We’ve just returned from our epic professional gathering at Hanuman Festival and are feeling so inspired by the amazing yoga teachers and studio owners in attendance!  From having confidence to building relationships to marketing your yoga teaching services, our panelists dove into the most pressing topics that yoga teachers face today.

We had to share our favorite monkey bites of wisdom from the event:

So much of confidence is actually momentum. – Sara Ivanhoe

Ethics is a commitment to the privilege of being someone that students listen to.  – Gina Caputo

Teach what makes your heart beat.  Teach what makes you excited. Teach what you would like to be taught. – Kathryn Budig

Yoga teachers are vehicles for change. You don’t need to teach for very long to know that you’ve made a difference in someone’s life. Our deepest mission is that more people come back to the mat. – Amy Ippoliti

Students are a reflection of teachers. If teachers are strong and happy, then students are going to be strong and happy.  – Mary Clare Sweet

The other side of courage is faith. -Paige Elenson

(About receiving feedback as a teacher…) If you’ve heard the same thing more than once, even twice, look deeply. Because it’s like cockroaches…where there is one, there are probably a dozen more – Mary Taylor

We hear frequently from yoga teachers that “medicine sucks” or “doctors suck.” We both want to empower patients and prevent disease. Yoga needs medicine and medicine needs yoga. -Taro Smith, Ph.D

We somehow have a vision of what we think a yoga teacher is “supposed” to be…We have insecurities about what we think we must keep hidden, like drinking coffee. We’ve somehow told ourselves “I’ll be a good teacher when…” The opposite of total, unconditional love of self. We have to start with unconditional love. – Sara Ivanhoe

Cultivate the inner witness and your inner compass. Whether you’re tired, feeling fat, feeling like a fraud… when you remember the relationship you have with your students, these things fade.- Gina Caputo

Don’t try to convert haters, because you’re not jackass whisperers.  What you know matters, but who you are matters more. – Chris Roy

Which of these speaks to you? What wisdom do you have to share on being a yoga professional? Add you voice to the conversation in the comments section, below!