← Pilates Business Podcast
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- [00:00]
Sarah Glanfield
What if growing your Pilates business didn't mean doing more, but perhaps thinking differently? What if mentorships and meaningful conversations and yes, even a podcast, could be the key to scaling your impact and perhaps even reigniting your love for teaching and this incredible industry. Well, in today's episode, I'm sitting down with Olivia Bioni. She's a nationally certified Pilates teacher and educator, podcaster, and now author of the Pilates Teacher's Manual, the book. Now she's built a global platform to help instructors to really thrive and to share how mentorship and storytelling can really shift the way that you perhaps grow in your career as a teacher, an instructor, and a business owner.
- [00:55]
Well, hi there. I'm Sarah Glanfield. I'm a business and marketing strategist just for boutique fitness studio owners like you. If you're ready to be inspired and make a bigger impact, you're in the right place. All you need are a few key strategies, the right mindset, and some support along the way. Join me as I share the real life insights that will help you grow a sustainable and profitable studio. This is the Pilates Business Podcast.
- [01:28]
Welcome back to the Pilates Business Podcast Podcast. I'm Saran. Thank you so much for joining me here today. This is the place to be if you want to know how to go from perhaps being a little overwhelmed and perhaps a little overworked to being a little bit more organized, a little bit more inspired, and yes, even a little bit more profitable in your business. Now, you're in luck today, not only because I've had my matcha ice latte and I am trying really hard to speak really slowly with you guys so I don't lose you. But we're really in luck because I am joined today by someone who has made it her mission to uplift and empower and mentor Pilates teachers around the world. Olivia Bione is the founder of Olivia Bioni Wellness. She's the host of the Pilates Teachers Manual Podcast and the Student Pilates Pilates Student Manual Podcast as well. Two podcasts, you guys. And I know how much work that must be. And now in, on top of all of that is the author of the Pilates Teacher's Manual, the book. Now, she's also taught across many different studios and been with inside of different training programs. And her, her work to sort of spread the word began in 2020 when she launched that podcast. And I know so many of you are always looking for inspiration and to hear from other teachers around the world on how they've built their Business and their career and how to build a sustainable career in Pilates. And so I'm so excited that you're here with us. Olivia, welcome.
- [03:06]
Olivia Bioni
Oh, my gosh. Thank you for that very kind introduction and thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm so excited to be here.
- [03:14]
Sarah Glanfield
I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here. And, you know, I think I like to always give a. A strong introduction, but there's nothing like quite hearing from you, the guest, a little bit more about how you came into the world of Pilates. And, you know, obviously you have been quite the taken on quite a lot of projects in this industry over that time. So tell us a little about how it all came about. I'd love to hear.
- [03:40]
Olivia Bioni
Yeah, it's one of those things where looking back, you're like, oh, so all of those things that I was doing that didn't seem related have just tied together in this very cute little bow. So I've always been active. I was a soccer player as a kid and played competitively through high school, and I had an injury when I was in high school, and it turned out that contact sports was not going to be the way that I was going to be able to keep moving my body, as happens with a lot of athletes. So I found yoga, which was a lovely, low impact, mind, body connection sort of thing. I was doing yoga, I did my yoga teacher training, I got married, I moved to Chicago, and I was trying to do the yoga thing. And yoga studios tend to be organized just a little bit differently than Pilates studios with big breaks between classes. And maybe if you're teaching at a yoga studio, you're teaching one or two classes a week. You're not teaching enough hours to really support yourself. So then you're running all over the city trying to teach enough hours to also pay your rent. I knew that that wasn't going to work after, like three minutes of living in Chicago. It's like, this is not it. But luckily, I was also working at a studio that had Pilates classes. And I did not fall in love with Pilates the first time I saw it. I saw the Allegro Reformers with the tower attachments and I was like, oh, my gosh, that looks scary. That looks so intimidating. I don't know why anyone voluntarily does that. But look at me now. I heard the person who was running the teacher training talking about the body and about movement, and I realized that that depth was something that was missing in my yoga experience. And I Said, I want that. I don't know about Pilates, but I know that that way that you're talking, the way you're engaging with clients, the fact that you're able to work one on one with people and teach more classes, that definitely resonates with me. So I got into Pilates