If you’ve ever felt the pull to build something online but worried that the whole process would ask you to become someone you’re not, this conversation is for you.

I sat down with Arundhati Baitmangalkar, host of the popular Let’s Talk Yoga podcast, and we talked about the tension so many yoga teachers feel right now. You want to reach more people. You want income that doesn’t disappear the moment you get sick or take a break. But so much of the advice out there asks you to perform, to post three times a day, to make everything about you. And that runs against the very reason you came to yoga in the first place.

What I loved about this conversation is that Arundhati has built something recognizable and lasting without any of that. And the way she’s done it is worth paying attention to.

She Never Planned Any Of It

One of the first things Arundhati said that stayed with me is that none of this was planned. She never wanted a studio. She never wanted a podcast. She never wanted an online yoga school. She just wanted to teach.

What she did instead was add one thing at a time. She started with two classes a week. Students asked for a third, then a fourth. Someone asked for a workshop, so she ran a workshop. Later came a teacher training, then a retreat, and years after that, during the pandemic, the podcast and the online courses. Over 13 years, she added slowly.

I think this matters so much right now, because most yoga teachers feel like they’re supposed to have the studio and the podcast and the YouTube channel and the membership all at once, on day one. And when they can’t, they feel behind. But building slowly is not the same as falling behind. It’s often the thing that makes a business last, because each piece has time to find its footing before the next one arrives.

It’s Not About You, It’s About The Yoga

We spent time on something almost every yoga teacher struggles with, which is the discomfort of putting yourself out there. Going on camera. Posting. Being seen.

Arundhati shared a reframe she learned early on from one of her own teachers, and it’s simple but it changes everything. When you feel that self-consciousness creeping in, remember that you’re not showcasing yourself. You’re platforming yoga. The people watching aren’t really looking at you and judging you. They’re absorbing the yoga. You’re just the channel through which they access it.

I’ve felt this myself. When I first started my business, going live terrified me. And what helped was exactly this shift, taking the focus off me, me, me, and putting it back on the people I was there to serve. If you help one person think differently, or practice, or take a step, that’s already worth it.

Why She Logs Off Instagram

Here’s the part that surprised people the most when I shared it. Arundhati, who has built a real online presence, spends less than ten minutes a day on Instagram. She posts, and she leaves. She doesn’t linger, she doesn’t doomscroll, she doesn’t get pulled into comparing herself to everyone ten steps ahead.

And that’s the point. So much of what makes building online feel exhausting and inauthentic isn’t the creating, it’s the consuming. The endless scrolling that leaves you feeling behind and unsure of yourself. Arundhati’s advice was to log off, protect your attention, and feed yourself with long-form content instead. Read a book. Read a blog post. Sit with something and reflect on it, rather than absorbing a hundred quick tips that leave you more confused than when you started.

You can have a presence online without letting it consume you. Those two things are not the same.

Redefining What Success Actually Means

We also talked about how easy it is to chase someone else’s definition of success without noticing you’re doing it. Full classes. A big following. A membership with a certain number of members.

Arundhati asks a different set of questions. When she shows up to teach, does she feel like she’s genuinely connecting the student to their yoga? Were her values in place that day? Did she feel authentic? Those are internal markers, and they’re the ones she measures against.

This isn’t about ignoring income. Arundhati is clear that the business has to work, and that when you’re starting out you should do everything yourself, even the parts you don’t enjoy, because that’s what makes it real. But she holds the external numbers loosely, and she stays anchored to why she’s doing this at all. That’s what keeps the whole thing feeling like hers.

You Are A Student Who Teaches

The reframe I keep thinking about since we spoke is this one. Arundhati believes you’re a student first and a teacher second. A student 23 hours of the day, teaching for one. And a yoga teacher isn’t only the person standing in front of a full class or building a big online platform. Some of the most important teachers are the ones teaching their kids, their neighbors, their small community. The invisible ones.

I love this because it takes so much pressure off. You don’t have to become a certain kind of visible, scaled-up version of a yoga teacher to be doing meaningful work. You can build slowly, stay a student, keep your values close, and still have real impact. In fact, that might be the most authentic path there is.

Follow Arundhati

https://www.instagram.com/letstalkyogapodcast/

https://www.instagram.com/arundhati_baitmangalkar/