The Studio CEO: Business Coaching For Yoga & Pilates Teachers & Studio Owners

From The Yoga Boss Vault: Your Business Results Are Created in Your Mind

• Jackie Murphy

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If you’re trying to grow your studio and keep hitting invisible walls—this episode explains why. Jackie Murphy breaks down the real thing that creates results in your business (and it’s not an Instagram strategy or another tactic). It’s your thinking.


In this Yoga Boss Vault episode, Jackie teaches the difference between the primitive brain (the part of you that’s wired for safety, efficiency, and avoiding risk) and the prefrontal cortex (the part of you that thinks like a CEO—strategic, logical, and action-oriented). You’ll learn how fear-based thoughts quietly run your decisions, why your brain acts like an “over-sensitive smoke alarm,” and the six common fears that show up for business owners—especially when marketing, selling, or investing.


Most importantly, Jackie shows you how to build the skill of expecting yourself to win—without delusional “positive thinking.” If you want sustainable growth, you have to learn to lead your mind first.


Timestamped Outline (approx)
[00:00] Why mindset creates results (not tactics)
[03:00] Primitive brain vs prefrontal cortex
[06:30] The “over-sensitive smoke alarm” analogy
[09:00] Six fears that derail your business
[18:30] Expectation as a CEO superpower
[22:00] “I can’t” → “How can I?”
[24:30] Why growth includes dips (roots + physics analogy)
[28:00] Weekly practice: where are your thoughts coming from?


Key Takeaways 

  • Your thoughts shape your decisions, actions, and results
  • The primitive brain is wired for safety—not business growth
  • Fear thoughts are often false alarms, not real problems
  • CEO thinking comes from expectation + problem-solving
  • Growth includes dips—and dips can accelerate your progress
  • “How can I?” is a leadership skill you practice into identity

FAQ:
What part of the brain creates fear when I market or sell my studio?
Your primitive brain (often called the limbic system). It’s designed to keep you safe and avoid risk—so it creates fear-based thoughts when you try something new.


How do I know if a thought is from my primitive brain?
If it’s rooted in fear (rejection, disappointment, being wrong, being seen), it’s likely a false alarm—not a real business problem.


What is the prefrontal cortex and why does it matter for business owners?
It’s the part of your brain responsible for planning, problem-solving, and long-term thinking—the exact skills required to lead as a CEO.


Why do I freeze or procrastinate when I try to post or sell?
Because your nervous system is scanning for safety. When your primitive brain thinks visibility is risky, it tries to stop you through avoidance.


How do I shift from fear-based thinking to CEO thinking?
Practice noticing where the thought comes from, then intentionally move into questions like: “How can I?” and “What’s the next best step?”


Is expecting yourself to win just toxic positivity?
No. Jackie teaches expectation paired with action and realistic management of dips. It’s not “wishful thinking”—it’s leadership thinking.


Why does business growth feel up and down?
Because growth is nonlinear. Dips are part of the process—and often th

Work with Jackie Murphy


SPEAKER_00:

