The Everyday Mystic

Systematizing Flow: How to Build Profit Without Losing Peace w/ Josh Biro

• Corissa Saint Laurent • Episode 69

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Josh Biro is the founder of the Yogapreneur Collective and the guy who teaches studio owners how to stop being martyrs and start making money. But before the coaching empire, he was just a stiff-hipped hockey player embarrassed by his dad’s short shorts in a church basement yoga class.

In this episode, Josh opens up about the devastating loss of his two-year-old daughter during a family trip to Ecuador, and how that tragedy acted not as a violent reprioritization of time. He discusses the decision to sell his successful studio, liquidate his possessions, and move his family into an RV to live nomadically, proving that waiting for "someday" is a trap.

Corissa and Josh dive deep into the philosophy of the Yogapreneur: the idea that business is the modern arena for spiritual growth. Josh explains why entrepreneurs are the "professional athletes of the soul,” constantly forced to confront their own limitations, and why building an "ethically affluent" lifestyle is the only way to sustain true impact.

In this episode, we cover:

  • The Reluctant Yogi: How a hockey player found his way to the mat (kicking and screaming) and why yoga is the ultimate tool for physical and emotional hygiene.
  • The Third Space Safety Net: How the community Josh built sustained him through the darkest grief of his life, proving that business is about more than just transactions.
  • The Martyrdom Trap: Why so many wellness business owners are addicted to the "cycle of sacrifice" and how to break it to achieve ethical affluence.
  • Tragedy as a Catalyst: The heart-wrenching story of losing his daughter and how it accelerated his family's timeline for freedom.
  • Entrepreneurship as Shadow Work: Why your business problems are actually personal problems in disguise, and how fixing them requires a spiritual paradigm shift.

Notable Quotes:

  • "A small business owner loves what they do, and an entrepreneur loves what it takes." — Josh Biro
  • "We were in an accident and [my daughter] was killed... I can't not look at that event as something that was pre-written to change perspective." — Josh Biro
  • "Business leadership is the most important leadership of our time... businesses are the vehicles of distribution for impact." — Josh Biro

Resources & Links:

Connect with Corissa:

If this conversation awoke or inspired something in you, please consider leaving us a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review to help us reach more people. 

Thanks for tuning in!

Corissa Saint Laurent

Hey you beautiful souls. Welcome to the Everyday Mystic where we demystify the mystical and transform your everyday life into one of greater meaning, higher purpose, and true joy. Today we're going deep with Josh Biro, the founder of Nomad Business Coaching and the lead coach of the Yoga Preneur Collective. Unlike other coaches that work with yoga businesses, Josh was a yoga instructor who ran his own profitable studio with his wife Jenna for seven years. Josh and Jenna sold their studio to hit the road and share their wisdom to help others achieve their goals and find purpose along the way. In this episode, we talk about Josh's reluctant path to yoga and how it ended up changing his life. He also shares the story of losing their daughter and how that sped up their dreams of selling their studio to live nomadically and with more freedom. You'll get great life and business wisdom throughout, shared with humor and perspective on this episode with Josh Firo on the Everyday Mystic. Hey Josh!

Josh Biro

Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Excited for a chat today.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Josh and I got to meet at the yoga expo in LA or in Pasadena. We were both speaking there. And uh I loved your energy. I love what you're doing in the world. And we got to be on a panel together. So to just hear in your insights to the audience were really great to share in that space and just like I said, to share in each other's energy. So I'm so excited to have you on the podcast to share more of your energy with the audience, share your stories and your insights and what you're doing in the world. So why don't you start out by introducing yourself a little bit? And what I mean by that is like, you know, introduce your spiritual self to the audience, and then we'll get into like nitty-gritty of what you do and how you serve.

Josh Biro

Well, my story is kind of, I think, a little quirky, but maybe semi-relatable for some people. My family was a bit of a yoga family. My parents were into yoga when I was quite young. I grew up in Canada, so I played hockey. So I was your quintessential, stiff, hockey playing 13-year-old kid when my dad first drove me to some yoga classes. And I hated it because I couldn't do it. I couldn't move. It was only he and I as males in the room, like 98% of the time. He always wore inappropriately small shorts, too, which was like super embarrassing for me. Um, like, oh my gosh. And then also, often the classes were in weird places, you know, like the basement of a church kind of thing, or or like the attic above the gym was one of the places. And by the end of the class, I would inevitably have like four blocks, two bolsters, a Mexican blanket, a strap. They'd go find an extra bungee cord somewhere. Like I'd just be suspended. And they'd be like, How does that feel? And I'd be like, ridiculous, you know, like so. Anyways, that was my that was my inception to yoga, but I wasn't super into it. But you know, fast forward some years later, I aged out of playing junior hockey and everything, and I was broken physically. And um, I didn't have a particular issue that I was trying to solve, but my wife was super into at the time, Bikram Yoga. So she drugged me back to a class, which also, by the way, like I already didn't like yoga, and now we're gonna add heat to the whole thing. And then it was like in my first class, the woman teaching the class couldn't have been more than five feet tall and weigh 100 pounds, and she was just like screaming at me, is how it felt. And then the lady beside me had to be 150 years old, and in the middle of a posture, like where we're totally upside down, they say, grab your heels. I'm like not touching my knees because I'm so stiff. She's upside down. I swear to God, she turned and just like gave me the middle finger. Um, I I don't think that happened, but in my mind, like I've invented this now.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Yeah, yeah.