that way. I signed up for teacher training without ever having been on a reformer, so. So it does happen. And I really fell in love. And the more I taught, the more I loved it. The more people I worked with, the more I deepened my own understanding. And my first teacher training, I knew for me, that this was it. And I felt like I stumbled into it, but I was there. I also have a background in theater. I have done a lot of theater stuff, and I also have a degree in education, so I've done a lot of teaching stuff. So, like, the stars aligned through a whole lifetime. And in 2020, in, like, February of 2020, I thought that I had it figured out. I thought, okay, this is it. I teach at a university. I teach in boutique studios. I teach in kind of bigger club Pilates studios. I'm teaching in people's homes. Like, wow. I do privates. I do group. Like, this is the diversified teaching portfolio. I figured it out. Ha ha. Because Covid hit and I was like, oh. So all of those things were in person, not the diversified portfolio that I thought it was. But now, with lockdowns, had a lot of time to really think about how to make Pilates work in a virtual space. Like, the whole reason behind starting the podcast to begin with was that I wanted to create a resource that I wish I had when I started teaching. Because through. I moved to Chicago in 2016 in, like, three, four years, there was a lot of stumbling, a lot of making mistakes, a lot of taking on more classes than I was able to handle, or teaching really late in the evening and turning around and teaching very early in the morning. And it's not even that any of those things are bad, and they were all very valuable learning experiences. But I just thought to myself, if I could just tell a person who's in their teacher training that they don't have to do it that way, like, they would be able to be a successful teacher a lot faster. They would feel a lot more at home in the industry. They would feel that this was a sustainable career. Not, you come out the gate with all of this enthusiasm. You run yourself ragged for two years, and then you have to quit. So I was like, I saw that happening to other teachers. I very nearly Fell victim to it myself. And I was like, I think that there's a better way, or at least more than the way that you might see just in front of you, that there's other options, there's other places you can teach, other ways to set up your schedule. So I originally started the podcast with that in mind, and so I started Teacher's Manual first. I started Students Manual because the people I was teaching group classes to were very pleased that I had started a podcast, but it didn't really apply to them. And they really wanted to learn more about Pilates, but maybe not about creating a sustainable schedule as a teacher, but, like, the background or the history of Pilates or what their teacher means when they say stuff that we say all the time, like, resist the resistance. And they're like, that sounds cool, but what is it? Or why would I put my heels on the foot bar instead of my toes when I do a bridge? Like, I don't understand. And teachers aren't giving lectures when they're teaching. They're taking you through the movement part of it. So I created that podcast as a resource for students who are looking to learn more, who didn't want to become teachers necessarily. Maybe they do down the line, but they wanted that depth of understanding for themselves in their Pilates practice. So I started that. And then almost as soon as I had started the podcast, I knew I wanted it to be a book, because podcasts have this nice quality of having a chat with someone. It feels like you're, like, talking with a friend. You're sitting down, you're drinking coffee or having your matcha latte together. But it is a little bit more roundabout way of getting to information. So I wanted the book so that you could control f on an ebook and find exactly what you're looking for, scan the table of contents, and get right to it. Um, and so the book was a long time coming, but it is officially out now. Um, very much inspired by podcast episodes, but trimmed down and cleaned up. And I hope that that is also a resource for teachers as they continue in this industry.
- [09:28]
Sarah Glanfield
Yeah. So tell us a little bit about. So when you started the podcast in.
- [09:32]
Olivia Bioni
2020, like, March, like the first, I released, like, the first. Like, hey, I'm doing a podcast episode in February. And then we shut down, like, within. I had released three episodes, and I was like, oh, boy.
- [09:47]
Sarah Glanfield
Yes. Yeah. And then a lot. And then a lot happened. It wasn't just that month.
- [09:53]
Olivia Bioni
Yeah, no, certainly. Yeah, yeah. And ongoing, definitely.
- [09:56]
Sarah Glanfield
Yeah, yeah. So you've taken you've you have. I mean, I think it takes a lot of courage to do what you've done and step into that role of seeing the gap and then sort of deciding to be the one to fill it. You know, I think it's. It's like a. It does take a lot of courage, and I would like to sort of dive into that a little bit because I'm sure there are moments where you. Is this the right thing? Do I want to do this? Is this. You know what? How did you sort of get to grips with all of the feelings that often comes with stepping up and stepping in to roles like that?