It's time to embrace your inner seal and make more money without working more. This is just the beginning. How are you? I have a very important episode for you today because it's so important for you to understand what will actually create results in your business. Now, I would be not doing my job as your business coach to not convey to you what the most important thing is when it comes to actually creating results in your business because it's not an Instagram strategy and it's not actions that you can take. Now, if you've listened to this episode and you've listened to all the other episodes of the Yoga Boss podcast, you know that I have talked about a mindset and an importance of a mindset for a really long time. Sometimes, though, I think even when I hear the word mindset, I'm like, that's nice. That's not be like a nice to have thing to think positively about my business. And let me convey to you that that is not what I mean. I do not mean that you need to have a nice-to-have positive attitude about your business. You should 100% assume that good things are going to happen. And we're going to talk about that in this episode, but this goes way beyond mindset. What I want to convey to you is that the limitations that you face in your business, we are all of us, those limitations will be predominantly created in your mind. And the wins that you experience in your business and the results that you're able to create, those are also predominantly created in your mind. And I have to convey the importance of that because your mind is like a projector. And the thoughts that you're thinking in your mind will project themselves out onto reality. And just a very small example of this is if you have a belief that you're not capable of making six figures in your yoga business, it doesn't matter what you put on Instagram and it doesn't matter what stories you do or what posts you do, you will project into your 3D reality not making six figures as a yoga teacher. Now, the flip side of that, if you truly start to believe that you can make six figures as a yoga teacher, you will project that into your reality. Again, I'm not talking about affirmations, do those. That's awesome. I'm not talking about a positive mindset, do that, that's awesome. What I'm talking about is really understanding your mind in a way that helps you understand what thoughts you're thinking, what part of your brain is generating those thoughts, and if they are going to help you make decisions and take actions that move your business forward or hinder you and have you make poor decisions or take poor action or inaction that actually slow your business down. To summarize everything that I've said so far, like if your mind, if your thoughts are the thing that are really creating the results in your business outside of the action that you take, wouldn't it be very important to know exactly where those thoughts are coming from? You would want to know what part of your brain was creating the thoughts that were popping up into your reality and giving you the results that you have. So that's the first thing that we're gonna talk about. You have to recognize where thoughts come from. Now, I want to talk about this in a really simplistic way to break it down, to make it digestible for you. And in no way am I a neuroscientist and the top expert on this, but I am gonna give you what I understand and what I use to be helpful in my business. And you can take it if you want it and it's helpful for you. And if you want to dive deep into rewiring your brain and the neuroscience behind it, please do. Like the more you know, the more you know. Research. What I want to tell you is that there are two main parts where thoughts are created in your brain. You have your primitive part of your brain. Some people call this your limbic brain. It's made up of your amygdala, your brainstem, like it's really low down in your brain. And then you have what some people call the neocortex, the prefrontal cortex. It's your part of your brain that was developed most recently. Like humans got this part of our brain most recently. And your prefrontal cortex is what allows you to think like a business owner. Your prefrontal cortex creates thoughts that will help you create results in your business and serve your students and take action in order to make that happen. Your limbic brain, its sole job, like its sole desire is to keep you safe. So alone in your house. Like if you really want to be safe, don't get out of bed. But it's to keep you efficient, which means doing nothing new in that same pattern, super efficient, and to help you avoid any kind of danger or risk. And building a business, being an entrepreneur inherently involves a risk. So it's really important for you to be able to recognize when this fear-based part of your mind is coming up and providing thoughts that then are generating the actions that you take and the results that you have in your business. I want you to think about this part of your brain as a little bit of an outdated instinct. Like this part of your brain is super important when it comes to like, don't eat that berry because it's poisonous, eat this berry and don't deviate. This part of your brain was super important when it came to like there's a tiger over there, hide in that cave. But now, fast forward to 2024, when I'm recording this, most of us don't live next to tigers and we're not foraging for berries outside. And so it's a little bit of an outdated instinct that we don't want to get rid of. Like you need this part of your brain to react in the moment when there is real danger. But real and present danger literally means something in front of you where you are physically, emotionally, or mentally unsafe. Other than that, your primitive brain can act like an oversensitive smoke alarm. Okay, so stay with me on this. When my first apartment, I wish I had a picture of this apartment. I was teaching yoga full time. This is like the first couple years of me teaching yoga full-time. And this was like the cheapest apartment that I could get that also let me live by myself. It was$800 a month to live there. And so the building that I lived in, you can imagine that it was not new. It was old. And they had a smoke alarm in that apartment that no matter what, if I cook something on the stove, if I put something in the oven, if I put something in the toaster, if I cooked anything at all, the smoke