Josh Biro

So, but anyways, I was like, I already don't like this. Now we're gonna do heat, and like people here are crazy. What the fuck are we doing? Um, but a couple classes in, I could move. The heat was the thing that like got my physical body able to move again. So I super got into it because the repercussions were like, I don't know, to me, extreme. Lots of body tension went away. I suffered from a lot of headaches from concussion and neck pain and stuff. That started to go away. And to your question about like the spiritual side of it, what became fascinating to me much earlier than I would have anticipated, because I was not into the spiritual side of it at all and thought that that was a bit floofy or whatever. But that's what it was. Like that really drew me in. Mostly from like a philosophical standpoint at first. I had to intellectualize it and study it. So on a personal level, it just became a practice of general health. And the analogy that that really has always stuck with me is it's like brushing your teeth. You don't get benefit from brushing your teeth one time, you just do it every day. And that's how you have good teeth and good hygiene. So it's the same thing. It's like that was the practice that I found that helps me have good physical hygiene, but also mental emotional hygiene. Because the bottom line is you do 60 to 90 minutes in a hot yoga class and really like get into that Kriya meditative breath-controlled state, and you leave. It's really hard to go about your day being an asshole to other people. Like it's just like you don't naturally do that, in my opinion. Um, it shifts you, yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent

And this this is like the difference between yoga in the east and yoga in the west, right? Of where it's lifestyle versus like an activity, right? And when I think people move into the the state of, oh, it's lifestyle now, it's actually philosophy, it's it's worldview, then it's like a whole different experience of it versus just like, oh, a class I gotta go take, you know, and and this thing that I do as an activity.

Josh Biro

Well, to your point, Krista, what I think's cool too is I I was the perfect example. Like I was a reluctant practitioner, and I did not go for any of that. In fact, I was against it maybe in the beginning. If if a teacher was to say some talk about your chakras or some spiritual, energetic, emotional things, I would be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we're doing a workout here, leave me alone.

Corissa Saint Laurent

But you weren't oming.

Josh Biro

I wasn't oming along, you know, and and it wasn't enough to turn me off to deter me from going at all, but I just wasn't into it. But in my opinion, there is no other exercise that unavoidably will force you to like have introspection and look at yourself than a yoga practice. Like I obviously, from playing hockey, was in the gym and had done lots of other athletics, and that can be meditative and and good for you too, but it it's not exactly the same thing. You know, to back up a little bit in the story, too. My dad was especially into Ashtanga yoga. So when Utapi Joyce was still around, you know, he'd come to San Francisco as usually his landing spot, and like we would go, kiss the feet, the whole thing. Like it was really interesting to see that culture, not the Indian culture, but like the yoga culture of the moment and its growth and the people who really followed it, and get to see that young on and be not turned off, but like be like, what is this? You know, so that was the exposure that maybe helped me think about it again in the future. Fast forward some years later, I did a few yoga teacher trainings, including the Beacon Yoga Teacher training, managed a studio with my wife. We helped friends build studios in Edmonton and Calgary, built a studio in uh Red Dere, Alberta, Canada, which we ran for about a decade before we sold it. And the sale didn't happen because of this event, but the other thing that I think on my spiritual path that's really hit me in the face in my adulthood was how much like the idea of yoga being huge, yoga, connection, union, it's it's everything. So if it's everything, everything is yoga, that means nothing cannot be yoga. And where that has really come for me in a big way now is entrepreneurship. I think entrepreneurship is the modern professional athlete out there as an entrepreneur. And the modern cultural sort of mystic, let's say, of our time are entrepreneurs as well. Because anyone knows if you undergo becoming a full entrepreneur, like you're deciding to get up every day and get punched in the face and challenge yourself on every mental, physical, emotional, relational level, somatic level possible, and then get up and do it again. So, you know.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Yeah, talk about right, talk about commitment and dedication and the practice of just like you, the brushing the teeth analogy, you don't do it once, like you get up every morning and do that, and you do it in the face of failure. And that's the thing I think that is so daunting and also exciting to entrepreneurs is that challenging place of where, you know, it's just like any fear can turn to excitement once you look at it as exciting. Like, okay, the scary thing is scary, but it's also really exciting because I've uh it enlivens me. It enlivens the the these centers that are popping off and and they don't have to be fearful. What do you think it does it take to change that fear energy into more like excitement and like okay, we're gonna do this energy, like an energy that's actually gonna move you forward rather than like curl you up in a ball and cry?

Josh Biro

Well, that's a good question. And I don't know that I have a really simple answer. I love, I would love to. Uh I think that part of entrepreneurship like yoga, I mean, you go into a yoga class, and even if it's a very prescribed class and very directive, you know exactly what you're gonna do ahead of time, you know, the length of the class, the postures, the order, et cetera, no two classes are the same. Because you change every time you go in. On the larger scale of things, that's entrepreneurship is that in practice as well. Because you might know what your goal is, but you don't know what the bumps on the road are to achieve that, even if you have good strategy, et cetera. And if you look at it from just a quantitative data business sense, the characteristics of the most successful entrepreneurs, there are some very common traits, but one of them is optimism, almost blind optimism. It's like a decision is made that you're going to accomplish a thing, and your enthusiasm around it is such that no matter what friction gets in your way, you're willing to be malleable, flexible, adjust, figure out, problem solve, as opposed to if you're in a state of fear, you only see all of the weeds. You only see it's like you can't see the forest through the trees analogy, right? Like you only see the block that's right in front of you. So one practical thing is like general optimism, but that really requires you to personally have a practice of getting rid of your own traumas, getting rid of any stagnant, stuck energy, et cetera, like a yoga practice or whatever it is, because entrepreneurship, although it's so much about business, it is you, especially in the beginning. It's just you. So, like, you gotta get your shit together. It because it's gonna throw it in your face, which is potentially positive from like a karma dharma standpoint. But yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Yeah. Um right, you can't deal with it if you don't see it or you don't know about it. You're so good at tucking things away in these secret dark places and just like packing it away, right? And so if yeah, you can go through people can go through a whole life or many lives where they don't even know what is hidden in those places. And so, okay, so we're excavating that, we're getting those potential traumas and fears, and we're releasing those, or at least we're looking at them first step, right? We are actually facing them, looking at them, knowing them, and then working on releasing, transforming, transmuting that into something that is something maybe we could use as fuel rather than like it's just secretly taking us down, right?

