We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Megan Huff a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Megan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you recount a time when the advice you provided to a client was really spot on? (Please note this response is for education/entertainment purposes only and shouldn’t be construed as advice for the reader)
Such a good question! My best advice to clients? Well, health and wellness is not just about calories, exercise, diet, and supplements. While it certainly encompasses those things, your environment, relationships, community, work, family, those all contribute to your overall health and wellness as well. As such, one of my favorite exercises that I do for my health and wellness clients is a values brainstorming and determination activity. The client not only defines what “values” means to them but also picks from a large list values ones that really resonate with them, narrowing those down to their top three. They then define what those three values mean to them in their personal life. It’s an activity the whole family can do both individually and as a whole.
Why you might ask? Because when we align our values with our goals, we feel more in-tune and grounded and are more likely to succeed. We can really tap into 0ur why. Why is this so important to me to accomplish this? It is so easy to forget the importance in what we are doing, or we pick goals that aren’t really important to us, but maybe someone else.
I use this exercise with all my clients and we come back to it over and over again. For one client, when we were making goals around the holidays and how they wanted to plan out the hustle and bustle and activities (I love coaching clients around overwhelm and our tendency to overdo it). Valuing quality family time over anything else, she was able to plan out activities, but not overdo it by signing up for every last cookie party or get together. Instead, spending more time intentionally with her kids, husband, and parents – being present and not worrying about getting to the next thing. After the holidays we chatted that it was probably the first time in a long time the holidays were not as chaotic bouncing from one to the next and everyone enjoyed the time together not rushing around.
For another client, it was getting back into a wellness routine that included changing eating habitats and attending group exercise classes. She valued being active in the outdoors and wanted to the best version of herself for her kids. It was a matter of when the going got tough, tapping back into the values time and time again. Reminding herself, this is important to me to attend this class because I want to be able to keep up with my kids.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am a Texas girl, born and raised in Dallas and then Plano. I laugh that I have two “lives” when it comes to my professional career. And now my second career “life” has bloomed into an incredibly multi-faceted space of mindfulness and movement, health coaching, and community and social impact goods I call breathe.flow.grow yoga and wellness.
I started out after college as an environmental consultant – my first career “life.” I am actually a Certified Wildlife Biologist and used to play outside for a living and coordinate between clients and various government environmental agencies. However, about 12 years ago as a means to cope with stress and multiple failed fertility treatments, I learned about and started practicing yoga through an intro to yoga series. I soon became pregnant and practiced pre-natal yoga throughout my pregnancy. After I had my daughter, I left consulting other than some part time work here and there and continued my yoga practice.
Yoga and mindfulness helped me tremendously with my stress and anxiety and so I thought why not learn how to help my daughter and step-son with the same – so I became trained and certified in Children’s Yoga. I never had the intent to teach other kids (just my own), but soon found myself being asked to teach kids (and I still do). And so I began my second career “life.” Teaching children lead to me teaching adults as well and being 200 Hour certified. This was followed by certifications in trauma informed, special needs, and very close to my heart – prenatal yoga. I want to make sure that I am ready for anyone walking in through the yoga studio door, so they have the chance to benefit from yoga – to grow and flourish too! I have been teaching yoga now for seven years.
AND THEN, about six years ago I found aerial yoga. I was obsessed – I love the stretch, the play, and the challenge, and who knew I loved to hang upside down so much! I started going all the time, then learning how to teach, and then of course, I got trained and certified to teach about five years ago. You can now find me in the studio in Plano teaching others aerial yoga three days a week and several times a year teaching others to teach aerial yoga. I love the community we have built within the aerial studio. Aerial can very intimidating for most and so to walk into a space where you feel welcomed and safe is probably one of my biggest goals and accomplishments. To feel like you are part of a community (community is certainly one of my values). Not everyone loves aerial as much as I do, and that’s ok, they know they are still welcome if they ever want to try again!
As part of my yoga and aerial yoga side of work, I not only teach classes and one-on-one sessions, but also do retreats and workshops (kids, teens, and adults), and write articles with regards to the importance of mindfulness and movement for stress relief.
Several years ago, I was cruising along teaching aerial and yoga and my health was just not where I wanted it to be – I was exhausted. I had to fight and research and work to find solutions and doctors and practitioners that would listen and help. I had to listen to myself and what my body was telling me. Over the last couple of years, I have made huge strides, feel much better, but I am still on that journey and always will be. I have learned so much about my body and stress and how it all works together. But one thing that came to me on this journey, and something that came up as people were asking me about my journey, was having a guide – someone who had been there before. So, I looked and I found a health coaching certification to complete to become that guide for other women that I wished I had. I am now a certified Health Coach through mindbodygreen helping women conquer the overwhelm of a busy life and simplify the health and wellness world and all of its advice to find what works for them. We set goals, try to predict where life is going to butt in, adjust, and conquer! Within the past few months, my coaching practice has started narrowing in on women and hormonal health. At 45 I am still learning so much about my body and why some things that may have worked in the past are not working anymore. I’m coaching other women on the same – how to work with your body, not against it. It is so empowering to live “in sync.” To still live life to the fullest, but in alignment with not only our bodies but our goals and values. Reminding ourselves what’s important.
