Female Disruptors: Emilie Perz of ‘Sequential Body’ On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
Have discipline — You won’t make much roadway in life if you immediately give up on something when you don’t like the end result. Commitment is everything. When you dedicate your energy purposefully into one place
you will see results. But it takes that much discipline.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Emilie Perz.
Emilie Perz is widely known for her strong, creative and educational vinyasa flow classes. Voted one of California’s best yoga instructors, Emilie’s detail-oriented teachings reveal how yoga asana mirrors the practical movements we make in life and how learning to align the body precisely can create energy and equanimity in the body and mind. Perz recently launched Sequential Body a new online fitness platform.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
My father passed away while I was transitioning from high school to college. Shortly after I began suffering from stress induced panic attacks that left me in the hospital. Months of heavy antidepressants only made matters worse, so at the advice of a friend I tried my first yoga class. The breath techniques (pranyama) practiced at the end immediately sedated my anxiousness and gave me a feeling of power over my mind and body connection. I made a promise to carry on with yoga everyday and ten years later it led to a full-time career.
Why did you found your company?
Sequential Body came to light out of necessity during the Covid 19 pandemic. I wanted to offer a top-notch experience to my existing yoga students during the initial phase of quarantine and being home to effectively combat fatigue, anxiety, depression, and worry and to supply them with the tools to move, breathe and connect to their bodies and spirit.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
I’m a brutally honest person and can convey that through my public speaking. Through
Sequential Body, I’m able to speak openly and patiently about the trials
and tribulations we are facing as a society. I don’t simply offer up
quick fixes to life’s challenges, but rather, I provide and hold the
space necessary for people to investigate and uncover their shortcomings
and to initiate self-improvement projects that will make them a better,
kinder, more successful human being.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
Presently it’s been the Sequential Body team. I have hired three women who were private clients of mine to help run the company as a start-up. I have learned more from them in the
past 3 months then I have from an employer, manager, boss, co-worker,
student. They have educated me in numerous ways about start-ups and the
ins and outs of marketing, PR, advertising. Honestly, it’s because of
their dedication that I am equally vested in Sequential Body’s continued
success.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
We are pivoting directions in early 2021 to start speaking out about the integral need to employ yoga teachers in medical settings such as clinics and hospitals. Whether we are talking about addiction or injury, yoga teachers are aligned with an arsenal of therapeutic practices to help manage pain, depression, anxiety, etc. I couldn’t think of a better time than now for yoga teachers to be working alongside doctors to treat the human spirit; especially when we are living in an onslaught of fear, worry, and doubt. Our future society is going to be affected by PTSD from the Covid- 19 pandemic. It’s important to understand the role of the yoga teacher which is to help heal and hold space for people going through a crisis. Mind, body, connection is real, and employing yoga teachers in medicine is necessary for a kinder, more connected society.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your
journey? Please give a story or example for each.
Go for it — when the pandemic hit I wasn’t sure if it was the appropriate time to start an online business. I worried that things would open quickly and I wouldn’t have the time/energy to commit to it. I worried that my lack of business and enterprise skills would affect my ability to run it. I worried that I wouldn’t generate enough money through sales to sustain it. But all of those fears were dismantled when I finally just did it. Do the launch. Start the thing. Whatever it is, I promise you the road will pave itself, but you must be brave enough to take the risk and willing enough to stay on the journey.
Be Brave — nothing good comes from acting out of fear and hesitation.
Have discipline — You won’t make much roadway in life if you immediately
give up on something when you don’t like the end result. Commitment is
everything. When you dedicate your energy purposefully into one place
you will see results. But it takes that much discipline.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.’
I’d love to meet Michelle Obama.
What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
On Instagram @EmiliePerzYoga or online at https://www.sequentialbody.com/.
Female Disruptors: Emilie Perz of ‘Sequential Body’ On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.