- [10:34]
Olivia Bioni
No, I definitely had those moments of kind of faltering where I. I did think to myself that because I. When I first started teaching, I thought, well, I don't want anyone to think that I'm a brand new teacher. So I'll just say I've been teaching for like, a few years because I had been teaching yoga and like, I'd been teaching movement and I'd been familiar. And I didn't want to tell people that when I started teaching at Club Pilates in 2018 that I had been a teacher for three months. You know, like, I was. I was nervous and I was embarrassed, and I thought that it wouldn't have the same impact because I was too new. And then even starting the podcast, I did have an actual few years of teaching under my belt. So I had really deep conversations with my partner because I was worried. I was like, what if I am absolutely making this up? There is definitely some imposter syndrome. What if I start saying things and people are like, you're not a real teacher. Who are you to say anything? But what my partner really grounded me with is that if you've learned anything in the time that you've been a teacher, then you can share that with people. Like, you don't need more legitimacy than you've done it, and you do have these experiences and you can share it. So I definitely don't set out to have the answer for everyone, but I can definitely explore and use my own experience as a teaching tool. And that. And it's also one of those things, like, I just read Atomic Habits with my management team at Club Pilates and like, you build the habit. Like, you become the podcaster, you become the mentor through doing it, and the more you do it, the easier it is to do it. Where now I'm not questioning the legitimacy of what I'm saying as much as I'm questioning, like, what's going to be the most useful thing that I can now use this platform to share with people. So you learning by doing and growing by doing and just doing, it's one step in front of another. It's like creating the system that you have the workflow in place, where it's not a question of, am I going to do this? It's just this is what I do. And that it didn't feel courageous. I'm thinking back on the times where I was like, oh man, I don't know, or what if what I say is going to be used out of context or people are going to be mad about this because they disagree or something. But just coming back to. Also, I always think of Emily Dickinson's poem, like, if I can stop one heart from breaking, like if I can help one teacher create a sustainable career and that one teacher teaches as many people as they teach over the course of their career, the positive impact is magnified and amplified and just incalculable how much positive impact helping one person can have. So I still don't think that I know everything, but I do know things and I can offer guidance and share my experience. So that's really what encouraged me to just take the plunge and do the thing.
- [13:39]
Sarah Glanfield
Well, I think that's. And that's so inspiring because I think, you know, we all, I think so many of us have these hesitations and things. And it's always, I think that to assume that other people don't, I think is a misconception. And so, you know, when you see people taking leaps like you took and you continue to take, you know, these are big. These are big deals. You know, you're two podcasts and a book, plus you're teaching. And this is a lot that you're, you know, you're, you're doing and, and giving. And I think to assume that there's this sort of, you know, that there is not sort of other emotions happening alongside it that you. Others would expect to also have is, you know, it's not always. Is not the case generally. And I think what the difference between those who do like you have done and those who perhaps wait or pause or don't do is that you're willing to work through the feelings that come with taking on something that is a little bit challenging and perhaps a little bit uncomfortable. And so for that is incredibly courageous, I think.
- [14:43]
Olivia Bioni
Well, it's so funny that you say that because, you know, I've had you on the podcast and I'm sitting thinking the same thing about you where I'm like, oh my gosh, she does everything and she's got amazing children and she's running her business and she's got a podcast. And I look at that and I don't see, like, when people are putting things out there, you don't always see that hesitation or that self doubt that can come up. Because a lot of times we're presenting a very public Persona. Like when we're teaching, we're not complaining about, you know, the fact that our sink's broken or maintenance requests are backed up or you got a terrible night's sleep and your cat puked on your pillow. Like, you don't. That's not how you lead the stuff that you're presenting. But we are all human, having a very human experience. And we have days where things come really easy and we've got lots of energy and we've got days where things are a little bit harder. And I think it's also very much about moving forward regardless of the speed. It's not about how fast you get where you're going, but the fact that you have a plan and a direction that you want to go and that you're making your way there. Because you're doing this bio for me and talking about all these things I did. And it's been five years, so I think a lot of times we overestimate what we can accomplish in a day, but underestimate what we can accomplish in one year or five years. So if in 2020 you said, oh, this is what you're all going to do in five years, I don't know if I would have believed you. I'd be like, all right, okay, yeah, well.
