Hey, everybody.

Welcome to Thriving Holistic Practitioner Podcast.

My name is Lindsay and I'm your host and joining me today, we have Benedict

Beaumont, he is the founder of Breathing Space and you can find him on

Instagram at make some breathing space.

, he is joining us all the way from Bali.

I'm so excited to hear his story and have him share with you his journey

of, of going down this process of becoming a holistic practitioner that

really specializes in breath work.

So thanks for joining us, Ben.

I'm so glad to have you here with us.

Lindsay, thank you so much for inviting me on.

I am really, really excited to be here.

Thank you so much.

Can I ask a favor?

Of course.

Before we do anything else, before we jump into the conversation, would

it be all right if we just stopped, paused and took a few breaths together?

Of course.

Thank you.

And if you're listening at home, if you're able to, if you're not driving, I really

encourage you to just stop, pause and take a few breaths with us right now.

Are you ready?

Ready.

Let's do that.

And one more.

Thank you.

Lovely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, I really appreciate doing that.

I do everything.

I take a few breaths before almost every interaction in breathing space,

whether that's a podcast interview like this, whether it's a class

that I'm taking or workshop that I'm leading, I also do it in real life.

I do it pretty much before every conversation that I have with

someone or interaction with someone.

I even do it with my accountant who is definitely not into wellness, but

everyone understands the value of just stopping, pausing, and taking a breath.

Can you feel the difference now in the In the energy between us.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you so much for inviting me on.

I'm really passionate about breathwork and how it can prove everyone's lives,

but I'm also very passionate about the financial side of working in the holistic

industry, because there's so many people here that I think can burn out.

Can aren't making a success of what they are doing in the world.

And if you're not financially supported, you can't be energetically supported

and the world just doesn't need more facilitators or practitioners.

It needs the ones that are there already to be successful.

To be sustained so they don't go back to their old lives or their old jobs.

I'm super passionate about this area and supporting all of the amazing

facilitators, practitioners, teachers out there to actually stay in alignment

with what their highest purpose is.

Amen.

That's what I'm here for too.

Not showing up for that right here on this podcast.

I love that.

I also like what you said about how, if we aren't financially supported,

You know, we can't be there to energetically support others.

I think that's a really important mindset mindset concept to think about, because

especially for holistic practitioners, when we focus a lot on our heart

centered mission, um, it's easy to want to downplay the significance of

money, but money is an important piece.

It's what makes business happen.

So thank you for for bringing that to our attention.

So

well, we don't none of us do this money.

None of us enter into this profession because we want to be millionaires.

However, it does need to support us.

It doesn't need to put food on the table and clothes on a back

or shoes on our children's feet.

Otherwise, we are not going to be do it.

And that will not serve anyone, not ourselves, and not the people

that we wish to be of service to.

That's true.

Definitely.

So tell me a little bit about your history and how you even found your

path to breathwork and holistic practitionership in general.

Certainly.

Well, I'm a breathwork facilitator teacher and I have a school that trains

facilitators to be breathworkers, but I haven't been doing this forever.

I wasn't born the head of a breathwork school.

I didn't even discover breathwork until I was in my forties, but

all the way through my life.

I have been, I suppose, on a quest to be the best version of

myself, to reach my potential.

We all, I always, I always felt that, well, I've only

got one chance at this life.

I want to be the best possible version of myself that I can.

So, all through my life, I think, Even when I was a teenager and I was

choosing my exam subjects, I chose the subjects of inquiry, of internal inquiry,

asking the questions, why are we here?

What are we supposed to be doing?

Of course, in school, the subjects that you get to choose aren't, you know, really

great, but I chose politics and economics.

Um, I chose philosophy and anthropology when I went to

university and that carried on.

Throughout my twenties and thirties, I studied or practiced a lot of

yoga, trying, because that was a very clear pathway that everyone

followed that, you know, do these steps, learn these asanas, get into

this flow to get into this movement.

And there is the, there is something at the end of it, a

better, brighter version of you.

I also became a Buddhist and I had a very deep meditation practice

for quite a number of years.

And I studied Dharma.

I studied.

Ancient Tibetan texts, actually, about how to live and how to show

up, how to think, how to feel.

For many years, I read every self help book on the shelf.

I did group therapy.

I followed all sorts of teachers, and all of them gave glimpses, all of

them gave little pieces of the puzzle.

But none of them by themselves were enough.

I went as far as I could with all of them, and at the, at some point there was

something that jarred, that didn't quite agree, or that didn't quite fit, or that

was too esoteric, or was just, you know, didn't approach this issue very well.

And all of that was.

Great training and really important, but it wasn't until I discovered

breathwork in my forties that suddenly everything, everything fell into place.

Wow.

I, you're one of the first people that I've talked to that has such a history

with holistic genres, I should say.

I like it.

Many people.

start out in just a regular career or life, you know, and they have,

I guess you might say more of just a traditional lifestyle, you know,

working in management or whatnot.

And then maybe they run across their own health journey and then that prompts

them to learn different modalities.

You are a unique bird in that, um, You really had that desire

from a young age and were pursuing different modalities along the way.