Josh Biro

I think the the hyper practical thing would be to say, and I would say this is look, everything I know about business, I know it from yoga, and vice versa. Like these are the same thing in my mind. So the practical thing is the zoomed out. Like as an entrepreneur, as the owner of a business, you're the only one in your business that can zoom out to that 15,000-foot view. So the skill you develop over time is can I zoom out enough to see the whole picture of what's actually happening? And can I be the compass that's pointing me towards the destination, the target that I'm trying to hit? And then when necessary, can I zoom in to do the thing that has to get done practically right now? But then can I zoom back out? Can I not get stuck there? Even in one yoga posture, it's the same thing. You need to understand the prescription of the totality of the posture and the shape and formation. But as you are moving into it, you're doing it with little micro movements and adjustments. Then you're contemplating the sensation, the feedback from the posture, and adjusting as per your necessity that day and where you are in your practice. Because in either place, business, life, the yoga posture, the destination doesn't matter. You need to know what you're aiming at so that you can put a path in front of you, but it's the path itself that's the value.

Corissa Saint Laurent

I love that this not just, I mean, yoga, but yoga as a lifestyle philosophy, way of being and living, is not only has informed your entrepreneurship, but has become your entrepreneurship. It's it's like you said, one and the same. You know, that's life in general. And I think when we start to live spiritual lives, there's not you can't not allow that to inform everything. Like you were saying, it's it's it is everything. Yoga is everything. So that therefore, you know, nothing's yoga, nothing's not yoga. And I would say the same thing for us in our oneness with the divine and all of the different practices and systems that we utilize to realize that and to maintain those connections are all um very much the same in that we are remembering that that state always. It's like always remembering and coming back to that state of our truth. And I love how you apply this to entrepreneurship. So let's go a little bit deeper into that because you were saying earlier how this is kind of the new spirituality or the new, you know, the the new path, if you will, or a path for people to really enter into that spiritual place because there is the the surrender that needs to happen, right? So facing the fears, the surrender. What else? What else is analogous in there? Do you see?

Josh Biro

Life is gonna knock you around at some point, most likely. That's just the human condition. Entrepreneurship is an amplifier of that. And it's going to eventually throw in your face where you personally have maybe trauma, but where you have friction, where you lack skill, knowledge, etc., that will be thrown in your face. It's an impossibility for you to grow without that happening. And at some point you will realize that the ceiling that you're hitting in the results of your efforts in your business is only because of the current paradigm under which you operate. So if you change your perspective, change your paradigm, enhance your skill set, the ceiling literally dissolves, and then you can go further. There's more there. So it's kind of a a fun way in my mind, a fun way to experience on a very practical sense, a lot of what introspection and spiritual journey, in my opinion, is, regardless of what modality you want to follow, yoga or otherwise, any religion would be very similar in my mind to this. But the other thing, so I I use the word yogapreneur because these two things together, in my opinion, are also what leadership uh looks like. I think this is not originally my quote. I think maybe Saadguru is the first person to have coined it. I don't actually know. But business leadership is the most important leadership of our time. If you look at, let's use a really almost cliche at this point example. For some of you listening or watching, you may remember a movie called Death of the Electric Car. Came out in the mid-2000s. And it was a story about this electric car that I I can't remember who, maybe Toyota had. And then we saw no electric cars on the market for another 10 years until Tesla really like broke through. But if you look at that breakthrough right there, that wasn't a grassroot uprising. People didn't vote in somebody to vote to make sure that we got electric cars on the road. Like that was one person who had money and guts. It was an entrepreneurial move who made that happen. That was a business move. So the way I look at it is businesses, especially small business, honestly, they are the vehicles of distribution. And the impact theory that they have is huge because of their ability to take something that is revolutionary and bring it to the mainstream. It's our cultural vehicle. So people often want to poo-poo on things becoming too capitalist, too business-oriented. And there is validity in that conversation. And businesses are still the fastest, most impactful vehicle that we have as a culture right now to get something out there to the public to expose people to it.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Well, let's talk a little bit about this because you know we're we're consumers by nature, but we're also creators. Entrepreneurs really are leaning into that creatorship, into the side of the yin and yang of where they're actually the ones putting forth the new paradigms, you know, what might create a shift. Probably all the ways that we live have been driven by an innovation, even if it wasn't sold to us. At some point, humans were like, look, this tool, like this helps you do this thing, right? And people are like, oh, and then it got distributed somehow. Probably not sold. Maybe traded, but then you know, that's this the sh knowledge share and the spreading and sharing. And, you know, we layer in capitalism and free markets. We all have the ability, we all have the same opportunity, I would say, to go in and and do that, use our own creative force and our own innovative force to do that. What do you think stops people from doing that? I mean, there's countless small business owners out there. So I'm not, you know, I'm not saying, oh, there's only like two people that do this. I mean, there's obviously millions of people that do this. But for those who are either reluctant or uh fearful or like I mean, I'm giving, I'm giving some of my own reasons why, but like, what do you think some of the other reasons, practical or or spiritual, that stop people from really tapping into that creative force?