- [16:08]
Sarah Glanfield
And that comes back to the Atomic Habits book, right? If those listening have not read that book or aren't familiar with it, it's a really interesting book about how to build great habits and what kind of, you know, what, what really moves the needle and makes differences is a really interesting book. But that is, is, is that concept really as well is that we tend to sort of overestimate what we can do in, in a short period of time and underestimate what's possible for us long term. We sort of are very short sighted in lots of ways, don't I think?
- [16:39]
Olivia Bioni
Yeah. I mean, I can share. In addition to doing Pilates, I also still love yoga. I do a ton of yoga and I'm getting into running and kind of to reclaim it because as a soccer player you have to run a lot. I was a midfielder and running was a lot of times A punishment. If your coach was mad at you for things, then you would get to run for long periods of time. So I'm getting to running is kind of reclaiming it and doing this thing that's good for me, but for myself, not because someone's yelling at me to do it. And I, you know, just was able to run a 5K. And that's been six months, you know, starting from. And like, people look at that and they're like, well, of course you could do that. And I was like, yeah, but when I started, I was jogging for 30 seconds. Seconds, you know, and then walking for three minutes. So it's the incremental build. It's not the cannonball always that is the result. It's the dipping your toe in the pool and then just like keeping. Getting more wet as you go in.
- [17:32]
Sarah Glanfield
You know, consistency in showing up for sure. Okay, tell us about the book. I want to know, you know, we, you know, you have the podcast and then you have the second podcast and you always wanted to be an author. Is that how that came about or was it something else that prompted it? And what was the process for you?
- [17:53]
Olivia Bioni
Yeah, I don't think it was ever wanting to be an author. Although that is very cool. And I do really enjoy, I do enjoy that. I can say that now. For me, it was always about how can I help the most people? How can I connect with the most people? And when you're teaching Pilates, you help all the people in your classes. So maybe you're teaching one on one sessions. So you're helping one person every hour, you're able to work with them. If you're teaching group classes, great. Maybe you can teach 12 people in an hour. Maybe you can teach. If you're doing mat classes, you can teach a whole stadium in an hour, potentially. And so the podcast was also, like, people could find this when I'm not. When I'm not there physically, but I could be there and I can offer that insight. And really, if people had questions, I could direct them to something. Instead of taking time to answer that question, I could be like, oh, I talked about this for a good 30 minutes. You can go listen to me chat about it. So a book is something that's evergreen, that you can have on your phone. Like, I've released it as an ebook and I am a reader myself. I love to read more than listening to podcasts. I don't know, that's just like the media format. And I know as a podcaster, I feel like that's probably Blasphemous to say, but, like, I don't actually listen to a ton of podcasts, but I do read a ton of podcast transcripts, so there's that. So reading is just my jam. And I also thought a lot about people who maybe English isn't their first language. My partner, English is not his first language. And how sometimes when people are talking, and I know especially like, I'm learning to speak Korean, we don't always pause at the spaces between words. So it can be really difficult when you're listening to information to know what someone's saying, especially when you don't have the visual cues of the person's body language. It can be hard sometimes to understand or if there's an idiom or slang or things like that. So I always knew I wanted, like, transcripts of the podcast so that people could read it and potentially translate it. And then seeing how many people were listening to the podcast on so many different continents, like, I wanted to be understood as much as reaching people. So I thought the book would be a really great way to do that and kind of the condensed version that, you know, if you're. I have teacher friends who will, like, listen to my podcast while they're doing dishes. And so it's, like, great to have that where, like, you're doing something else, but you're still, like, tuned into. Tuned into the podcast. But for people who want to read or, you know, want that resource and, like, just having a table of contents where it's really easy and especially in the book, I was able to group commonalities, common ideas together. If I was talking about group teaching or I was talking about teaching privates, or I was talking about, you know, working in a studio or some of the soft skills or just working with people, people in general, things that you want to know right out the gate, things that become more interesting to you the more you teach. Like, I was able to organize some of my thoughts and kind of clean up some of my thoughts, because podcasting can be a lot of not quite stream of consciousness, but, like, you're sharing things and sometimes you're learning what you're saying as you're saying it. Like, you're making those connections. So I was able to sharpen up some of my points and really get to the key of what I wanted to share, which sometimes I'll be having a podcast episode and there's like, the whole thing could be condensed to one sentence that I finally got to at the end. So I wanted that resource to be. To be There as well and just kind of consolidated that you don't need the Internet also to be able to listen to it.