When you found breath work, what about that really inspired you?

Or what, what, what made that?

shift for you to say, Oh, you know what?

This is it.

This is what's, what's been missing in these other paths that I've been down.

Um, let me come to that in a second.

I just want to reassure you and all the listeners.

I did have a normal life and a normal job for this, by the way, in my

twenties, I was an it professional.

Um, so I had a really proper corporate kind of job, you know, wearing a suit.

And I worked up in, I worked all over the world actually, um, because

that was a time of the late nineties and, uh, and the millennium.

And then I became a teacher, um, in high schools and some of the

most challenging areas of the United Kingdom where I'm from.

Um, so I definitely had a normal life and a career and the holistic side

didn't really come to me as a full time profession until I discovered breathwork.

Okay, and that was

an extraordinary and that was an extraordinary moment for me.

That was an extraordinary experience.

10 years ago, I was in Bali in Ubud in exactly the place that I am now.

And actually I'm this.

It is a very important time in my life, Lindsay, because this is the

10 year anniversary, almost to the day when I discovered breathwork.

And at that point in my life, I had burnt out from being a teacher.

I burnt out from being a IT professional.

I burnt out from doing yoga and Buddhism and everything else.

I kind of got as far as I could, and I didn't know what to do with my life.

So I thought, you know what, I'm just going to have fun and go on

adventures until I finally do.

So, I gave up my job, I gave up my flat, my apartment, I sold everything.

I bought, I flew off to India, bought a motorbike and got lost.

I drove all around, I drove through Nepal, I climbed up to Everest Base Camp.

I actually met my wife there.

We lived in Thailand, we lived in a car in North America, travelling around.

We, um, I proposed to her in Sri Lanka, we ran hotels in France.

We did, uh, we had an amazing life.

We ended up in Bali.

In Ubud, and I just met someone socially, um, and we got chatting,

he was a really lovely man, and I, I asked him what he did, and he

says, I'm a breathwork facilitator.

And at that point, I'd already been doing a lot of internal work, I'd been doing

yoga for over 10 years, I'd been doing meditation and Buddhism for 7 or 8 years,

so I thought I knew what breathwork was.

When he invited me to, as a guest, to his first session, I thought, okay,

we'll probably do some alternate nostril breathing, we'll listen to some

nice music, we'll lie down and we'll have a really, really relaxing time.

No, that was not what happened.

It was an extraordinary, pivotal moment in my life that everything changed.

We were encouraged to, we did a few preparatory exercises and then,

um, we were, we were shown this particular breathwork technique

called conscious breathwork, conscious connected breathwork.

Some music was then put on, we did in fact lie down, and we tried this technique.

And that was the moment that everything changed.

Because it wasn't just relaxing breathing.

On one side of me, someone was having a full body orgasm.

On the other side of me, someone was screaming like they were

being stabbed or disemboweled.

On the other side of the room, someone was laughing like they were being told the

most hysterical joke in the whole world.

And I was, what is happening here?

I've never seen anything like it.

I opened my eyes and it was, it was bedlam.

The whole room was everyone having this crazy experience.

And then I, and then I entered into that space and that moment

that I've always been looking for.

That moment of transformation, that moment of connection and enlightenment.

And I was gifted my own personal experience for almost a spiritual,

a spiritual moment of clarity.

of understanding and everything that I'd wanted came to me in that moment, and

that moment was when my life changed.

I knew I'd found my purpose, my reason, my mission in life.

I was going to become a breath worker.

This had just given me that absolute ah ha moment, something that clicked into

place, and what it did was, It integrated everything else that I'd learned,

everything in yoga, everything Buddhism, everything in the self help world that

I'd led, everything that I'd learned as a professional, as a professional

chef and as a professional teacher.

It suddenly had a reason in my life, and that was the moment I knew that

Breathwork would take over my world, I would train to become a Breathwork

facilitator, and learn to lead people in the experience that I had just had.

When we came back after that experience, um, of that Breathwork,

we all sat in a circle, and we all shared about our experience.

And although everyone had had a radically different experience, many were beautiful,

like my own experience, but some people had very challenging experiences.

Every single person was gifted something that made why they

were there extraordinary.

Everything, everybody came out of that session lighter and brighter

with something shifted inside of them.

It was extraordinary.

And I knew I have found my life's purpose here.

Honestly, that story brought me to tears.

Like I can understand how precious that moment is when you realize

how that culmination of everything in your life finally makes sense.

And that feeling of.

It's not even certainty.

It has nothing to do with the mind.

It's all just like your body just is like, yes, this is it.

Like you embrace it fully.

I know that feeling and it feels so amazing.

And I, I was brought to tears with joy for you because that

is just so, um, fantastic.

So fantastic.

Oh my goodness.

I

can feel that Lindsay.

Let's, let's just stop here and pause because for everyone listening.

This kind of story can give everyone hope that there is that moment for everyone.

That they find what they are meant to do.

So let's just breathe and feel that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lindsay.

Yeah,

resonates.

I want people to listen to this and know that, you know, I think a lot of

people get into their, um, that they, we all, I think we've all been there.