alarm would go off every single time. So much to the point like my dog knew it was gonna happen every time, and we would have like our towel ready to like calm down the smoke alarm. She would hide every time I started to cook because she's like, this is just gonna be an awful noise in a few minutes. It was this very oversensitive smoke alarm going off even when there was no danger, right? Even when I was actually cooking well and there wasn't a smoke and there wasn't a fire, the smoke alarm was going off all the time, saying danger, danger, danger, danger, making it really hard to cook anything and enjoy it, right? Like it was an annoying, it was a nuisance. Some of you are trying to build your business with that same smoke alarm. Your primitive brain is this oversensitive smoke alarm going off all day long, every day, saying danger, danger, danger, danger, danger. And in reality, you're safe. In reality, you're in your house recording a video on your phone. And so you have to know and be able to recognize when that oversensitive smoke alarm is feeding you thought after thought after thought after thought, and it's trying to alert you to danger that is not there. Because when it is active like that, when it's constantly going off like that, you will be stuck in fear and you'll make decisions from fear and you'll act from fear. Now, I came up with six different, like different fears that the smoke alarm kind of uh signals when it comes to building your business so that you can be aware that if these thoughts come up, most likely it's just your primitive brain trying to keep you safe and not actually something that you need to solve in your business or a problem to give your attention to. The first one, our primitive brains, and this is from childhood, this is from being like evolution, our primitive brains are really afraid of being wrong. We're really afraid of being wrong. And I see this come up for my clients when they go to market and sell in their business. They're so afraid of telling someone boldly, I can help you, we're gonna help you feel less stressed with yoga. And so they're so afraid of not actually being right about that, even though there's evidence and data and science to back it up now, that they just say, Hey, like if you feel like it, I'd love to work with you, or if you really want to, you know, one day maybe do this, it could be kind of nice for you, or it may work out for you, but it may not. It takes their marketing from honest but bold to watered down because they're afraid of being wrong, afraid of being in that position where they're wrong. And so if your brain is giving you thoughts like that, know that it's most likely from your primitive brain. Again, everything we're talking about is human. It's like your human nature, it's your brain. It's not anything that you could have known was gonna come up before you started building a business. So don't judge yourself, don't criticize yourself. Just this is creating awareness around hey, is this thought coming from my primitive brain that's gonna ruin my business? Or is this thought coming from my prefrontal cortex that's gonna help me build a business? The second fear, the second typical fear that our primitive brain comes up with is just exposure, being seen. How many of y'all feel that, right? Like posting on Instagram, putting your face to your stories, selling, like you personally selling publicly. We are afraid, it might even be teaching, right? Sitting up and teaching for the first time. Your primitive brain is afraid of that exposure because it used to be unsafe. And so it'll give you thoughts of like, oh, I don't really want to be seen. I don't know if it's safe, or I can't really put that out there. I can't say that. It's worried about being seen. The third one, the third fear that your primitive brain will offer you is disappointment. Like disappointment, the fear of disappointment that if you do it and it doesn't work, what will happen? Or if you invest in a business coach and it doesn't work, what will happen? That is your primitive brain. That is your primitive brain trying to protect you from taking any action and actually figuring out if there's disappointment there or not. It just preassumes that you're gonna be disappointed and keeps you safe from that. And it happens so often. So many people right now I know are on the fence of either joining the business of yoga course and membership or the grow mastermind. And they're like, oh, but I just don't know if the return on the investment is gonna be there. And if I spend money and it I get disappointed, then I won't, that'll be awful. So I just won't take action. And I always tell my clients, like, you you can only solve from your prefrontal cortex the problem that is actually in front of you. You can't solve the problems that you may think exist in the future because they do not exist. So you're spending time in an imaginary future is solving imaginary problems. Hint that does not make you money. So just be aware of when your fear of disappointment is stopping you from moving forward, or it's really playing a big part of your decisions that you're making or the actions that you're taking. The next fear, it's similar. The next fear that your primitive brain offers is the fear of being hurt, the fear of doing something, going all in, giving it your all, and then like it not working and you feeling that hurt. And that fear of feeling that hurt is what will have you make certain decisions and take actions. And again, it'll stop you and slow you down. The next one is the fear of abandonment, that if you put yourself out there and you go for what you want, that your close friends, your family, they may abandon you. Um, the next fear, these are very similar, is the fear of rejection. So, like the fear of rejection, the fear of abandonment abandonment, that used to be really primal. Like it used to be our, it still is. Our survival is dependent on the relationships that you have. And so putting yourself out there in a way, being seen, and you're risking being either abandoned or rejection, that can slow you down and make you think terrible thoughts that will create results of not having a business. The other way that this shows up is like the fear that your students aren't going to come back or the fear that they're not coming back because they personally don't like you and not because their lives are busy. And for