Josh Biro

Creative force, I think, is the right wording. I would just echo. I think that in the end, any problem you have in your business that you own, it you're the problem. I'm not saying that there aren't external things that impact your business, but if you are theoretically creative enough, barring an extreme, let's call it your a force majeure situation like a pandemic, barring something like that. And even at that, like the businesses that I'm working with that have made it through and come out of that, many of them are now thriving bigger than they ever have before. So it made them stronger, actually. So it really comes down to you. So then the question becomes it's not to be down on yourself. And look, every entrepreneur, myself, I go through this too. Like, especially if you go through a burnout phase, like it gets depressive, you really feel like, man, maybe I just suck. But in that moment, when you pick yourself back up and out of it, again, you'll be forced to look at the truth of yourself. Where are your skills? Where are your weaknesses? What do you need? And other things, I made the analogy earlier that being an entrepreneur at a high level is like being a professional athlete. You can't be emotionally unstable and have a low EQ. You can't be completely uneducated, you can't be physically unfit and be a high-producing entrepreneur. Like your body will stop you at some point if you don't take care of that shit. So I think for a lot of people, starting is blocked from a fear of failure, which is a personal thing to deal with. And it's maybe not even conscious. And then there's a second phase that is where I tend to work with a lot of entrepreneurs, which is they've started, but now they've underestimated what it is that they could build, and they end up in this, what I would call a cycle of sacrifice, where they almost martyr themselves for their business, and then they get addicted to the negative feedback loop, and they have enough to just keep surviving in their business, but not enough to be thriving, and their impact is diminished, therefore, as well. And that's a tricky place to be. And in my mind, that's almost worse. No shade on anyone, whether you do or don't start or being in that place or not. It's just like a real thing that you'll go through. So those are the moments where you got to look at yourself and be like, what is it that I can do for me to make me more powerful? Which can be inclusive of straight up asking for help or hiring the right person or whatever. And from a business sense, what is it that the business needs? If the business isn't you, that's the thing about being an entrepreneur as well, is taking a viewpoint that you're not a small business owner. Like I'm not my business. My business is its own organism and I take care of it, I manage it. And that separation, then I can look at it externally, just like in meditation, I can look at myself externally and say, what do I need now? Where is it that I need to zoom in and fix and help and build and et cetera?

Corissa Saint Laurent

Anybody going back to again the practices of meditation, which is a is a deep practice within yoga, certainly outside of yoga too, but just being in a place of both meditation and contemplation in your life, whether or not you want to adhere to a specific yoga practice or a specific spiritual practice of any sort, just sitting and quieting the mind and sitting with yourself, starting the day that way, or you're feeling frazzled during the day and some shit's going wrong, and even just taking that moment to just sit and be and quiet the mind. You know, you can call it meditation or not. Some people get freaked out because they're like, oh, meditation, and they have so many preconceived notions about what it is, and so they're resistant to even doing it. So I like to tell people just close your eyes. It's just not we don't have to call it meditation, we don't have to call it anything. What you're gonna do is just close your eyes and take some nice gentle breaths. Don't worry about thoughts that are coming in. Don't worry about like all these things that people think they need to do in order to meditate. Just sit or lay and close your eyes. And starting with that, I think is such an amazing way to overcome again some of those fears, like fears of meditating, which are real. You know, they're very real. Um, because there's, like I said, the you know, so many preconceived notions about it and people thinking, like, I'm gonna do it wrong, which you cannot meditate wrong.

Josh Biro

There is no right or wrong. Everything, it's everything. Yeah, so here's so two thoughts that are coming to mind. I'm happy to share another sort of like part of my story uh to prove the point. But as a precursor, to me, like the epiphany that I had was years ago, when we're talking about spiritualism, entrepreneurship, all of it, and meditation is part of this, is that meditation is taking the position of being the observer. And it lets you at some point realize that if you can observe your physical body, then you can't, you're not your physical body. If I can observe my thoughts, who's observing them? So you can't be your thoughts if you can observe them. Something else is there. Like what is self? What you know, as an entrepreneur, in a parallel way, it's not quite as deep, obviously. It is the same thing. If you are able to become critically minded about your business, about your entrepreneurship, and see and observe from just an opened, curious place, you will discover where to pull this lever, move that thing, adjust this, and you'll problem solve and you'll move forward. And that sounds simple to say, obviously, in practice, it's not always easy, but that's kind of all it is. It's like if you're good at business, you realize you're just continually creating new problems for yourself to solve. And you can view that as negative and hard, or you can view it as like that's the game. So on the entrepreneurial side, I would say that the difference between being just a small business owner and becoming that entrepreneur is a small business owner loves what they do, and an entrepreneur loves what it takes. Or conversely, on the spiritual path of things, you can be attached to trying to achieve a specific outcome, or you can find enjoyment in the habituation of the path itself, whatever that path is for you. It doesn't matter if we're talking about going to church, doing a yoga practice, meditating, whatever. For me, where these things absolutely collided in their totality was while we owned our studio, we had set out originally to build a community. We knew that we like wanted community around us, my wife and I. And we did that very successfully. And at the time, the phrase third space wasn't commonly used, but that's literally what we created. The town that we were in was very sort of like more oil-driven town, blue-collar sort of situation, which was great. But other than maybe religious practices, there weren't really a lot of third spaces to go to. And the beauty of a yoga studio is that you have people from vastly different walks of life, different cultural backgrounds, different opinions on XYZ, but they're all there talking before and after a yoga class like they're best buddies. And maybe that's the only space that happens, but it creates this community connectivity because your business, a studio, for example, creates context for that to happen. This is a long-winded way of getting to. I had a major trauma, which was probably seven years in, eight years into owning the studio, we would go on vacation every year, and I would take my family uh with us. We'd go for a month. We'd always go somewhere interesting. We wanted cultural experience for the kids. So we went for a whole month to Ecuador, which was if you haven't been to Ecuador, you have to like it's it's a bit, I think, I think tumultuous right now politically, but uh, but what an insanely beautiful country. Like it's got everything you could think of in one place. Long story short, four days before my two-year-old's birthday at the time, we were there and we were in a rock accident and got hit and she was killed. And it obviously, as anyone can imagine, was like devastating on every possible level. But the two things that came out from that for me were one this exposure to yoga and this interest in the philosophy of it meant that I had something to grab onto personally at that moment. And I don't I I literally don't know. I struggled for a for a minute a couple times with alcohol. Um, I didn't have a single drink. And I think if I didn't have another thing to grab onto, like I probably wouldn't be here in that way. You know, like it would have been too easy to escape to escape in some other way. That wasn't the only thing, obviously, therapy and everything else is part of part of that journey. But the other thing that happened was we thought we had built a yoga studio, a business, and it's like pretty nice that people get together. What we didn't realize was we had built a third space that had such depth of community that like we had literally a whole community of thousands of people that supported us in that moment. And I don't I can't ever thank people enough for what they did. I mean, half the town shut down at on her celebration of life. And people, I don't know, supported us in in ways that I think you wouldn't be able to describe that you need. Simple, simple things. One of the most supportive things in that moment wasn't to come and be sorry for us, it was to just show up and do your yoga class every day like you did like normal. Like that to me was so supportive that you're like, yeah, that fucking sucks, and I'm gonna do my yoga practice today. And then there were a few really nice things. Whoever you are out there, I say this if I'm on a public setting, because I still don't know who it is to this day. Someone made us a fresh loaf of bread every single day for I swear, like a fucking year. I have no idea who they were. They just dropped it off on the porch. That was it. So, yeah, the point being, that happened as a result of like I liked it. My ego would like to say, like, because I'm so awesome, but that was absolutely not it. It's because of the business. The business had created this. So when we're talking about yoga preneur, we're talking about business leadership, we're talking about entrepreneurship and yoga, being conscious of yourself, but also conscious of your environmental impact in the world. And when you put these things together, now we have a recipe for not only success, but ripple effect. The impact of each yoga studio across even one country and the ripple effect on people that that has is like impossible to even measure.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Yeah.