Let me listen to your story.

I know my story.

We've all been there where we think we're on the right path.

Wishing that we knew we were on the right path.

There's a difference between thinking and knowing, and that experiential moment

when you just say, yes, this is it for me.

I pray that everybody listening to this is recognizing that that can happen.

And hopefully they've already heard it, but you know, to know

that they're listening to this podcast or they're questioning their

future, they are walking their path.

It isn't going to be this lost feeling forever.

And it is possible to come to that, that, I guess you could say a crossroads where

everything just kind of comes together.

So I love that.

Let's talk a little bit more about beyond that moment, you

had this magical experience.

You knew this was going to be the thing.

What steps did you take to moving into like the business realm or looking at

this as like, you've already left your job, you've, you've kind left the whole

wide Western type world, so to speak, even though it wasn't necessarily Western, but

that, that job and that career path, and you've already kind of bucked the system.

What was going through your mind?

Like, what was your thoughts?

Like, how am I going to make this into a career?

What was, was that even something you were thinking about?

And then what steps did you take to start moving forward towards that goal?

That's a great question.

Well, at the time I was a qualified practicing and a very experienced teacher.

So during my training for the next few years, I was still in the classroom,

but I was really taking a step back.

I became a substitute teacher or a supply teacher, we call them.

So I didn't have a regular job.

I would just go out and cover, you know, in different, in different

classes, in different classrooms.

So all the time at the back of my head, you know, I was already.

Doing what I wanted to be doing whilst I was undergoing my training.

And then during my training, a couple of things happened.

Um, as a, as a teacher, by the way, I was sometimes a business studies teacher.

So I would, you know, it is a, it is a lower level.

This is, you know, teaching to sort of 16, 17 year olds, the basics of business.

And that actually served me very well learning on learning and understanding

some of the processes that you need to go to make a successful business.

So when I was in my training, I looked around at all the

other wellness professionals.

And I didn't just train in breathwork, I also trained to be a yoga teacher

at the same time as well because I wanted that foundation of somatic

physical body experience to be able to lead people through that.

And I also thought that because everyone knows what yoga is.

Everyone knows how it's physically beneficial for you.

I think I should learn to do something that everyone will understand and

everyone can see the benefit of.

Breathwork is much newer, much more niche.

And so lots of people think I can breathe.

What do I need breathwork for?

So, you know, all the time I was thinking I need something

that will hook people in that is approachable and accessible to people.

So I did.

So whilst I was training, I, you know, I was looking around and I'm thinking

about how am I going to do this?

And I saw lots and lots of my peers and my colleagues for people had just gone before

me having to really hustle, having to like, you know, go out and do substitute

courses with studios or just hustle and push trying to get, you know, a few gigs

here and there, and then spending so much time marketing and selling themselves

and trying to get people to come along.

And they very quickly burnt out.

They very quickly lost all the energy and enthusiasm because they

were not doing what they loved.

They were doing what they needed to do to try and get clients and

trying to establish themselves.

And I thought, you know what?

I don't want to do that.

That's not for me.

So I started to look at the bigger picture.

What is it that I really wanted to do?

And what was going to serve me financially?

It was actually enabling me to carry on doing what I was passionate about.

And just running classes.

For me, never felt like a sustainable career path.

People are willing to pay, you know, depending on where you

are, 15, 20, 30 for a class.

When you're starting, it's very difficult to get people to come along, unless

you're very lucky and someone gives you an opportunity with an established business.

But then they're going to be running the classes themselves.

You have to put in a lot of hours to build up a following to kind of

get people to come on, to educate people that this is what they need.

People are willing to pay a lot more, maybe 70, 80, even a hundred

dollars for a workshop, like a three to four hour kind of experience.

So I thought, well, that makes sense.

Maybe I should do, you know, one of those a week.

And then if I can get 10 or 20 people, that's sort of five, 600 a week for,

you know, The day's work, that seems to be a much better return of scale.

And then I thought, well, hang on.

What about if I took people away on a retreat because for a weekend away,

giving people a transformational experience, people are willing to

pay, you know, four or five, 600, 700.

And if you can get 10, 12, 15 people, suddenly you're looking at.

You know, five, six, seven thousand dollars for a weekend work and

actually that is pretty good You know, that's a livable wage and what is it?

It's a weekend's work and you get to do amazing stuff with

interesting people in really cool places So I thought you know what?

I'm going to start running retreats.

And I did the first retreat I ran, I managed to persuade nine people to turn

up and I charged about 200 and I just about covered my costs, but that I was

charging virtually nothing about a third of what the going rate was, but that

gave me confidence and it gave me the belief that I could do it because it was

an amazing experience and it was good because I've been on lots of retreats.

I knew what worked, I knew what didn't.

And as my experience as a teacher.

I understood how to run an experience.

And my experience as a teacher was absolutely pivotal in me

becoming a success, I believe.

But then I finished that retreat and I was like, that was amazing.

I didn't lose money.

And I booked a retreat month for the next year.

And that was how I started in my business.

That's fantastic.

