The Off-Piste Path
Imposter Syndrome
Off-Piste Path is what I call the moments that don’t follow a clean line.
The decisions that don’t come with a map.
The seasons where you step away from the obvious route and trust your footing anyway.
In November 2025, I quit my job to go full-throttle on my yoga studio in a small mountain town. From the outside, it might look decisive. In reality, it’s been anything but linear. There’s been momentum and doubt, confidence and loneliness, clarity and second-guessing — often all at once.
I’ve been thinking for a long time about where these kinds of experiences actually belong. Social media has its place, but it’s never been where my thoughts fully land. Writing has always been that place for me — long before studios, businesses, or platforms existed in my life.
This felt like the right time to bring that practice out into the open.
Off-Piste Path is where I put words to the in-between space.
Not the highlight reel. Not the polished lesson. Just the honest terrain of building something while you’re still inside it — week by week, step by step.
This is where I’ll write through the process: the ideas, the frictions, the questions that don’t resolve neatly. Sometimes that will look like reflection. Sometimes it will look like observation. Sometimes it will simply be naming what’s true.
The first week felt heavy.
One of those weeks where the distance between where I am and where I want to be feels so wide it’s almost paralyzing. So I did what I always do when things start to spiral — I went for a walk in the rain. I sat by the creek that runs through my neighbourhood and let myself name what was actually there.
My imposter syndrome is loud.
A hundred internal no’s for every quiet yes.
Back in August, my partner Graehme and I moved into a live/work unit in Britannia Beach, British Columbia — a tiny seaside community where the mountains drop straight into the ocean. It’s been a massive leap for both of us.
And even though I know I’m following something deeply aligned, I still feel like a fraud sometimes.
Not spiritual enough.
Not “yoga” enough.
Not fit enough. Not flexible enough.
I call it my poser voice.
The internet is saturated with yoga influencers — hyper-flexible bodies, handstands, carefully curated aesthetics. And that world has often made me feel like I don’t belong in yoga at all. Much like my former life in corporate work, I’ve spent years feeling like an outsider trying to fit into spaces that weren’t built for me.
Some weeks, I don’t practice at all.
Some days, I question everything.
And yet — every time I teach, something settles.
I feel anchored. Back in my body. Back in my breath. Connected to a community that feels real. In those moments, there’s a quiet trust that I’m doing the right thing. That this work matters — even when the doubt is loud.
I love yoga deeply.
But I love the game of building something just as much.
The strategy. The risk. The long view of creating something from scratch.
And the more I lean into this outsider energy, the clearer it becomes: maybe not fitting in is the point. Maybe I’m not meant to look like every other yoga teacher. Maybe the studio I’m building isn’t meant to resemble a traditional yoga space.
Maybe this is the blue ocean.
This Substack is a place for that kind of thinking.
I don’t have a rigid publishing schedule, but I’ll be writing regularly — especially when things feel uncertain, complex, or worth unpacking. Free subscribers will get the full written posts. Down the line, I may use paid subscriptions for deeper dives, longer reflections, or more tactical breakdowns of building a business — but for now, this space is about clarity before conclusions.
Mostly, this is an experiment.
A place to think out loud — carefully, honestly, and without rushing the outcome.
If you’re walking your own off-piste path, I’m glad you’re here.