- [21:44]
Sarah Glanfield
Right, right, right, right. So how long did it take you to put it all together? Because there's so much I'm sure you wanted to put. Did you find you just was like, I can't make this 5,000 pages long?
- [21:55]
Olivia Bioni
Oh, well, I kind of did. And now I'm thinking like, oh man, there's more. I didn't even talk about if you should use music in your classes or best practices for using music. So there's already things that I'm thinking about including or reorganizing in a second version or a second edition of it. I thought about it seriously for about two years, but then really sat down to do it in about six months. And once again, going back to Atomic Abbotts, it's like, okay, like saying you want to do this and doing this are like not the same. Like, we have to start doing things to be doing this. So part of it was working with an editor. My sister also works as editing and doing editing work. So I started like setting calls with her and having deadlines and like really holding myself to a bit of a schedule and then also knowing that if I didn't hit those deadlines, like these are all very self imposed goals. Like, I'm a very self motivated person. So having the flexibility and the grace that when things come up and are crazy, that if I don't hit. I got through this whole section of the book today. Like, it's okay, but about six months of, you know, going through the podcast episodes, like, what is the most important? What is, you know, in the book? Like, what do I want people to know? What do I think is like the most important stuff? So it was a lot of cutting down for the book. I like put everything that I thought was potentially possible and then just like cut like crazy and just trimmed and reorganized. And it's kind of fantastic that my sister is not involved in Pilates at all because then she could ask very real questions about things that, you know, a layperson may not know. So it helped me get clearer on things because I also didn't take time to just do the book. Like, I was still teaching my full course load. I was still. I did take like an extra month hiatus on the podcast, but like I was still doing the majority of like working and living. I didn't go on sabbatical, so it probably could have been faster if I had turned everything off to just focus. But, you know, life happens And I still really enjoy teaching and I didn't want to stop that just so that I could do this. So it took longer, but. But well worth it, I think. And then as soon as I finished, I was like, oh, and then I could write another book about this. So it was like very ambitious. So like, maybe give me another.
- [24:20]
Sarah Glanfield
It's like, oh, we have a book. Well, that's. My next question is, okay, so two podcasts and a book, and what's next for you? What are your. Because obviously you are driven and motivated like you say, but you have very clear intention behind the projects and the work that you do. So where does that lead you? Where do you feel like you're heading next?
- [24:47]
Olivia Bioni
Yeah, I'm really lucky. I have an excellent position in the Club Pilates Chicago organization. So there's one owner who owns now nine Studios in the Chicago area and I work as a lead instructor. So yay, more hats. But I get to do a lot of in person mentoring for our instructor team who are fantastic and incredible and on the ground teaching real people from 6 in the morning until 8:30 at night, like some of the best teachers and colleagues that one could ask for. So definitely putting a lot of energy into working with people in that capacity. For myself, I'm also a continuing education provider for the national Pilates certification program. So I think I'll be taking sections of the book where it's like group class programming strategies and trying to make a workshop. So now you'll have it if you want to listen to it, super long form. I've got it on a podcast. If you want to get in, get out on your own time. It's available in a book. And if you want to hang out with me for three hours and we can like chat about it, I'm looking into developing a workshop series where it's more interactive because podcasting and books are very much like, here you go into the world. So I like the idea of having that connection with teachers again and then also being able to fill a gap that people have that if they're nationally certified Pilates teachers, they do need to do continuing education. And I've found for myself that the continuing education that's like new choreography on a piece of equipment is like really fun and worthwhile, but doesn't necessarily improve your teaching or improve or like give you the next level in your career kind of thing. So workshop series, definitely something about that coming up down the pipe. No specified timeline have not set that in motion. But that's an idea that's Kind of floating around in my head and then also thinking about kind of my teaching philosophy and something that has come out of the podcast and me talking through all of my ideas and, you know, why I teach, the way I teach, why I teach, how I teach, who I teach, all of those things coming