We recently connected with Lucas King and have shared our conversation below.

Lucas, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

Interestingly enough my career defining moment came from a personal crisis. I got divorced in 2012 and vowed never to marry again. In 2021 I changed my mind and asked my then girlfriend to marry me. Sadly, the engagement didn’t go as planned. She changed her mind but we chose to stay together and try to make it work. As you might imagine, that was a horrible idea.

After a 90 minute drive home, dealing with some pretty intense emotional agony, I realized my body was so tense I couldn’t even think. I’d been a yoga practitioner and teacher for about 7 years but my life and career took me in a different direction and yoga faded to the background. In this moment, waiting to turn right at a stoplight I remembered a similar crisis, my divorce.

I found yoga originally in the midst of a turbulent divorce and it changed my entire life. Here I was again facing another turbulent time but this time I remembered the tools I’d learned and I returned home. I found a studio and began practicing regularly. I made friends, dove deeply into childhood wounding, and worked desperately to heal them. After some deep work I realized it was time to return to my hometown in Southwest Michigan.

I’d originally planned to continue what I’d been doing in California but I was presented with this opportunity to manage So Flexy. The owners have given me free reign on what to do and we’re now coming up on our one year mark working together. I often take myself back to that offramp, when I need a reminder of how yoga can take your life and completely upend it in all the best ways!

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 started yoga because I was living on a buddy’s couch in the middle of a divorce. A friend asked me to try a yoga class and I said “sure why not.” I fell in love with it and she never came back!

I immediately wanted to be a teacher and spread the good news of yoga. Prior to my yoga experience I was an associate pastor in the Foursquare Church, which is a Pentecostal Christian church. Going through my divorce and subsequent dismissal from the church caused a dramatic shift in my worldview. I wanted to help people experience joy, transformation, and peace but from a non-dogmatic origin. Yoga was my answer. (I am well aware, however, that there are plenty of dogmatic yoga teachers out there, I’ve simply chosen not to be one!)

Our yoga studio exists for one reason, to make life better. I’ve experienced it firsthand, yoga simply makes life better. The beauty of yoga is that we can have 11 people in a room doing the same asanas but having a completely different experience. While the studio slogan is “yoga makes life better” all of our teachers and students interpret it differently. Personally, yoga is my tool for self-awareness, self-study, and transformation. It’s where the noise of life quiets, it’s where I remind myself that I can take a break, it’s where I find my confidence, it’s where I find my strength, and it’s where I connect to something greater. When I teach I try to craft an experience for my students to feel the same.

I want everyone to know you don’t have to be flexible to practice yoga. You can practice in a chair, you can practice in line at target, you can practice in a hot room, or at 75 degrees. I want everyone to know that yoga is more than stretching, it will open you up, physically, emotionally, and spiritually if you let it. And I’m so very proud of all our members, attendees, and teachers. We are building a beautiful, thriving yoga community in a town of less than 10,000 people, and that’s a tall order. We face a variety of questions from “what is yoga” to “can I practice yoga and still be a christian,” and we tackle those with as much ease and grace as we can muster. People are growing, healing, and changing and it’s just beautiful to watch!

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Donald Miller’s business made simple has been the most important business material I’ve consumed of the last several years. He helps you refine your marketing and messaging and really helps you get clear, I think his stuff is a must-read for anyone in the small business space.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The lesson: Resting means you’re lazy

I grew up on a farm where the ethos was work hard, then work harder, and when you’re exhausted and you can’t move anymore, just work one more hour. I definitely think there are seasons for this type of go go go, but they should be short seasons. I think of it like flying an airplane. Take off is violent, it puts a lot of stress on the airframe and uses a lot of fuel, but you have to do that to get off the ground. At some point you throttle back, level off, and reach cruising speed.

Our culture is obsessed with growth. This year needs to be bigger, more money, more members, more, more more. We even shorten savasana (final rest in yoga) so we can do more in a yoga class!

Resting, sleeping, playing is necessary for repairing muscles, for our brains, and our creativity. I’ve had to learn that resting actually makes you wise, not lazy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://pitfitnessranch.com/yoga/
• Instagram: soflexyyoga
• Facebook: So Flexy Yoga