Yeah,

very

clear and very, uh, it's interesting because I understand the startup

psychology of an entrepreneur.

And I commend you for taking that thinking bigger.

That's a, that's a really key takeaway from your story is how you weren't.

shortchanging yourself or just limiting yourself based on what was possible.

You just allowed yourself to think bigger and step into that and, and

give it a go, even though you didn't know how it was going to work out.

And even though you were taking a risk at losing money, I mean, you

could have potentially lost money on those, that first or second

adventure, but you still took that risk and gave it a go and learned

from that and continued to blossom.

I think that's really the key message there.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it was a risk and.

There are some big lessons that I learned along the way,

but I was really successful.

I went from having never run a retreat in less than 18 months, I had run

or been involved in running over 20 retreats and I had no email list.

I didn't have a following.

I started from absolute scratch.

And by the end of it, after that 20th repeat, 18 months later, I was featured

in the international press as one of the best wellness retreats to go on in Europe.

I mean, it started with nothing.

Let's talk about that journey a little bit.

What were some of the challenges that you faced getting people to?

Cause I'm thinking through, you know, that's what somebody is going to

wonder is how would I even get people?

I have nothing.

What were some of the strategies that you employed that helped you start to

get people there and, and grow your list?

Was list building even something that crossed your mind?

You know, maybe that hadn't really occurred to you until later.

I mean, just.

What was that like?

Uh, that is a really good question.

And I want to just reassure all of your listeners that you do not have to buy into

the mindset that you have to have an email list, that you have to be an influencer,

that you have to have a huge following on TikTok or Instagram to connect to people.

You don't have to.

We survived before all that existed.

You do not have to buy into that kind of mindset that I need to be doing this.

And I'm looking around at everyone or everyone else is doing.

And I need to be like them.

You can forget all that.

I found that a really inefficient way of doing my outreach, do my

marketing and connecting with people.

There's so many other people doing it.

It's like shouting out into an empty room.

You have no idea who's going to be listening.

So for me, the clever way to do things was to, well, I want to run retreats.

I want to connect with people who want to go on retreats.

And I know that there are people who want to go on retreats because, you

know, lots of people, um, run retreats and lots of people go on retreats.

How do I reach those?

And, and I suppose a parallel is the, the hotel world.

You know, when people want to go and, you know, go and stay somewhere

abroad and the old fashioned way was you'd find a brochure, you would

look at the brochure, you would, you know, book a hotel based on that.

And of course the internet came on and things absolutely changed and Airbnb

disrupted that market because it made, it gave everyone the ability, everyone,

to become a hotelier, to open up their own homes where people could book on.

And I suddenly thought, what, maybe there's something like

that for the retreat world.

Maybe there's a marketplace where people who want to run retreats can put their,

um, you know, their retreats on there.

Anyone could do that.

And anyone who wants to book on a retreat will go there.

And I thought of that first.

I thought there's got to be that kind of marketplace.

And lo and behold, as soon as I kind of made that connection in my,

in my head, they appeared to me.

You know, there's, there's several book retreats, but yoga retreats, retreat guru,

there's all these marketplaces, which, you know, 10 years ago, well, eight years

ago, I had no idea that they even existed.

But suddenly that meant I could reach only people who wanted to go on retreats.

And they didn't cost anything to advertise on, unlike Facebook ads

or, you know, Instagram boosting posts, they just took a commission.

So if you adjusted your pricing to include the commission that they would get.

Suddenly you've got access to a world of people who are looking to come on a

retreat experience and only people who are getting to come on the retreat experience.

And so all of that anxiety and fear and pressure of having to, you know, go out

and sell yourself and become a big star and look confident and pretty and glossy

like you do on a yoga magazine, all gone.

Because people review you after the first couple of retreats I had, every one was

a five star review and that sells itself.

So all

I had to do was just like put my listing up, put a few pictures,

get the testimonials there and then the retreat sold themselves.

Wow.

That's incredible.

Did you end up moving your retreat to different?

Did you keep it in the same place or did you find that moving them

around to different parts of the world since you were already so

worldly and been in different places?

Or did you just kind of stick to the same area in the beginning

just for consistency and then grow?

Or how did that evolve?

Uh, well.

I started off with one particular venue because I knew it really well and that

became my bread and butter and I, and that was the venue that I booked for

a month, every month for 12 months and I still go back there when I can.

But in between that, I started doing retreats abroad and in

different places around the world.

I had to, I had to be a little bit creative and finding a good

venue for me is absolutely key.

I'm quite a control freak.

I like to make sure everything is how I want it to be done.

So, you know, me and my wife, we do all the cooking.

We arrange all the transport.

I needed to know the area particularly well if we're doing outings.

I didn't trust anyone else to curate that experience.

So I was always very particular about the venue and I needed to know it.

I needed to visit it.

I need to visit the hosts or the caretakers or the managers around that.

But I had to think creatively.

Around this, because, you know, hiring a retreat venue and doing the

cost is most businesses, by the way, fail, not because they cannot attract

attract people in, not because they they're not getting enough incoming.

It's the costs.