example, this is super small, but this will this will show up in your follow-up conversations. If you think your primitive brain is at all a part of your follow-up conversations, you'll start to assume like they don't like me. There, they didn't buy because they don't like me or they don't like the like offer. You'll take it personally instead of like they didn't buy because they're human and they went on vacation this week. And I should follow up out of kindness, assuming that they're gonna buy. Like that is the difference between building a business from your primitive brain and building a business from your prefrontal cortex. Y'all following? So we've got being wrong, exposure, disappointment, being hurt, abandonment, and rejection. If your thoughts include these fears, you can know for the most part, it's probably from your primitive brain. It's probably not a thought that's going to generate an abundance of students and an overflowing amount of wealth for you. Like you can't create wealth from the fear of being wrong. You can't create wealth from the fear of exposure. You can't create wealth from disappointment, being hurt, the fear of abandonment, the fear of rejection. Because inherently, to create wealth in your business, you have to like period. You have to be in a position of service. And you can't be in a position of service thinking thoughts of service of I'm serving other people, I can serve other people. How can I serve other people today? If your primitive brain is the one that's creating the thoughts in your head. So know where those thoughts come from and know that one, you're not wrong for having them, but two, you don't have to believe them. Every time your brain says, Oh my God, we're gonna die, you can be like, wait a second, is this my oversensitive smoke alarm? Or is there actual danger or an actual problem here? And an actual problem will not be hard to understand, it will not be murky, it will not be confusing, it will be in front of you. You will know. Here's the problem, right? Other than that, it's probably all of this fear coming up at the end of the day. Business is math, like really business is math. How many people can see your stuff from those eyeballs that you got? How many people did you talk to and convert into sales? It actually is so boring. It's just math. But we add in all of this drama from our primitive brain. And of course we do. We're human, we live for the drama. That's right, bravo exists. Okay, so every four seconds, I want you to know this. Every four seconds, your nervous system, your subconscious is scanning every four seconds. Is that right? No, here's the actual quote. Every second your nervous system or your subconscious is scanning your environment to see if you're safe. It's literally asking, am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Every second or four times. So that is where your primitive brain is always, it's always looking. Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? So you have to train yourself to know that you are safe, to know that you can think from your prefrontal cortex, that you can feel safe in your body first and then post, and then show up and then follow up, because that will create the business for you. When you're operating from your prefrontal cortex, your thoughts are going to be thoughts. You following? So we just talked about what is not going to serve you. We're not going to switch now and talk about what will serve you. When you're operating from your prefrontal cortex, the thoughts that you'll be thinking and the decisions that you'll be making will sound and come from expectation, but they will sound like and they will come from expectation, meaning you will start to have thoughts that are expecting you to win. An expectation is your greatest superpower. And I researched obviously, I love a definition the definition of expectation, and it's this of Belief that someone will or should achieve something. When your pre-frontal cortex is in the driving seat, the way that I say this to my clients is when you're thinking like a business owner, when you are truly thinking like a business owner, you are operating from the expectation that you should achieve, that you will achieve, that you will be successful. And your thoughts will reflect that expectation. Are y'all following me? Let me give you an example because we talked about investing. When your primitive brain is thinking about investing, you're afraid. And when your prefrontal cortex is thinking about investing in a business coach, joining the business of yoga course or the grow mastermind, it won't sound like, oh my gosh, I can't spend that money. I what if I don't make the money back? What if I'm disappointed? What if I'm sad? What if I'm hurt? What if it doesn't work? That's your primitive brain. That's not going to help you create a successful business. Your prefrontal cortex operates from expectation that you will achieve, that you will get the result that you want. You want a six-figure business, you can do it. If you want a seven-figure business, you can do it. Your prefrontal cortex will take I can't and turn it into how can I? How can I? Let me just say that again because I want you to write it down. I want you to really hear me. Your prefrontal cortex will take I can't and turn it into how can I? I can't invest in that. It's too much money. No. Your prefrontal cortex will say, How can I invest in that? What can I do? Now let's take it outside of investing. Your primitive brain will say, I can't post on Instagram. That would be so crazy. No, how can I? I can't sell on Instagram. No, how can I? It will take everything and turn it into a problem-solving, action-oriented, moving you forward decision because you're expecting in the long run that you will win. Now, if you are leading a team, you also have to expect them to win. You have to hold space to expect yourself to win, the business to win, and your team to win. And that is a skill. This is why it's a module in the course. Thinking like a business owner, expecting yourself to win is a skill because you are literally rewiring your brain to think not from here, but from your prefrontal cortex. And they've found that it takes about 400 repetitions. Boom, boom. How can I win? How can I win? I expect to win. I expect to win. 400 intentional repetitions for your neurons to rewire so that you think that way naturally. You are not naturally going