Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashton August.
Hi Ashton, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
Shortly after receiving my MFA in Creative NonFiction Writing and becoming an English Professor, I also started teaching yoga. I wanted to bridge my passion for writing with my love of yoga and desire to spread wellness on a global level. This was when YogiApproved (we’ve since rebranded to YouAligned) was born.
My background in academia, a blossoming career in writing, and my ongoing fascination with yoga and wellness became the trifecta recipe a decade ago that led me to where I am now…
2015: I started my yoga + wellness online magazine, YouAligned, and continued to teach yoga in person. YouAligned’s initial revenue model was to do product reviews (this was first gen UGC!) which got us into making videos.
2017: We started making yoga videos and putting them on YouTube. This gained us a lot of traction – my Gentle Yoga Flow got 4M+ views – and this is when we decided to create YA Classes, our yoga + fitness membership app. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of teaching millions of students both in person and online.
2018: I self-published my first book, Learn Grow Shift: 30 Days of Personal Growth.
2020: I received a book deal to write A Year of Self Motivation for Women.
2024: I am currently writing my third book, 101 Mindfulness Practices for Anxiety, which comes out Winter of 2025!!!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I have experienced plenty of wins, had my fill of success and I am continuously grateful for the abundance of opportunities I receive. And I have experienced my fair share of struggles along the way. The road has been filled with detours, backtracks, and reroutes – aka, mistakes, failures, and challenges.
When I started YouAligned.com, I did not receive support or understanding from family and friends. Despite their good intentions, they basically felt I was going to fail, that starting a company didn’t have any security or safety net, and that I’d be better off working somewhere for a consistent paycheck and health benefits (sometimes tempting, haha). This is a common story for entrepreneurs. If you don’t have an entrepreneurial mindset, it doesn’t make sense to most people.
YouAligned.com is a small business that is proudly grassroots. We don’t have deep-pocket investors or financial backing like many big online yoga companies do. While grassroots has its benefits that make it worthwhile to me (like autonomy and staying true to our vision), it comes with many challenges!
Experiencing total burnout was another big struggle for me. Working for yourself is great in terms of flexibility and “being your own boss.” It also means that all the work is up to you to get done. And there are endless things to do, especially in a small business where you wear many hats.
So, in my younger years and early days of building YouAligned and YA Classes, I worked 12+ hour days 6-7 days a week. We had our office in our living room, so we never truly kept work and home life separate. I did this for years, fueled by passion and coffee. Lots of coffee. So, along with burnout, I experienced adrenal fatigue.
But once wasn’t enough for this stubborn woman! I experienced burnout for a second time in 2020, and I crashed and burned. It took me over a year to fully recuperate. But that time, I learned my lesson. I now double down on rest, therapy and coaching, my self-care, and important non-negotiables like taking two full days off each week and completely unplugging. Rest is productive. Downtime is key to success. I will not forget this again!
As you know, we’re big fans of YouAligned and YA Classes. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
YouAligned.com is our yoga and wellness online magazine with thousands of free articles on yoga, meditation, mindfulness, nutrition, and more resources for mind-body-life wellness. We are named Top Ten Global Yoga Resources with over a million annual readers! YA Classes is our 5-star yoga and fitness membership app. Between our website, app, and YouTube, we have had the immense privilege of spreading wellness to millions of people around the world.
I believe altruism should be a key pillar of every business, and it certainly is for mine. When we first created YA Classes, we wanted to find a way to motivate our members to stay consistent with their wellness. More importantly, we wanted to find a way to give back, and that’s when the idea to quantify classes with tree planting was born. 313,000+ trees planted later, we couldn’t be more proud of the impact this has had on our members, the planet, and the farming communities in Sub-Saharan Africa where these trees are planted.
We are known for industry-leading quality content, relatable and down-to-earth teachers, a huge variety of classes, and thousands of informative articles. We specialize in YOUR MIND-BODY-LIFE WELLNESS!
What sets us apart: planting trees/having a giveback initiative, female-founded and led, grassroots, a beautiful user-friendly platform, downloadable classes to play offline.
What I’m most proud of: Being named top ten GLOBAL yoga resources! AND planting over 313,000 trees.
What to know: YA Classes is one of the best yoga, meditation, and fitness apps out there. Our thousands of 5-star reviews speak for themselves! If you’re looking for a wellness membership, this is it. When you support YA Classes, you support a female-led small business, not a big corporation (though we DO offer corporate wellness discounts for our membership). Also, you’re planting trees for classes completed, and you’re not wasting time scrolling through the endless YouTube videos of varying quality.
What were you like growing up?
I was a shy kid, way more interested in playing in the woods with my dog Bo or talking with the adults (clearly an only child from a small family) than having friends my own age. From a very young age, I loved to read (my dad taught me when I was 3). I wrote my first book of poems in 5th grade and it was published in the school library!
My interests were reading, writing poetry, and animals. I was totally obsessed with animals, particularly dogs and horses. I loved being outside and spent most of my free time at my grandparent’s house in Evergreen, Colorado. This charming little mountain town will forever be my happy place. My grandparents traveled with me most summers in their oldschool Winnebago, so early on, I developed a deep appreciation for “windshield therapy,” road trips, and traveling.
My parents were divorced when I was 3, and my mom moved around a lot. So, year after year, I was the new kid in school. Being shy and quiet, I got picked on a lot. In high school, I was badly bullied to the point that my mom pulled me out and put me in a charter school.
But with my family, aka when I felt safe to be myself, I was sweet and funny, adventurous and curious. The day I turned 16, I got a job at a 50’s diner – Gunther Toodys – and this totally changed my life. I went from being shy in public to being the outgoing 50’s lingo-talking hostess “with the most,” and that job brought me out of my shell.
I gained a huge amount of confidence and learned a lot about social interaction, effective communication, and so much more. Every high school or college kid should work in a restaurant at least once – you gain so many life skills, plus it’s a great job to fall back on! I waitressed or bartended through grad school.
Pricing:
- YA Classes monthly membership: $14/mo.
- YA Classes annual membership: $8/mo.
- 1-1 Consulting with me: contact me for a la carte and package pricing
- My second book, A Year of Self Motivation: $19 on Amazon
- My first book, Learn. Grow. Shift: $24
Contact Info:
- Website: www.youaligned.com www.yaclasses.com www.ashtonaugust.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamashtonaugust/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamashtonaugust/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashton-august-yogiapproved/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyEEqjhf3NeujoC73yUZbKw
Image Credits
Tabor Aragon
With Love Photographers