Of running things that kill most businesses and most people forget that and

they'll spend a lot of money doing things.

And actually, if you can keep your costs low, your chances

of success are much higher.

So I started to think a little bit creatively when I was running retreats.

And, you know, I wanted to find amazing venues.

But I didn't want to pay amazing prices for, oh, I didn't want

to pay crazy prices for them.

I, I'm not sure if I mentioned earlier, as well as being a teacher,

I was a chef for many years.

And I used to work up in the French Alps in ski seasons, running chalets

and chefing in chalets and managing.

And the French Alps are such an amazing area of the world.

Um, it's actually forms the logo of my business, uh, Breathing Space

is a mountain because that was one of the places where Breathing Space

and myself was, was born and reborn.

So these are amazing chalets, you know, some of the most beautiful

picturesque places in the world.

And I'm sure your listeners will have heard of some of these magical,

mystical places like, you know, Verbier or Cloisters, you know,

some of these exclusive resorts.

I worked in a place called Val d'Isere in France, which is amazing.

And in the winter, it's, you know, there are thousands, hundreds of thousands

of people go through every weekend.

In the summer, they are dead.

No one goes there.

But they're even more beautiful in summer.

You

can go anywhere.

And I, I got a bit bored of skiing, but hiking, my love.

So suddenly I thought, hang on, there's this amazing location hidden.

No one, no, no one goes there in summer.

There's all these amazing chalets that are sitting there empty.

Hmm.

Why don't I approach the owners and just find out what happens

to these chalets in summer?

And see if I can rent one.

And when I did, I approached the owner of a chalet and said, What?

Your chalet's in the summer.

And they said, Oh, well, it actually just sits empty.

Oh, wow.

And

I said, would you, would you consider, like, hiring me?

And they were like, really?

Normally we'd pay someone to go and be a caretaker and you want to pay us

to, to go and live in it and use it?

I was like, yes, I will pay you to go and have this amazing shine.

So I did for two summers.

I hired an amazing complex of Chas.

I hired, it was five chalets with about 120 beds for less

than $10,000 for two months.

Everything,

wow.

Everything

for it was in the end, it cost about $8,000, you know, and I ran, I, I ran.

Four week long retreats back to back, which isn't recommended,

by the way, because your own energy to do that is intense.

But I was quite experienced that point.

And I'm a bit of a strange case.

I managed to do it and I'm good at planning.

So I ran for retreats back to back each one of those retreats.

I could take 16 people and each of those 16 people was paying about 1000.

So in one week, I could make, you know, over 16, 000.

Wow.

You know, over the four weeks, suddenly when you do the maths, if I had 16,

000 a week over four weeks, that's 60, 000 and the costs on that 8, 000 for,

you know, hiring a place and really the food costs, they're going to be minimal.

You'll spend another sort of four or 5, 000 over the, over the month, hang

on, that's 60, you know, whatever dollars, 10, 000, 15, 000 costs, 50,

I walked away after two months work in the most beautiful place on the

planet, having had the best time of my life, having held so many people to a

transformational experience with 50, 000 in my pocket after two months work.

That's incredible.

That's genius.

I love that.

That's incredible.

Well, and I cannot wait to go try out, explore those places.

That's actually on my bucket list is to walk from the South of Italy or not just

walk, but travel from the South of Italy, all the way up through, um, to the UK.

Cause I've never been to Europe.

That's on my, That's on my list of things.

Just, just out of interest, this isn't to do with business, but I'm a,

well, I was a long distance hiker and I love, I love long distance hikers.

There's a route called the G5, because in Europe it's like crisscross with

all these like long distance routes.

There's one that goes all the way through the French Alps called

the G5 that ends up in Europe.

And it's actually a pilgrimage route.

And it's part of the old spice route from hundreds of years that people have

been walking for years, so please do it.

You will not be disappointed.

It is one of the most stunning places on earth.

I just, I'm going to tell you something else right now,

because this

might take the conversation in a different direction.

At the end of that summer, I had to pivot completely.

I had to change everything about my business.

Because at that point, uh, me and my wife moved to Canada.

Um, for personal reasons, we'd, we'd got as far as we could in Europe

and we started a family and then of course COVID hit, so my business model

couldn't work in Canada because in Europe you are within two hours travel,

you've got 50 million people on your doorstep in Canada, in Northern Alberta,

where I was living within two hours, you've got maybe 1 million people.

And so I knew at that point what I'd been doing before wasn't going to work.

I had to change everything and come up with a new business plan.

And that's when things got really exciting.

Yeah, actually, I was going to ask you what pivoted for you.

That makes sense.

COVID was definitely a moment and I think almost every person's life where something

had to change and good things came of it.

I think, I mean, I have yet to meet somebody who didn't actually

get more aligned with their bigger purpose through that experience.

So I think in a way it was a blessing.

So tell us a little more about that.

What, what, um, what did that journey look like?

Well, I moved to Canada in.

November 2019.

So this was, you know, a few months, six months before the pandemic

hit and everybody else changed.

But at that moment that I moved, I knew that I was going to have

to change what I was doing.