Josh Biro

And we're not talking about big business yet. Then after we sold the studio, we went traveling in an RV for two years full-time as a family.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Did you sell the studio because of all because of the shifts or the ripple effects from your daughter's death? You're like, you just needed to do something different and and move away from that.

Josh Biro

What was No and no and so we'd actually already decided that we were going to sell the studio. We had had sort of a longer visioning meeting, my wife and I, and said, like, okay, we've kind of like accomplished our initial thing that we were trying to accomplish with the business. So, like, what do we do next? Do we open more of them? Do we automate this thing? Do like there's a lot of options. And what we had decided was it made more sense to pass the torch to somebody else completely so they could fulfill their vision. And we wanted to do something new. We didn't even know what that was yet. But because of these trips traveling, we were like, let's take a break for a minute if we sell it and let's travel. But we had set that plan to be like three to five years in the future. When my daughter died, what happened was like moments like that, they don't, in my opinion, I don't think they actually change your perspective, but rather they reprioritize things for you in a very clarifying way. So, for example, we just after that, everything was fine, the business kept going and whatever. But then we were like, what the fuck are we waiting five years for? Like, that was just some rational thought of like, oh, because it would be better to do it then and we'd make more money or whatever. Like, we want to do this. The kids, you know, my my son, and then we had another baby quite quite quickly after afterwards. Like they're young, like now's the time that we can do it as a family too easily. So it sped up the timeline, I would say. Yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Yeah. So it's like super clarifying. You can start quantum shifting at that point and changing timelines and and and just living the life you want to live always, but now rather than waiting, right? It's being so present, so in the now, and what I mean, an awful, just awful tragedy to put you in that mindset and perspective, but at the same time, like wow, like the the the fact that she could be that light for you to be like, hey guys, yeah, live it now. Like, let's not wait. Live it now.

Josh Biro

Yeah. Well, in that's the the silver lining of the situation. I mean, this is the hard thing about philosophically looking at life path, dharma, your karmic payout, etc., however you want to describe these things, but I can't not look at that event as something that was pre-written as an experience to change perspective for me, for my wife, or my son. Like, and not to say that I, and look, I would trade myself for her any set, or even now, like, of course, and I would never wish a negative situation on anyone. And you realize at some point that these situations have value that you almost otherwise, maybe it doesn't have to be that extreme, but you almost otherwise can't achieve. They are so amplifying, they're so intense that in intensity you see things in a different way.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Yeah.

Josh Biro

And oh, you another example that's maybe slightly more relatable is if you have kids, if anyone has kids, you know what I'm talking about. Like, especially as a father, I think as a mother, you carry that baby, number one, and like you were like, holy cow, there's a human being in here. As a father, at least my perspective, you're like, I know there's a baby in there, but like that's just my wife with the belly. And then all of a sudden there's this baby, and you're holding it, and you're like, Holy shit, this is a human being. Like, we just built a human. But like, perspective shift is instantaneous when that happens on a lot of things.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Absolutely, yes. It's like it's like the wonder of all things, you know, this the really truly the miracle of life. Like you actually experience that. And uh yeah, through life, birth and death, right? Both events in this human experience provide that perspective, and it's it's so, so powerful. So you all so you sold the studio and then um hit the road?

Josh Biro

Yeah, we, I mean, that's the other thing was not that we were the type of people that would have overanalyzed necessarily or been fearful of this, but also when you go through something like that, you're like, what actually matters in life? So, like, we sold everything. We sold our house, our car. We had garage sales and yard sales on the front lawn. And you know, we were like, I don't, we don't need any stuff. We don't need any stuff. And we know that we're gonna land somewhere, but it's not gonna be exactly here in the same house again. So we let go of all that, which is a fun adventure, bought an RV, moved into it with an infant, like a baby. It was she was maybe six weeks old when we left and full-time traveled for two years. And um, that was like we did the van life thing before it was cool. Like people were like, What are you doing? You know, now it's like people are like, Oh, yeah, you know, in the van, you live in the van, whatever.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Yeah.