to think like a business owner. Naturally, you're going to let your primitive brain take over. It's not your fault, it's how we operate as humans. Thinking like a business owner is a business skill that you have to acquire. You have to be able to rewire your brain to think on purpose with expectation and positive assumption, no matter what, automatically. Okay. How can I do this? I know I'll get it done. What can I do? How can I do it today? I feel like I'm fired up. The last thing that I want to tell you is that expecting something and knowing or believing that you're going to be successful is not head in the sand, positive thinking. Okay. I'm not telling you to be potty Pollyanna being like, I'm going to be successful no matter what. I haven't posted in a year, but I believe money will come to me. It's not going to work. Sorry. I love the law of attraction, but I'm also a human. I'm like 3D reality. Turns out you need to do something, right? So it's not just about positive Pollyanna thinking. You have to expect good things to happen, but I also want you to use your prefrontal cortex to manage your expectation. Okay. What I mean by this, I'm going to give you an example. When you look at a tree in nature, I want you to think about this. Does it go down first or does it go up first? You're probably answering me rhetorically, right? I can hear you on the other side of the speakers. The roots grow first. The seed goes into the ground first. Some of you are so afraid to go down first before you grow. And it's kind of like a seed that wants to be a giant oak tree, avoiding being planted. And it can't grow if it's not planted, if it doesn't go down, if the roots don't go down, it's never going to grow up. So follow me with this. While I want you to expect yourself to be successful, while I believe that you will and you should achieve the business that you want to have, it's not going to look like this one pretty linear line off to the upper right corner. No, it probably will look like a drop down before you go back up. And I recently saw this video. I I want to be able to find it for you guys to put it in the show notes. I'll look for it. I saw this video of an experiment they did to show this, to demonstrate this. And it was two balls next to each other. And one ball was a smooth ramp, just straight down, smooth ramp down at an angle. And the other ramp was hilly. It was up and down, up and down, up and down. Now the two balls they released at the same time to go down their two ramps. And the ball that had the hills up and down, up and down, up and down, got to the end faster than the ball on the straight ramp. Now, this is physics, right? The velocity of the up and down, up and down, up and down got it to the end faster. These principles, like nature and physics, like they apply to your business. I do not want you to be afraid of being planted, of going down. And think about this with investing because it's such a perfect example. Some of you are afraid to go down in your money, to see your bank account go down. But guess what, my friends? It maybe never go up. You gotta be willing to for it to go down for it to then go up. Some of you are like, if I start posting every day on Instagram, my follower count may go down. Good. Please let the people who were never gonna buy from you leave. Let it go down before it goes up. And in business, it's not just one down and then one up. No, it is the up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down. But when you're thinking like your prefrontal cortex and you're thinking like a business owner and you have that skill, inherently, when you experience a down, when you experience a drop, you will not freak out. You'll be able to write it out. You'll be able to think logically about it. You won't go into fear that you were wrong, fear that you were too seen, fear that you actually were gonna be disappointed and you were right, fear of being hurt, fear of abandonment, fear of rejection. And you'll be able to be like, oh yeah, this is what happens in business before we grow. We're gonna take this down. We're gonna look at how we can problem solve. We're gonna get feedback. We're gonna come up with a plan and we're gonna use this to soar. Listen, when you experience a drop in your business, it is an opportune moment for you to exponentially grow. Do you understand? The down moments are there for you. They're not there to slow you down. But you can only think that way when you're operating from your pre-frontal cortex, when you're thinking like a business owner. If you want exponential growth, quantum leaps, like there's a sexy marketing term out there. You want a quantum leap in your business. That only happens when you allow the down, when you can think like a business owner in the down and use it to move forward, to exponentially grow. So I had to give this podcast to you today. I had to get it out there because I'm all for telling you here are the four reels you need to post every week. Like, let me make your job easier. I'm I'm good at marketing, I'm good at what I do. Let me create these reels for you. This is inside of the business of yoga membership. You get this. I'm all for that. But I can't hand you four reels every week and not tell you that your thinking behind posting it matters more. Do you understand? Your thoughts will create the results that you have in your business and the results that you have in your mind. And so you have to know where those thoughts are coming from. Your primitive brain or your prefrontal cortex. Your primitive brain will lead you to safety, security, comfort, and never risking anything. It will not lead you to a thriving yoga business. Your prefrontal cortex will lead you to problem solving, planning, evaluation, strong decision making, knowing how to invest, knowing how to really move forward when you drop down, when you have a dip. And so my wish for all of you, whether you're in the business of yoga course and membership or not, is that you listen to this podcast and just for a week, just practice it. Just for a week, when thoughts come up, when you're doing your business life, when you're going to teach, when you're talking to students, when you're selling your membership, when thoughts come up, I want you to ask yourself where is this thought coming from? Because that is what will determine your success. My friends, thank you so much for listening to this episode.