And again, I went back to basics and I, and I started thinking, well, what,

how am I going to support myself?

What are people willing to do?

I knew that I wanted to carry on changing people's lives.

I knew that it needed to support me financially.

And again, I went back to the drawing board and what are

people willing to pay for?

15, 20 for class, you know, 60, 70, 80 for a workshop, maybe a few hundred

dollars for a retreat, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to do that.

Where else are people willing to put an investment in?

And that was really clear to me.

People, as well as having a transformational experience

themselves, they want to go and learn how to do something themselves.

If you can pivot into a role where you aren't just, you know, going on

an immersive experience with people, but training them to do something,

especially something, if you can give them a certificate at the end of it.

Because who doesn't love a certificate?

If you can train people to maybe do something that can support them

financially, then suddenly, not all people willing to just pay five, six,

seven hundred dollars, actually, they're willing to invest, you know, two,

three, four, five thousand dollars.

Because you're not just giving someone a fish, you're teaching them how to fish

and

you're giving them the opportunity to change their lives completely.

So, at that point, I opened up my school so I could train other facilitators.

And always at the back of my head, I knew that I was going to do this

because when I completed my training as a facilitator, when we sat in our

final circle, and we'd all had this amazing year together of going on

the deepest, personal, most profound journey of transformation for ourselves.

I was so aware of everyone else in the world who hadn't had the opportunity

that I had, who hadn't met this amazing gift of the breath, who haven't

understood while their lives could be improved with every single moment.

And I felt.

Everyone who was not in that circle and I made a vow to the

universe that I was going to bring breathwork out into the world.

And then as well as doing the financial kind of planning, I started

to do some thinking, doing lots of number crunching, if you like.

Around the energy of this.

Well, you know, I want to, I want people to meet breathwork.

And that's why I'm here.

Not because I want to have a fantastic life to live on a yacht

because it's not going to happen.

But I want to make an impact in the world.

I want to share why I'm absolutely passionate about that.

What's the best way of doing that?

If I run, you know, workshop or classes, how many people can I reach?

If I'm good, if I'm really good, maybe, maybe 100 people a week.

Which is, you know, let's not, that is a good lot of people, if I am really

at the top of my game and I managed to touch a hundred people a week, that's

amazing, but could I meet, could I, could I have a bigger impact than that?

Could I make a bigger change on that?

If I didn't just facilitate people and lead people, you know, practice with

people, if I could become a trainer and train other facilitators, then the

impact that you can have is enormous.

Is exponential because even if each of those people you train reaches 10 or

15 people, There is no number of people that they can reach and because of my

experience as a teacher You know with 15 years at the chalk face Really, which

there's no training like being a teacher in a high school in the in the low

aspirational areas of the world If you can do that I knew I could start a breathwork

school and I could train facilitators And my own experience in learning I knew

that I could do this because most schools are not run by professional teachers.

They're run by, you know, people who love what they do, who are reinspired, but do

not have the discipline and the, and the practice of going day in, day out, running

lessons, creating lesson plans, or writing curriculums or programs or studying, or, I

had that, I've been doing it for 15 years.

I knew it at the back of my head.

I knew that I could not just make it an amazing training course.

I knew that I could make a school that would, would be more stable, would

be more fulfilling, that would be better than anything else out there,

because of my own personal experience.

And so that's what I did.

Six months before COVID hit, I started my training courses,

all online, all through Zoom.

So when the pandemic hit, I already, already was doing what everyone else

had to learn to do very quickly.

I'd already had that experience.

And suddenly,

and then suddenly because of the pandemic, I had, you know, thousands and

thousands of people sitting at home with nothing to do, many of them wanting to

transition into something, you know, that was going to be more in line with their

heart, wanting to learn online through Zoom, which was the only way to do it.

So suddenly my business just absolutely took off.

That's fantastic.

And a lot of people were looking for a holistic approach to health because

of obvious reasons, you know, with the whole COVID thing, people were more

focused on, on being healthy and creating healthy environments for themselves.

That's neat.

What a, what a kid in that situation.

I know, you know, a worldwide respiratory pandemic, you know, which is all about

breathing hits where, where people are struggling breathing and then,

you know, I'll get brand new breath.

I mean, you know, I got lucky.

I got very lucky during the process.

Well, you

were definitely walking your path already, and that's part of what

I think helped that work out.

Because you know, and I know, that when you're living in an aligned

space, things like that happen.

It seems like magic, but it's really on purpose.

That's just how it goes.

Oh my goodness.

Thanks for sharing that.

So tell us now, where, where do you see your business in

the next three to five years?

I mean, what, now that you've established that, what are

some challenges you're facing?

Because I think that's one thing about businesses, you know, we always think,

well, once I get here, Then I'll be okay.

But the reality is, and this is a misconception I see a

lot with with business owners.

The reality is, it's always an evolutionary process.

And I think you were gifted with this curiosity, this genuine curiosity that

opened your mind up to hearing solutions.

You know, in your mind, hearing and visualizing solutions.

But a lot of times we tell ourselves, this is the solution.

When I achieve this goal, then, you know, this magic will come to my

life or whatnot, but I think the reality is that there's always growth.

