Magic. Self-care can feel overwhelming. As a Cosmic Self-Care Coach, I use the astrological birth chart to build customized self-care routines. A birth chart is a snapshot of the sky the minute you were born. It can tell you who you are on a soul level. Because the birth chart is so unique, you can learn so much about yourself, including where you draw energy, how to self-study and what motivates you. Combining all the details of the birth chart, I give my clients suggestions on self-care and wellness practices that are unique to them.

On my podcast Yoga Magic, I sit down with self-care practitioners and experts to share hundreds of different modalities with my audience. My goal is to provide lots of self-care options so that the Yoga Magic community has lots to choose from, and if listeners want to get personalized, they can work with me to build a customized self-care routine.

I want everyone to benefit from easy self-care practices so that they can take care of themselves and better take care of their loved ones.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Creating a podcast was something I always dreamed of doing. When I started the Yoga Magic podcast, I created it as a passion project, but was pleasantly surprised to find it to be my most effective marketing strategy. The reach of podcasts is vast and by putting out consistent content in the niche that I work in (self-care and self discovery), I’m able to directly connect with my clients and audience. The key to using a podcast as marketing is that you have to be consistent and remember that it’s not about sales, it’s about connection. I rarely talk about my personal work on the show but rather share myself authentically and educate on topics that my audience are interested in. It creates organic connections and new clients!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Being a small business owner and mom of 3 young girls, there are many times that I want to throw in the towel. Resiliency for me is creating achievable goals and sticking to them. For example, I just finished maternity leave with my third daughter. I easily could have paused the podcast, but I knew that would affect my reach. Instead, I pre-recorded episodes, built on a social media strategy I could schedule in advance, and kept the show going while I took some time away. I didn’t miss an episode and have seen the highest downloads to date. Did I get to all my other tasks as a business owner? No, but I set the goal to not miss an episode and I stuck with it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ashleysondergaard.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yogamagicpodcast/

Image Credits
Brenna Lightfoot