We recently connected with Ava Johanna and have shared our conversation below.

Ava, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

As a wellness and mindfulness brand, there was a period of time where we played in the same sandbox as other companies in our space. We adopted the traditional brand colors, aesthetic, and even sounds that you’d associate with breathwork, meditation and yoga experiences and while the response was great, we knew that we were meant to be disrupters and open a new door for more of the world to be drawn into the power of these practices. We’ve broken the rules and the stereotypes of breathwork and meditation, bringing our brand to life from the colors we use to the music fueling our breathwork style and in doing so have created space for people outside of spiritual circles and the wellness industry to feel included in these practices that have the power to change lives.

We are constantly asking ourselves: How do we create space for more people to understand and feel excited about the work that we are doing? How have stereotypes held people back in the past from feeling welcome or included? Through language, color, imagery, and sound, where do we have room to create an even more inclusive and exciting environment for people who may have been intimidated or excluded in the past?

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am the founder of The Academy of Breath, an online education platform for teachers, professionals, entrepreneurs, instructors, and service-based providers to become certified in breathwork and meditation as an expansion of their core offering. My background in these practices and extensive study of the nervous system inspired me to create a global space for people to come to learn about the human psyche, healing, and personal transformation so that they can witness the effects firsthand for themselves and apply it to the work they do with their clients and students. We work with the breath and conscious breathing techniques that support healing, self discovery, and transformation and have built an entire school with thousands of individuals across the world joining to learn the power of their breath. We’ve certified almost over 575 teachers worldwide and are leading the way in the breathwork industry to make it a household practice globally.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I was an early adopter of breathwork years ago and stuck with it even when people didn’t understand or thought it was too “woo woo,” despite being misunderstood I stayed excited and dedicated to teaching and advancing my own personal practice. I taught for years with globally recognized wellness brands like Alo Yoga, MindBodyGreen, Wanderlust, and Bandier and built a reputation as THE breathwork teacher to go to in the Los Angeles and Southern California market. Once the pandemic shut down in person experiences and I launched our online platform, The Academy of Breath, I had built an audience of over 30,000 online and people had been primed for years to associate my name and work with breathwork.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Word of mouth and referrals as well as getting into new communities of other leaders that I have built a relationship with has been the best source of new clients for our company. In a time where there are so many people selling and vying for attention, we tend to go with where we feel we will be best supported AND have seen or heard other’s having stellar results. We pour into our students and clientele so that they have an incredible experience and want to share The Academy of Breath with everyone they know. They naturally talk about the experience while they are going through it so we have constant people coming in to join our waitlist and jump inside of our certification.

Contact Info:

• Website: academyofbreath.org
• Instagram: @academyofbreath and @avajohanna
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theacademyofbreath
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXOdBv9ZrKwWj-sQilUz_7A

Image Credits
Julianna at Mira Mira Studio