There's it's, that's kind of the fun about business is Constantly,

there's no ceiling, there's no end.

It's to me a lot like spirituality, you know, the deeper you go,

the deeper you go, and with business, it's the same thing.

It's like the higher you reach, the more higher you can go, especially

when you have an aligned mission.

So where do you see yourself heading in the next, you know, three to five years?

And, and do you have any specific new challenges that you're pondering on now?

Well, that's a great question.

Um, so the first thing that I would say, and I, and I would say this to all

of your listeners as well, or, or your entrepreneurs, I was really clear that

having looked around and and looked at many small business owners and many

entrepreneurs, many people working in the world as well, they worked themselves

to the bone trying to make a success of their business, and they dedicated

their life to, to their business so much.

Actually, their own personal lives fell apart.

And I was really clear and determined my business would serve me personally, and

I would put me and my family's health and well being before the business.

And so I created my school, I created my community, I created, you know, our

movement, working three days a week.

I work three days a week and that's it.

And that's all I ever worked because I didn't want to spend

all of my time just working.

Even though I love what I do and I do it for free.

I really tried to just do that because I, because I also started

a family at the same kind of time.

So I've got two young daughters who are now two and four.

Um, And I wanted to be a very present parent.

I didn't want to be the parent who was off working all the time.

So the family experience to me was really important.

My challenge is now there's, I could talk a lot about just having a school

and running a training program is not enough by itself, you need, I felt that I

needed to do something bigger than that.

So the school that I created was everything that I wanted to experience

and have when I was training, but don't just train and certify people.

That to me is not enough.

Always I'm thinking what happens next, where do people go from that?

So I started to think about me when I left my training school.

I was pretty much abandoned.

My contact with the school stopped.

Unless I was willing to, you know, do the training course again

and spend a lot more dollars.

I was out by myself in an, in a, in an industry where no one heard of it.

With no one for miles around me knowing what to do this.

And what, I was lucky.

Not everyone is.

So I was always clear.

I didn't just want to train people, certify them, and that's it.

I wanted to build a community that went on to support people

as they went on to do that.

So I created a second year of our training program for people to come back, still

remain part of the community, support new trainees, and Here's the clever bit,

to certify after I've done two years and met all the requirements to then

be able to teach my curriculum as well.

Because, you know, not everyone is going to be able to train with me personally.

I'm not going to be able to train everyone.

But hang on, what about if I don't just like training people to be facilitators?

How about if I certify them to become trainers?

And then they can teach my curriculum and then of course, it's a bit like a

franchise model because it's only right.

I need to be supported.

Breathing space needs to be supported.

So a percentage of what of course feeds that their students take

on come back to breathing space.

And so suddenly the whole model of a training school becomes a community

and it becomes a pathway that not only are you equipping people with skills

to support themselves financially.

But you can give them tools and a pathway to do that as well.

Not many people can create a school and a curriculum.

I could because of my experience, but you know, maybe 1 percent of people who you

train have got the ability to do that.

However, if somebody says, by the way, you're amazing, you're ready to not just

run breathworks, but you can train people.

Here is a curriculum that you can teach them.

Here is a school and a process that you can be affiliated with.

Um, all you need to do is go out and be inspiring and people will

come to you naturally and they will want to give you invest thousands

of dollars in their own training.

And how about you take that money rather than me and then pass

on, you know, appropriate amount back to me to support what I do.

So there's that, there's that growing that side of breathwork,

which isn't just about me.

Training and I still run a lot of trainings myself, but now I've got

over 30 teachers who are qualified to run my training courses in

all over the world in different languages, um, in different styles.

So some of them do it in person.

Some of them do it online, some of them do it in day long workshops,

so they all deliver it the same way, the same quality of the education

is there, the same requirements, the same certified course is exactly the

same, the integrity of it is there, but it's delivered in different ways.

According to the Inclinations and the characteristics and

the strengths of the teacher.

So that's one area of business that I'm passionate about.

I still want to make a big impact, but the way is not just for me to

train facilitators is to support other trainers to do the same.

So that's one thing.

Other challenges that I'm facing.

I'm over the last year, year and a half, I'm noticing people don't

want to train online so much.

Actually, after the experience of the last few years, people

want to do stuff in person.

So.

I'm considering pivoting and starting to do in person trainings.

But as I mentioned, I want my business to support my life.

I'm in Bali right now in a week's time.

And I'm going to be living in Bangkok for a month.

After that, I'm going to be in the UK for three months.

Then I'm going to be back in Canada for four months.

Then after that, I'm probably going to be back in Bali.

So my personal life with my family and my kids, you know, we're moving around,

having fun, living an adventurous life.

So the business needs to support me, um, energetically.

And how I do that, I probably need to stop doing podcast interviews like that,

because it is 2am here and I get up quite regularly in the middle of the night

to connect people to teach my classes to run workshops, not really healthy.

So, but I love it so much.

I really, really enjoy speaking to people.

So I should probably change that a little bit.

And then the other thing that I am starting to do more of now is

I'm moving into a consultant role.