I work with health coaching clients one-on-one, either in-person or online, and periodically lead group sessions/workshops and online coaching challenges. Several times a year, with other wellness professionals, I host a local one day “mini” wellness retreat for women to take a couple hours for themselves, try some of the latest wellness therapies, and meet and discuss with other women and experts on all kinds of topics from hormonal health to longevity. We are excited for the day when these will become weekend and eventually week-long retreats out of town.
Finally, and I really do love it when all my loves come together and bloom into something spectacular, the third facet of my business! At the beginning of 2023, I was invited with other women to Guatemala. It was a combination of filling our souls with the beauty and the people of Guatemala, helping and serving communities, learning of the incredible Mayan women-owned, from the ground up businesses, teaching yoga, and just being in community with women from all over the world. I was so impressed and moved by the Mayan women and their business and what they are doing for their communities (all profits go to social impact projects like preschool, education, house, and business classes), I couldn’t help but import some of these incredible hand woven yoga products like mat bags and turtle shaped meditation cushions (which sell out every time I have them in stock) and handmade beaded earrings (think shoulder brushing fringe here!) here to the United States. Sharing not only the products, but awareness around their missions. I am still in constant contact with all the businesses and can’t wait for what the future holds with new products and collaborations. (And to get back to Guatemala!) Right now I offer these products for sale at markets, but you will soon find them on my Instagram feed.
So that’s it in a nutshell – breathe.flow.grow yoga and wellness – mindfulness, yoga, coaching, community and social impact goods! Become present in your everyday. Move with freedom. Bring your wellness to the forefront. Surround yourself with others who share the same vision of uplifting and empowering one another.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
I truly believe when we collaborate and don’t take a scarcity mindset, it is incredible what we can accomplish! Your network will grow and people will come back to you not only for the service you provide, but for your recommendations and advice. They will send others to you as well. It’s a little bit of business karma if you will. There are more than enough clients to go around. In fact, even your niche demographic is always going to be changing – people will age in and out, lifestyles will change, preferences will change. Some people may like one instructor or studio or style over another, and everyone has a right to change their mind, and to be where they are happy and enjoying themselves. Life and business is not an all or nothing or a zero sum game. But when we, as entrepreneurs and guides/instructors, take this mindset that it is zero sum, we don’t collaborate with others in our field, or honestly believe that there is something for everyone (and let’s be honest, you couldn’t handle ALL the people anyways), you won’t succeed. I have seen this happen time and time again. Studios that were afraid their instructors were going to steal their “knowledge,” afraid to collaborate with other studios, closed within a year or two. They made sure to build a wall and tried to keep it all to themselves. That kind of environment and community can’t sustain itself. On the other hand, I have seen studios that are welcoming, constantly sharing knowledge and clients, and they sustained even through the pandemic, as their community and other studios all worked to keep each other open. I am always happy to collaborate with other health coaches and instructors – maybe someone that comes to me would be better suited with someone else in my network, or maybe they just need a higher ceiling to practice aerial with, either way, I’m happy to make that recommendation to my network to see if it would be a better fit. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but I know that the community around me is doing the same thing and we can all “compete” and still lift each other up.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I would hope that my personality, openness, and authenticity have helped me build my reputation within the market and my community. It has been said that I have never met a stranger and my daughter gets on to me all the time about how much I talk. But I really do want to hear what you have to say. I want people to feel seen and heard. So if it means staying a few minutes after class to ask someone how the class went, then that is what I will do. And we have so much to learn from each other! Attending events, talking to people about what they do, those are some of my favorite ways to network and broaden my knowledge space. We can’t know everything about everything, but we can collaborate with each other to learn more and point folks in the right direction when its outside of our area of expertise. And if you have ever been to my classes, you know that authenticity is key – you will know when I mess up or loose track, or when we are trying something new that I am going to need that feedback on at the end of class. And I will ask the same of my students, speak up if something isn’t feeling right or you aren’t feeling it today. Let’s work with where you are and go from there. And oh yeah, don’t be afraid to ask questions and broaden your horizons and perceptions!
Contact Info:
- Website: breatheflowgrow.com
- Instagram: @breathe.flow.grow
- Facebook: facebook.com/breatheflowgrow
Image Credits
all in studio/warehouse shots (aerial, headshots, meditation, teaching kids) are from Jamie House Photo, pictures of the women at sunset, earrings, and handwoven goods are my own.