together, kind of distilling that into what I'm loosely calling dimensions of difficulty and exercises that when you're looking at progressions and regressions, it's not a line as much as it's a three dimensional space that you can play with, that you can play with range of movement and flexibility, you can play with coordination, you can play with complexity, and you can play with load. And all of those things go together in Pilates. And so thinking about ways to get even clearer about that so that I can share, because this is something that Pilates teachers have to do all the time. You see someone and you want them to do a plank or something and they can't do the plank. And so then you have to ask the question, okay, they can't do the thing that I'm asking them to do, like, what isn't working? How can I adjust it now because it's happening in real time. And then how can I know for the next time I cue this exercise that this is like a common pitfall or a common issue that someone might have with this exercise? How can I know that that's coming and then be ready and like, maybe start the exercise smaller? So I love playing with that. It feels like very much like being a dj, but it's like a Pilates DJ kind of thing. And so, like, what can you dial up? What can you dial down? Where can you offer support? How can you offer challenge when you've got super rock stars who can just like, do anything and really seeing exercises as a spectrum versus this is the rollover. But it's like, what if you wanted the rollover to be harder? Like, okay, like, what are you going to do if a person can't lift their hips? How are we going to get them there? So building bridges, not only for teachers and helping them understand in teaching where they can, how they can grow, but also for the people you're teaching. Like, how can we identify gaps, anticipate gaps, and then, you know, grow from there? So if I write another book, it's that one.
- [29:03]
Sarah Glanfield
That's the one. Yeah. I did a fantastic, like, mat reformer tower, like, medley yesterday with my fantastic instructor. And it was very fun. And it's like, you know, you do, you know, I, you know, I follow the classical, you know, method predominantly with all of my Pilates that I do, just because that's my world and my teachers and are all that way, and. And then you throw in a little change here and there. It's like, oh, this is. This is fun. And it's same, but it's different, and it keeps things kind of fun, you know, it's great.
- [29:40]
Olivia Bioni
I mean, that's all Pilates, man. Like, whether you're changing the piece of equipment, changing the exercise, it's the same shapes, and they're just echoing and calling back to each other.
- [29:48]
Sarah Glanfield
Yeah. Facing a different way, doing it a little different. Anyway, it was great. It was great fun. Well, I would love to see that. So I'm gonna. We'll bring you back on when you have that.
- [29:57]
Olivia Bioni
Yes, the next book, definitely.
- [30:00]
Sarah Glanfield
Well, fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Olivia, for being so open and honest and about your journey and what you're doing. Why don't you just quickly share how people can connect with you and all of your work and all of the different things that you do?
- [30:16]
Olivia Bioni
Yeah, I'll definitely send the links to Sarah so that she can share them. But I'm on Instagram. I have Olivia Bione Wellness is just me. If you want to follow the podcast, I've got Pilates teacher's manual and Pilates students manual on Instagram and also Facebook. My spot for Pilates merch. And the book is shop.oliviabione.com and then I do have a podcast community where we get to do monthly coffee chats and check in about anything. People who have questions about exercises, who have questions about what teacher training, they're, you know, curious about things like that. That's buymeacoffee.com Olivia podcasts. But I look forward to connecting.
- [30:55]
Sarah Glanfield
Fantastic. Thank you so much for being here. I really, really appreciate it and appreciate everything that you do to support all of our teachers in our industry. It's so fantastic. Thank you.
- [31:06]
Olivia Bioni
Well, right back at you, Sarah, and thank you so much.
- [31:09]
Sarah Glanfield
So I hope this was helpful to you all listening as you go about building your career in this fantastic industry. If you enjoyed what you heard today.
- [31:19]
I would absolutely love it if you.
- [31:21]
Could go to wherever you're listening to this and rate and review this podcast. It would mean a ton to me and also help to get this out there into our fantastic community of teachers and studio owners so that they, too, can feel encouraged and inspired on their journey.
- [31:40]
Did you love this episode and want more? Head to spring3.com and check out my free resources that will help you run a profitable and fulfilling studio business. And before you go, one last reminder. There is no one way to do what you do, only your way. So whatever it is that you you want to do, create or offer, you've got this. Thanks again for joining me today and have a wonderful rest of your day.