Josh Biro

Uh especially in the yoga world. But but in any case, we traveled around Canada, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, all the way back up, all the way back down. Like we put a lot of a lot of miles on, so to speak. And during that time, we also visited yoga and wellness businesses everywhere. Um, you know, partly through friends, partly just through our connections. And the big thing that happened was so we had had this experience of like a very successful business. It was very profitable. It was our only income source. We built it from nothing, almost completely bootstrapped. Banks turned us down. Like we like, you know, really had to hustle to make that happen. But it afforded us a beautiful house and a car and paid for like a very good lifestyle for us, and we loved what we were doing. So we kind of just thought like that's what that was. And then traveling, it became immediately apparent that that was not the case for way too many people. And to the point of like, I had been hired to train some sales teams at studios prior to this, but I just felt this like strong drive to want to help because there would be studios where on paper I'm like, there's no reason for this business to not be succeeding, for the owner to not be. I we what I say now is like, I think the owner's desire in a good business is to have an ethically affluent lifestyle. And that definition is flexible for what they view that to be. But the number of owners struggling are like, they're like, oh, I'm 10 years in. Like they're still paying themselves the same as they pay their teachers. Like, basically, if you're teaching classes, I'm like, why? What the hell is going on? Or business is closing down, we'd hear about it. Like, we went to teach at a studio, even, and the week before we got there, we got an email from some random person to be like, don't come to teach, because someone came to just take the 6 a.m. class and the doors were just chained shut and the owners just disappeared because the business had failed and they were so embarrassed and didn't know how to get out. Like they literally ran away. And as much as I don't feel like that's the correct way to do that exit, my heart just hurts for people like that because to be in that tight of a spot, and we're being really extreme. Businesses, especially in men aged 30 to 45, are one of the two primary things that push people to suicide, even. I mean, these are like owners out there starting small businesses, they're putting fucking everything on the line. They're getting hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt, they're reordering their family, they're working longer than normal hours. So being an entrepreneur is about taking risk, and that means you have to succeed, you have to win. So, whatever, I digress. It meant I started business coaching, and um then that fast forward now over a decade with my other coaches as well. We've developed sort of our signature methodology for this. But the point would be it's because if the business can't succeed, then it cannot create the impact that it's potentially supposed to create. And the owner as an individual leader in their local community can't become that leader either.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Exactly. I I always looked at it as you know, small business owner, somebody who is starting out. Typically, they're a technician in that business, right? They're the yoga teacher, the some somebody that does it, they're the person who cuts hair, the car mechanic, and then want and they have this dream. Oh, I want to do just this. So they start the business to do just that thing, and then they find themselves just like cutting the hair for the rest of their life and going, wait a minute, like I'm just here cutting the hair. And that could be someone's just like joy, like, oh, I'm I'm I love this so much, I will do this. And like I just started making sourdough bread recently, and I like I love it so much that I could see myself like literally just doing that every day. Like, oh, but I mean, I know myself also that I can't just be in that monotony. Like eventually I'm gonna be like, okay, what else is out there? And also, why am I capped here in this place of creation? I want to create and and more. And so I think so many small business owners never learn how to be an entrepreneur, like you're saying, to actually grow not only themselves, but grow their business. That's everything from their reach to their revenue to, you know, to actually realize the the hidden dream. For I think for some people it's it's not apparent. They're just like, oh, I just, yeah, I want to do this for the rest of my life, or they don't realize that. Actually, you want freedom. Actually, you want, you know, these things that are so much deeper than that. So it are you discovering that with your clients and and with your studios that they have like actually these bigger dreams that they don't even know they have.

Josh Biro

Yes. Yeah, very often. I think there's two paths, and it goes back to that analogy or that that uh saying of like a small business owner loves what they do, and an entrepreneur learns to love what it takes. Like you get obsessed with the game itself, and that's the transition that, in my opinion, must happen if you really want real growth. If you just want to have purchased yourself a job, that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But it the question is, is it conscious? So if you already own a business, the conversation internally looks like this. Is where you are right now where you want to be? And if it's not, okay, why not? Like, not just why not practically, but why do you want something different? And in doing that, then it helps you define what you do want. How defined it is matters less than having an idea. The idea being, you might realize, I just wanna, I just want to teach the yoga class. I just want to cut the hair. Like that's what I want to do. Okay, cool. That's fine, but the business isn't you. So if that's true, it means the business must operate autonomously from you. So the path to you achieving, I just have to cut a couple people's hair a day, and I'm gonna be happy. Is I have to structure the business and put the rest of the team and everything else in place so that that's all I have to do. That's an option. Or conversely, you might realize, no, I want something bigger. This is gonna become a brand, whatever, whatever. Then you got to start getting real obsessive about not just product, not just doing the cutting the hair, all the other elements of it. Which, in my opinion, when you make that mental transition, it is fun. Like hard work is fun. I'm not a promoter of this like hustle grind culture. I think it's a misappropriation of a sentiment that is not incorrect, which is that you will have to work hard, there will be sacrifices, there will be difficulties, and you will have to stay the course to make it through those. But it itself isn't the thing to aspire to. Just because the simple fact is true. Like if you say to me, no one can outwork me, I work so hard, I work more hours than everyone else, that's like saying I'm not very good at working. Like I don't work smart, yeah. I just like spend a lot of time, right? So that's not really what you're trying to do. And it will be a necessity. There is a sort of yoga quote out there that essentially translates to hard work is a privilege. If you're privileged enough to get to work hard at your own business and therefore build impact in the world, and there, therefore, like build an ethically affluent lifestyle for yourself, how lucky are you? I mean, that's amazing.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Do you? I know, well, you have the Yoga Preneur Collective, which specifically coaches yoga studios and gets them profitable off the ground, whatever it is that they need, right, as far as their own growth. And then you're also, you also have your own coaching practice as well. Are those one and the same? Or do you also coach other types of entrepreneurs uh outside of yoga studios?