Um, and the coaching role for people who want to start their own schools, because

I haven't just created my own school.

I've actually created a whole new school with a colleague and a friend of mine

who runs transformational workshops.

They're not, it's not breathwork, but it's in a similar ballpark.

And I've consulted on at least a dozen other schools or wellness

enterprises at different levels.

Some people I've gone, you know, held their hand from the beginning.

Other people, it's just a bit of.

You know, an arm around the shoulder or a bit of advice here and there, but

I've, I've done that for over 12 people now I'm getting pretty experienced

in what works and what doesn't work.

And so that's another way that I can have.

And impact in the world is to support other visionaries to share

the passion in their heart as well.

Wow.

So there's a few things there's, there's never anything that stops really.

Perfect story for, um, what I've been really seeking in general.

And I have two podcasts.

So my other podcast is called the freedom entrepreneur and it's aligns.

I think I'm going to share this episode on both because it aligns.

That one is more like building an online business to have that freedom

lifestyle, which is exactly what you have.

Um, and it's really challenging to be honest with you, Ben.

It's very challenging for me to get people to come onto that podcast

who have a story like yours.

Because usually once they start living that freedom lifestyle,

they have no reason to share.

I mean, there there's there.

The people who want to come on that show have an agenda and I'm

like trying to get away from that.

And like, I don't want to necessarily back into people with an agenda.

Um, so I've really been pushing back on certain guests and looking for more

that just have this story that can give hope and inspiration to other

people that want to have that story.

You know what I mean?

Have that life.

So I think I will share this on both, but that's fantastic.

This has been probably one of the most transformative episodes I've recorded.

Mind you, this is the third guest one I've had.

I just, I'm just launching.

I haven't even launched the podcast yet, but still, um, I'm hopeful this is going

to be more of what I see in the world.

It's fantastic.

Oh, thank you.

I really appreciate this.

And this isn't the normal, the normal kind of podcast that I do.

Normally I talk about breadth a lot more, you know, that's what

I'm really passionate about.

And that's why I come on the podcast to do outreach, um, you know, and

speak to real people around this.

But I love talking about the business side of things.

You know, I've never been an entrepreneur before, before this, I've never,

I'd always had a job and a salary.

Um, but I, But, you know, I've fallen in love with having a business and working

for myself because it's so empowering when you, when you, when you leave behind the

idea that someone else needs to, you know, to give you permission to earn money.

And you can realize you can do that yourself.

The empowerment that it gives you as an individual that makes you realize.

Actually, I can do whatever I want.

The limits that you put on yourself really dissolve.

When you see it working, actually, the confidence that you have to,

to, to be the best version of yourself is increased so much.

So I am so, I really love meeting and encouraging other people who are willing

and who are brave enough to take that step because it is life changing.

And the impact that you can have, not just on yourself but on

others, I believe, is much bigger.

. I agree.

Where can people connect with you?

What's the best place?

Um, well, you can look, you can, if you want to connect with me personally and

you want to find out a bit more about my story or even how to work with me,

um, you can look me up on my website, Benedict beaumont.com um, and which

is a bit more about me personally, if there's part of what I have shared about

breath work and I haven't talked that much about breath work, but I promise

you that is really why I'm successful.

It's not all the kind of clever business things that I've done.

It's because I'm coming from an absolute place of integrity and passion for what I

do and how breathwork can light people up.

And it's sustained me.

Like I, you know, if you'd asked me, what are you going to do?

The fact that I ran, you know, international retreats all

over the world, that I started an international breathwork.

So I started two other schools.

I started an international festival.

I never thought I'd do anything.

How do you, how do you start a festival?

And yet I did it.

Um, and it was easy.

And all of that is because I was supported and nourished at every single

moment with my breath, which sounds a bit corny, but it really helped me tap

into my inner intuition and wisdom.

And so whenever I was faced with a decision, if ever I was not sure,

I'd actually stop or take a breath.

And then it was clear what every decision had to be.

And that's really why I think I have been successful is because I was

absolutely in integrity and alignment with what I wanted to be doing, which

is a source of such great wisdom whenever I was faced with a decision.

So, um, my website has Benedict Beaumont.

com.

My school's website, where I train people to be breathwork facilitators, or

just spread the word about breathwork.

Cause I don't just train people like anyone who's interested

in breath and come along and do free courses or free workshops.

There is all that is make some breathing space.

com makes some breathing space.

com.

If you Google my name, you'll find me.

I'm quite in quite a lot of places.

Well, thank you for inviting me on Lindsay.

Do you think we could just do one thing before we finish?

Of course.

Well, all I want to do is to just finish and close this off

energetically as we began by stopping.

Okay.

Let's do it.

I'm taking a breath.

Thank you, Lindsay.

I was appreciate and thank you everyone for listening.

Yes, I was picturing everybody listening to this and believing that through this

breath, that our message was reaching the people who needed to hear this and

just feeling and tuning into them as we were wrapping up, because I know that

energy can transcend time and space.

And so just knowing that people are listening to this and that this is

going to be life changing for many.

I'm just grateful.

Thank you.