Jeremy Chance
Chief Executive Officer / CEO
I built and run BodyChance: the largest Alexander Technique Teacher Education college in the world and the first million dollar Alexander Technique business.
I'm Jeremy Chance and Welcome to the ATSuccess website.
Until I got married and had two kids, I didn't care much about earning money as a teacher of Alexander Technique. I got by, had fun and struggled – looking back I can see it was not as wonderful as I imagined it was.
I got my wake call in New York, at the same time Boris Yeltsin was standing on a tank in Moscow.
I was staying in the Upper West Side at a guy's apartment. I'd met him through his girlfriend at Marj's (Barstow) recent summer workshop in Lincoln, Nebraska. He kindly agreed to let me pay the rent at the end of my stay (which I did) because I had no money.
To eat, I would use my Amex card at the local grocer shop, with no idea how I was going to pay it when the bill came.
I was in New York to study with Voice Coach, Miller Lide on the East side. Miller was helping me develop my American accent, as I had a role in my first feature film as an American TV producer.
BTW – I was an (unfocused) teacher of Alexander Technique, and had been for many, many years. But here I was in New York, trying to be an actor ...
Half way through my stay, the film project was cancelled.
I was so depressed, that I dragged myself out of bed every morning to run around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park so I would not sink down too low.
One day I couldn't run around the water because a woman had been murdered the night before. This was New York, and I felt my life was dyeing.
I remember looking at my Self in the mirror, with tears streaming down my face, wondering who this person was: why had he failed to support and love me in the way I deserved?
I slunk back to Sydney.
Len – a gay actor friend who later died of AIDS, let me sleep on his floor, as I had no money for rent. I was an Alexander Technique teacher of 10 years, already famous in our small community as Publisher and Editor of DIRECTION Journal. And here I was reduced to bumming off my friends.
As an Editor I had learnt various software, so I trafficked those skills to find employment. I finally got offered a job: a low level clerk at the bottom of an office feeding chain: the guy everyone got to boss around.
And yet, I remember how joyful I felt on my first day of work.
I should have been feeling ashamed: here I was, an Alexander Technique teacher working anonymously as a clerk.
But I wasn't: I was joyful, BECAUSE I FELT USEFUL AGAIN!
I was doing something that was constructive, that supported me, that used my intelligence and gave me hope for the future.
At that time I decided – I am NEVER, EVER going to be here again. I decided I will become the most successful Alexander Technique teacher that has ever lived on this planet. And that I would keep my focus on that, building a life and career that would do me proud.
I even told my Self I will end up Earning a million dollars a year, and I will live the life I want to live.
That was 23 years ago, and now I am ready to help you do the same. I do not yet earn a million dollars a year, and that is not what is important to me (despite what people say about me) because it is seeing the clear path that would bring a million dollars that is my daily inspiration.
It is not the money that matters: it is what it represents in achieving the spread of Alexander's work. Walter Carrington once wrote that Alexander's discoveries are on par with those of Darwin and Einstein in terms of their long term impact on the lives of ordinary people.
I am in total agreement with that.
What I have learnt about money is that it catalyses you being authentically connected to your own vision.
Sound weird? Here's how it works ... Setting an outrageous financial goal – which I recommend you do – is what led and compelled me to tear open the box of my beliefs, and step outside into a world I barely knew existed.
If you think money is dirty, just look at the amazing Bill Gates: on target for using his staggering wealth for the eradication of Polio by 2018.
Money has no inherent goodness or badness, so wanting a lot of it does not say you are greedy. It can equally say you are in training to become of one the greatest philanthropists to have ever graced our earth.
The purpose of this website, the purpose of my life, is to gather those people who share my dream, and find out how together we can lift our lives in a way that lifts the lives of others through disseminating Alexander's discoveries.
It is a life worth living, don't you think?
The first principle in our work is that you can only help others to the degree you can help your Self.
What I discovered in New York is that without financial health, I am not able to help others.
How can a teacher exist without students? From their patronage, a teacher gains financial health: so your rent is paid, healthy food is available and rest is a possibility.
My promise to you is I will do everything in my power to help you help your Self be the teacher you want to be. If money is a real problem for you I have created a free membership level.
If you are serious about being a full-time teacher, or lifting your career to another level of impactfulness. I suggest you invest in your Self and join up for one of my paid membership plans.
I want this for you (if you want this too): that your work will touch the lives of thousands, even millions of people. That your life teaching Alexander's discoveries will truly change this world into a better place to live.
Jeremy Chance
February 12, 2013
Meguro, Tokyo, Japan