Josh Biro

The yogapreneur collective, I would say, is for yoga entrepreneurs. And the line between whether you're a yoga entrepreneur or not isn't necessarily the studio, although that is the most common case. That's our specialty. But we do have people that we work with that don't have a physical brick and mortar studio, but they do have a yoga business. And it really is legitimately a business. The difference being like, if you're just, I'm a yoga teacher and I'd like to take a couple private clients, that's not really our focus. You're even would be welcome into our community for conversation, but that's not what we're specifically solving for. It's when you're like, I'm gonna like register a business and invest time and money into this, and I have this vision for where it's going, it's gonna become this thing that's not me. That's that's who we primarily work with. And the yoga part doesn't mean it has to be only yoga. We have people who have other products as well that we work with. And then to your question, sort of umbrella over it, nomad business coaching is my business. And I do perform and have uh another team member that works with me doing like consulting. A lot of the time where we're spending there is more around, especially in the tech industry in the last five years. I think that one of the things that's been fun is I can translate what it is that the end user of a tech product is wanting or trying to say or ask for to the tech company, and vice versa, when they're saying we're thinking of developing and looking at this, I can translate down, but on the ground, that would look like this. Because the funny thing is, there's all this money being poured into the development of technological, you know, solutions to all sorts of things, very often, I would say, even the majority of time, by people who have no understanding of what it means to be the person on the ground using that solution, especially when we talk about like boutique fitness and wellness. So that's where I often get hired and where we're doing work is in that conversation.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Cool. And is this tech tied to wellness, fitness, health industries? So it's tech for those for the most part. Yeah.

Josh Biro

Yeah.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Awesome.

Josh Biro

Yeah. There also, I mean, there's some I I kind of joke now that I always have one ongoing client, maximum two personally, because I'm building my business and then also coaching our coaches on how they should coach and et cetera, et cetera. But I always have one or two clients, and I often end up taking the client that comes to us through a referral or something that's like the outside of the box situation. So, for example, right now I'm coaching a um DBT therapy group, and it's super fascinating. I did not know specifically about DBT and have had to learn all about it.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Yeah, what is DBT?

Josh Biro

Uh dielectric behavior therapy. Um, so, and they're an example of how the proven impact of this methodology, its framework is nothing short of incredible. I've experienced it myself at this point. And I think it's early to the game on where I see a lot of personal growth conversations going in terms of like the blended elements of trauma release, somatic therapy, understanding, you know, where you are from sort of like an integrated family system standpoint, but then like the practical day-to-day tools to apply that as well. So the product is good, would be the point.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Yeah.

Josh Biro

And the people running it are very powerful business owners, and they're in this position where they can't get, they're not under insurance at this point. So it is quote unquote a luxury purchase for somebody. And it's not really a known product yet. So there's like an education component. So like their business is working and really diminishing its total potential outcome because not because of them, not because of the product, not because of like the business part of it. So that's what we're working on is solving that.

Corissa Saint Laurent

I love that. It's you know, it's it's such a huge aspect of the success or failure of different ventures, right? I mean, I when I worked in tech, that was what I did was essentially translating, you know, translating the tool and the technology to the consumer so that they understood the power of it, so that they would use it and adopt it, but without like knowing all of the, you know, what the engineers speak of, you know, it's like it's it's translating engineer speak into consumer speak and to consumer desire and interest, and and so that they are like, oh, I see the value in this, I see what how I this could actually help me. And to your point, it's like a technologist, a software engineer, you know, somebody who's building and they're brilliant, right? They're building these brilliant things, but they don't necessarily have the same language to be able to put it in the terms of the consumer who's only thinking about what's in it for me. Like how is this gonna help me in my life, make things easier, make me better, all of that. And um, so it's a fun place to be, it sounds like for you to be able to be that kind of translator and to also really connect the dots so that something powerful like that can make it into the hands and hearts of people who can be helped by it. That's so beautiful.

Josh Biro

Yeah, and I think to add to what you're saying as well, Chris, uh, there's also the elements in the other direction where even myself or yourself as a consumer of any product, I mean, look, I'm using this is a vacuum insulated medical-grade stainless steel cup or water bottle that is painted with a powder coating so that it doesn't scratch. It's the best cup for keeping things, you know, it's not sweating right now, whatever. Like, but if you had asked me what's the ultimate cup before this existed, I couldn't even tell. I would be like, I don't know. I'm gonna say to you, I want it to not get wet on the outside when I put it on my desk. Or like, I want it to keep my beer cold or my coffee warm, right? Like, I can just tell you the results I want or the symptom I'm experiencing. I probably can't tell you the problem that's causing the symptom or the feature that I would need to create the benefit that I'm looking for. So the other part of translating is going that direction. So very often people will say, I think I want this, but it's because they don't know what they don't know. They don't even know it's possible. Exactly.

Corissa Saint Laurent

So yeah, yeah, right. You get to like ignite possibility in the in a consumer to be like, oh yeah, did you even know that this is something that you could experience? You could experience a non-sweaty cup, like how amazing. Um yeah, I love that.

Josh Biro

Yeah. I mean, that goes along, that goes along with any basically any product out there, but even when we're talking about service, like what if you teach a yoga class, if just on the simplest level, you're the yoga teacher, cool. Really, if you become skilled at teaching yoga classes, you teach the class in front of you rather than your class, in my opinion. And in doing that, what you're offering to the class is your knowledge and your micro adjustments and your enthusiasm and your inspiration so that people experience themselves in a new way to then get the ultimate benefit that they want. But they couldn't have told you before the class, hey, today in this posture, can you give me an extra cue here or help me with that there? They can't tell you that because they're not supposed to. They're supposed to just have the experience. You, as the professional, the person delivering the product. That's that's what you're doing. That's the quality.

Corissa Saint Laurent

So, anyways, yeah, wow.

Josh Biro

We'll go and circle.

