We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jake Ferree a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jake, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with something countless entrepreneurs have had to figure out on the fly – how have you dealt with the rise of remote work?
About 80% of my business today is all done remotely. Whether it’s a zoom group session or a one on one session I have found the software today very supportive to make remote work accessible. I also use a software service that hosts videos and programs online to help allow more customers to be able to access the content that I put out.
The learning curve and the set up of a few of the programs at first took up a lot of time and energy but just like with anything else, the more you do it the easier it gets. What used to take me weeks to set up and organize now gets done in days. This is great because it leaves extra time throughout my week to create more and put out more.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
For the past 25 years I have been in the fitness industry. Started out as a fitness trainer in Reno Nevada when I realized how important fitness was to my own mental health. I remember being at one of my lowest moments in my life at 19 years old. I just dropped out of college and felt a huge amount of failure, I remember feeling so down and then I went to the gym and all of a sudden I was in the moment and feeling a sense of strength. It was in that moment that I walked to the fitness manager of the gym and said that I was interested in making this a part of my life and asked him to help lead me in the right direction.
3 months later I was a certified Fitness Trainer working for that gym, a year later I was managing the Fitness department and 2 years after that I opened my first business called Elite Training. At one point we had 7 locations throughout Northern Nevada with over 100 trainers offering up fitness services to the community. 2 years after that I moved to Los Angeles and started my own private training business there.
It was at the age of 25 that I got into yoga. I remember being in a yoga class and being able to do a pose that in previous classes felt impossible. It was in that moment that my mind shifted and my first a ha yoga realization came in that changed my entire life. I realized in that moment that the impossible was possible. Quickly after that I knew that yoga was a path I needed to follow.
I have now been practicing yoga for nearly 20 years and have been teaching it for 15 years. Yoga has been the gift in my life that continually keeps giving. It has allowed me to travel around the world sharing the practice and it has helped me awaken more consciousness into a place of love. Along the path of yoga I also became interested in other healing modalities like breathwork, meditation, thai massage, spiritual coaching and hypnosis. All of those modalities I have been trained in and now introduce them into my business offering up those services with private clients, groups, online classes and programs.
Back in 2015 I was hired by Xbox to create a Yoga program for their new Xbox fitness series. I called this program YO30 and it consisted of a collection of yoga classes that each lasted 30 minutes. When Xbox Fitness discontinued their fitness program a few years later I had a lot of the people that were using their program reach out to me directly asking if I would start up my own Yoga series. So in 2016 I began my own Online Yoga Business called Vinyasa Vault, which was a platform online where members can sign up to have access to previous recorded yoga videos.
Vinyasa Vault grew slowly and it wasn’t until the pandemic that the business really took off. All of a sudden more people needed online yoga and fortunately I already had the program in place. Over the last few years Vinyasa Vault has changed names. It’s now called Feeling Moved and currently hosts over 400 videos not only offering yoga but also meditation, breathwork, fitness and even hypnosis. It’s not only online videos but there’s also live stream classes, programs and courses available too.
Throughout the last 25 years in the fitness and health industry I have been able to expand and within each expansion my business has taken on a new form. I love what I do, I love the continual expansion, I am here for it and look forward to continue the expansion and see where the next 25 years takes us.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
One of the most beneficial things I did for the growth of my business over the years was to start hosting my own “event” classes throughout Los Angeles back in 2011. I remember wondering one day why there wasn’t very many outdoor yoga classes offered up throughout the city. Los Angeles has some of the best weather in the country and there were a lot of really great rooftop spaces throughout the city that could offer up space for people to practice yoga.
The first hotel I partnered with was the Palihouse in West Hollywood. We began hosting rooftop yoga classes and they quickly became a hit. People loved being outdoors and having the views of the Hollywood Hills from the rooftop was a huge bonus. We hosted classes on several rooftops throughout the city and started adding social aspects to it as well as making the classes more of an experience. Some of my favorites throughout the years were Yoga and Brunch, Yoga and Live music and special events like Halloween themed classes and lots of classes that gave back to different charities throughout the year.
Rooftop Yoga traveled throughout the city for over 9 years and stopped since the pandemic. Since then I have moved to San Diego and have aspirations to start something like that here.
Have you ever had to pivot?
There have been several times throughout the years that a pivot has been important to continue the growth of the company. Having the flexibility to quickly maneuver has been a skill that didn’t come some naturally. Over the years though it has become something that happens with more ease. I credit this to experience that comes over time, the continual inner journey, growth and my meditation/spiritual practices
One thing that has really helped has been the realization that I can only control the way that I respond to the situations around me. Once I realized that it took away the pressure of having everything go exactly as planned and allowed me to drop more into a flow and be able to adjust along the way if needed.
Things don’t always go as planned, in fact they rarely do, so once you realize that, learn how to adapt to what’s going on around you and learn how to ride that wave things become less personal, less stressful and become a whole lot more fun. When I drop into that energy of flow things fall into place a whole lot easier and I notice myself more relaxed even in the moments where I quickly have to change a venue at last minute, adjust dates, edit videos, problem solve, update website fiascos and all of the other behind the scene things that tend to present themselves along the way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.feelingmoved.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jakeferree1/
- Twitter: @trainerjake1
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/trainerjake1/featured
Image Credits
@amygpics @sbennettmovementphotography @jdy_photography