Why I Sold My Business And Became The Satisfied Woman
Whether you’ve known me for years, or are only just meeting me, I have a story I want to share with you. One that explains how I got to where I am now, and answers a fundamental question:
How do we walk The Way of the Satisfied Woman?
In October 2023, I sold my business, Alannak.com. After more than 20 years in the yoga industry, creating The Kaivalya Yoga Method, and leading training programs around the globe and online:
I was done.
Was the business I created successful? Sure! By any traditional definition, the business had achieved a level of success that, astonishingly, only 1.9% of female business owners enjoy: It cracked the $1Million/year in earnings mark.
After writing several books on yoga, and traveling more than half the year to lead workshops and teacher trainings around the globe, in 2015, I found myself sick and burnt out. Struggling with an autoimmune thyroid disorder (Hashimoto’s), I had little energy to give to live trainings, and would spend weeks recovering from in-person events.
My solution was to move all my programs online. And, in fact, I was the first to do so. In 2015, I was the very first yoga teacher ever to create and launch an online yoga teacher training program. And, being an 80’s baby (Thank you, Steven Spielberg, for my childhood), I was raised to believe, “If you build it, they will come.”
Wrong.
It turns out that even in the early days of online course creation and the even earlier days of online yoga practice, building it didn’t mean much. It was the marketing efforts that really turned the tide.
So, I swung into entrepreneurial action and built the business and marketing machine that was required to actually put my precious work on the map. I knew that it changed lives (c’mon, that yoga stuff works!) and made an impact, but I needed to get the work out there.
The business I thought would give me the ease and freedom to heal my body and be more flexible with my time suddenly turned into an untamable beast that dominated my waking hours and took my dreams for free. It shifted me so firmly into the masculine polarity that I was “wearing the pants” in every facet of my life...
...and reaching stages of overwhelm and burnout I didn’t even know existed.
I found myself in the middle of an eight-year gauntlet, running at a sprinter’s pace for the full length of the marathon. The business thrived while my health failed and I had to have my thyroid removed. My marriage also failed and I had to have my husband removed, too. Eventually, my whole life became about the business; growing it, marketing it, and doing the things that took me far outside my creative zone of genius, and far outside my comfort zone as a feminine woman.
Then the pandemic hit.
And suddenly, where people were once uber-resistant to learning yoga online, they could now only learn it online and they were desperate for the practice. Since I was still pretty much the only online yoga training in the game, my business skyrocketed.
I saw 1000% growth in the course of the first 6 weeks of the pandemic. And, 1000% growth in my stress and anxiety, too.
I was living in New York City at the time. Best city in the world, but the pandemic turned it into a very scary place. I lived alone, and didn’t have human interaction for more than 3 straight months. Thanks, social distancing.
Look, I don’t want to say that it was all bad. The pandemic pop did allow me to move from New York City to Los Angeles (I needed the sunshine after spending long, cold, grey months alone in NYC).
Most importantly, it shifted my perspective.
Like many people, the pandemic showed me what was really important. I’d always dreamed of having a “successful” business – success as measured by society’s masculine standards. Once I had it:
I realized that it didn’t actually provide me the joy, comfort, and ease that I desired in my life.
I had long fallen out of love with yoga. I had gotten away from the values I infused into my business at the start. I had forgotten what I initially dreamed of:
The freedom to connect, inspire, be creative, and make an impact in the lives of women.
Plus, along the way, I got this very cool Ph.D. in depth psychology and mythological studies and dived into one of my most favorite areas of research: the masculine and feminine polarities.
I desperately wanted to talk more about it to my audience, but because the last business was focused solely on yoga, it was hard to pivot. Impossible, really.
It was time for a change.
It was time to reclaim my authenticity, integrity, creativity, and honor my deep calling for a serious shift in my efforts.
Well, not a shift, really. A refocusing on what truly matters to me.
My whole life has centered around (and been inspired by) the struggles and strength of women.
- My beloved grandmother was a Ukrainian refugee who survived WWII, and emigrated to the USA knowing only two words of English.
- I was raised by a single mother who cleaned houses for extra money and went to garage sales to furnish our first crappy apartment.
- I have been personally challenged by disability, health concerns, financial disasters, and abuse (these stories are for another blog!).
It was time for me to throw my weight behind a movement that really mattered to me:
Alleviating women's struggles and shepherding women toward a life of satisfaction.
The calling to do this was so powerful, that I knew in my soul it was time to cut ties with my old life and start fresh; start the movement.
This is why, in October of 2023, I sold my previous business (The Kaivalya Yoga Method and AlannaK.com) and spent the next year quietly but fervently building the next thing:
The Satisfied Woman.
It starts with the book, The Way of the Satisfied Woman: Reclaiming Feminine Power (New World Library, Nov 2024). This is the basis of the movement. The starting place. The catalyst. Plus, I’ve always been a writer, so this medium is core to my soul’s efforts.
It grows with the community that you find on thesatisfiedwoman.com, and through The Satisfied Woman App. I’m building that community through my outreach efforts on The Satisfied Woman podcast and blog.
I learned so much in my last venture. And, I’m pouring all those valuable lessons into this next adventure as I create it.
Some things I vow to never depart from? My inherent femininity, the magic that happens when creativity is tapped, and the sense of satisfaction from watching the work spread like wildfire to the women who need it.
Yes, I did this for me. But, mostly, I did it for you.
I’m thrilled that you’re here, fellow Satisfied Sister. Let’s stay true to our femininity and our womanhood as we join together and walk The Way of the Satisfied Woman.
#thesatisfiedwoman
#womensempowerment
#ladyboss
#femaleentrepreneur
#thekaivalyayogamethod
#alannak