Corissa Saint Laurent

So good, so good. So, where has life taken you recently? I know you made a move.

Josh Biro

Yeah, so after after traveling for a couple of years there full-time, then especially my son was like, I wanna, I wanna go to school now. I want to, I want to have friends that are consistent and I want to play on a soccer team and whatever. So we decided that we wanted to stop traveling. And um, of all the places we had been, we thought that Mexico was was it's where it like resonated with the family is the best intersection between all factors for us, you know, both for like lifestyle, kids, weather, quality of living, etc. Um, so we landed in Mexico. We've actually been here like as sort of our primary base, I suppose, during the school year for about seven years now. But just in the last year, we like fully committed. Uh, we built a retreat centerslash house that we're in as well. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm still traveling, but it is fun to get to live in a multicultural situation where we're on the minority side of that and figure out how to um, I guess, not integrate, but participate in how things are here. And I don't know, I love it. Plus, if you if anyone canadians are listening to this, you know what I'm talking about. Like we go back, we went back to for Christmas this last year for the first time in years, and it wasn't cold, it was like a warm year. It was like minus 10 Celsius, and still after a couple weeks, I was like, Yeah, I don't fucking miss this. Like this person.

Corissa Saint Laurent

There's some people that are either built for the cold or they just are um super super unconscious and they don't think they can have anything different. But uh, I'm the same way. I grew up in the northeast in New Hampshire and my husband too. And we are both just like, no, no. Like we tried to, we we went back there because he and I met there and then uh moved away. And we've now been in the south of the United States for the last uh few years and uh keep just wanting to get warmer and warmer. And we just recently started like we're throwing it around, like maybe we should like make our home base there and then travel from there. And and then, you know, after a few days of talking about that, we were like, are we fucking crazy? Like it is, yeah, what we don't want that that that temperature. I mean, it's gorgeous in all these places, right? There's so many other beautiful elements, but I feel like weather climate is such a huge factor for like it impacts the lifestyle in general, how you live. And if you're someone who wants to be outside every single day comfortably and you know, in enjoy and in the sun, then it's yeah, it's like seek those places. That's it's not gonna happen in the in the northern climes, right?

Josh Biro

Well, and I I mean to each their own, I have some friends that it's reverse. They they come and visit and they're like, it's too hot here. I'm like, what? It's not hot. But I think also when we're talking about lifestyle and especially from that entrepreneurial angle of this ethically affluent lifestyle. The world has shrunk in my life so insanely. Like just I think about my grandfather, who you know passed away years and years ago. But, you know, war veteran lived in two places only his entire life. And he passed before we went traveling or did any of this. But I think about having a conversation with him and explaining that we can live in Mexico and my children go to school here as Canadians, and then but then we go back to Canada during the warm months and do so like he would be like, What? What the that's not that's not a thing, you know, and and now through our travel and through living this way, we've um been lucky enough to meet a lot of other nomadic people and nomadic communities. And even just the fact that we're doing this right now for this podcast, uh, plus the fact that you can make a living in this way, is really quite amazing. Uh it doesn't mean that it's for everyone, but uh you mentioned earlier, Krista, that just There really are opportunities now. And barring some very extreme circumstances, I think one of the things that people miss is the fact that that's true. That like you have a literal supercomputer in your pocket at all times and the internet, and that stuff's only getting better. And now AI, I mean, don't even get me started there. So opportunity to create the lifestyle you want, inclusive of weather, is a thing.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Yeah.

Josh Biro

You just have to do it.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Yeah. And if that's skiing all the time and being in the snow all the time, then you could do that too, right? I mean, it's it's just the consciousness of it, right? Actually being awake and aware to the fact that we are co-creators in our experience. Yeah. And going, wow, like isn't that an incredible opportunity that we get to have? And if we decide to take that on, it comes with, as we've talked about throughout this whole hour, it comes with a certain amount of facing fears and digging some shit up and dealing with yourself and facing some of that. And that's also another beautiful part of life because life is not just the job you work or the or the business you own or even the kids you raise or the where you live. It is about this inner journey. This inner journey and an inner experience of having all of that discovery and exploration and right and unfolding as well. Um, this has been such a beautiful conversation, this intersection of all this beautiful inner journey and outer expression. Um, I'm so grateful that we met and then we got to spend this time together. Thank you so much, Josh. Is there anything that, you know, we'll put obviously all your links in the show notes so that anybody who's interested in coaching with you or has a yoga studio anywhere in the world, definitely reach out to the Yoga Printer Collective. Um, we'll put all those links in the show notes. But is there anything that you want to leave people with that's on your heart or on your mind before we sign off?

Josh Biro

Yeah, I think that the value that I can offer for somebody if they want it, if they're looking for the help, is my team and I have done this ourselves multiple times and spend 100% of our time figuring out how to help you achieve your goals as an entrepreneur and build that ethically affluent lifestyle. So if that's interesting to you, I'm very happy to just have a conversation. We'll put a link in here. But we do a free, your first coaching call is free. It's just to see if, like, can we even help you? Are you aligned with us, us with you, et cetera? No strings attached. And that's our mission right now is to make that impact in the world because that's our specific expertise. So yeah, I think that's it.

Corissa Saint Laurent

Beautiful. Thank you so much, Josh.

Josh Biro

Thanks, Chris. Really appreciate you.

Corissa Saint Laurent

And thank you for tuning in today. As a big thank you, there are gifts awaiting you on the Everyday Mystic website. Beautiful offerings like complimentary sessions, discounts on programs and products, and special events and experiences. Check it all out on theeverydaymystic.org and get in touch with me if you want to infuse more of these types of topics into your company culture, career, relationships, or your everyday life. I'm here to serve and can't wait to connect with you. Have an amazing, awestruck, wonder filled rest of your day. Until next time, beautiful soul.

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I look like you agree.