Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Graham has Juliet on the podcast today since Ashkahn is doing some post-Conference traveling.
The duo talks about times when floating just doesn’t feel like a good idea, which is something they have a bit of disagreement about. Juliet shares her experiences being cautious of her experiences in the tank and how she tends to have to be more mindful of when she floats.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode not currently available
Graham: All right, hello everybody.
Juliet: Wow.
Graham: My name is Graham.
Juliet: And my name is Juliet.
Graham: And Juliet is joining us in the studio today. We’re going to be doing another sans Ashkahn episode while he’s off frolicking around Europe post-conference. And Juliet is one our Float Tank Solutions team who’s been with us for a while now. She went on Float Tour, if you remember that. It took three months to visit a ton of float tank centers around North America. And she does a lot of the blogs and behind-the-scenes content work as well, including a lot of the free products there. About Float Tanks Guide and Tank Comparison Chart and just an increasing amount of responsibility here at Float Tank Solutions. So we actually wanted to take a little bit of time and answer some questions that weren’t quite so technical and may be relating more to the personal floating side of things. Which, in addition to being one of the crew, Juliet is obviously an avid floater as well. That’s it. So now you can say I finished my introduction.
Juliet: All of that is true. “I am absolutely indispensable.” I think is the big takeaway there.
Graham: “And I think I need a raise.” So today’s question is, “Are there times when you feel like you can’t float?”
Juliet: Yes. Next question.
Graham: Like if you have giant cuts all over or something like that. Like you were just in a car accident. You probably don’t want to immediately hop in a float tank.
Juliet: Right. Or after downing like three cups of coffee or …
Graham: I’ve had super-caffeinated floats that were not the worst thing in the world.
Juliet: I’ve had really bad super-caffeinated floats. So I think that that’s another thing is just being mindful of your own limitations. I think that there are definitely people who are very open and explorative when going in a float tank and there are other people who need to … I don’t know, tread water in a float tank.
Graham: Before you start adding adding caffeine?
Juliet: Yeah.
Graham: The hard stuff?
Juliet: Exactly. I honestly, I think having too much going on in your mind can sometimes really affect the float and not always in a productive way.
Graham: See, it’s interesting because, for me, I … if there’s not an actual physical reason to not go in a float tank, I often just get a lot out of the float tank. There’s … I can’t think of a time when I haven’t wanted to hop in because I have emotional stuff on my mind or I’m going through things. If anything, I personally have found the float tank to be just a really nice place to work through things. I mean, it’s not always the best floats and sometimes they’re hard. But it’s not … I guess it’s not a place that I shy away from.
Juliet: Right. And I think that that’s probably true for a lot of folks but I think that may be not true for everybody. So-
Graham: Something that I feel isn’t universal ? That doesn’t seem right.
Juliet: Surprising, I know. But, and this is actually something that I’ve heard a lot from other people in the float community where they feel like it’s not something that’s really recognized. It’s like … we should always be open to floating. And I think you should definitely try more often than not, but also recognizing when you know that there’s going to be times when it’s maybe not going to work out. Which has been really helpful for me is knowing that there are times where it’s not a good idea to float. I also don’t like to float … not just on caffeine, but on a whole lot of intoxicants or anything like that, like different things. If I’m a little drunk, I don’t want to get in a float tank. For example …
Graham: Alcohol is definitely not the thing to mesh too much with floats.
Juliet: Right.
Graham: And it seems so unappealing too. But, yeah, I’d definitely put that in the same category.
Juliet: I would too, for sure.
Graham: Ashkahn really does not want to go floating when it’s morning time because it’s really hard for him to wake up in the first place. So he’s like, “I just got out of bed. It took so much effort. I don’t want to go hop in a float tank, start resting again.” Other time, I guess if my tank is making a weird clicking noise, I just know that if I float, I’m going to think about fixing it and won’t be able to concentrate on it or anything like that. When a float tank is malfunctioning in some way, I find the floats especially difficult. So I guess I … those are times when I’ll shy away from particular tanks maybe.
Juliet: Right.
Graham: Or you go float at another float center, you know?
Juliet: Yeah. I mean, if that’s an option. There are centers out there where they’re the only place within a hundred miles.
Graham: What? My activities aren’t universal across all people in the float industry? So here’s a question for you. Do you know that you’re … how do I phrase this? Do you know that it’s going to be a bad float before you get in or do you just have times where you know that you shouldn’t float?
Juliet: Oh, yeah.
Graham: Or is it more like, you hopped in the tank, it’s not going well, and then you get out after like 15 minutes.
Juliet: I’ve experienced both of those, yes. And there are definitely times where I’ve known it’s going to be a bad float and it’s not necessarily contingent on my mood. Because I’ve been in bad, negative spaces and had really positive floats. So I’m not saying being in a negative mind space or being kind of down on yourself is necessarily a bad place to get into a float from. It’s more like recognizing where your thoughts and patterns are taking you in that moment and maybe recognizing when being completely isolated by yourself isn’t super helpful, right?
Graham: So kind of like, just trust yourself?
Juliet: Yeah.
Graham: And if you’re not having a good float then hop out?
Juliet: Yeah. I think that that’s a really important and valuable thing.
Graham: That’s something we tell our customers too. Especially ones who are worried about having a bad float or think that … sometimes people think we’re actually going to lock them in the tank which, obviously, is true only in the most extreme circumstances.
Juliet: When they really deserve it.
Graham: But no, I mean actually telling people. It’s like, “Hey, you don’t have to shut the tank.” And if you want to, if you get in the tank, you lay down, the door is open, the light is on and it’s not for you. You can just get out and we’ll refund you. If you get out after 15 minutes, don’t worry about it, you know?
Juliet: Yeah. A float mulligan.
Graham: Totally. Everybody gets one.
Juliet: Everybody gets one.
Graham: All right, anything else to say about times when you don’t feel like floating?
Juliet: No.
Graham: I guess, I mean, I really liked your kind of message, which is just giving permission people to feel that. I think especially as float tank owners, there is a lot of pressure to take advantage of hopping in the tank and almost feel like this should be something that you feel like doing all the time, so-
Juliet: And float center owners are typically, from what I’ve noticed, very enthusiastic about the practice. And there’s probably a little bit of a disconnect between that and their average customer and it’s important to recognize that, I think. And find that there are going to be different ways that people approach floating.
Graham: Cool. Well, I think that’s a great message for anyone and on that note, if you have any questions of your own, go on down to floattanksolutions.com/podcast and send it it.
Juliet: And see you next time.
Graham: Talk at you next time.
Juliet: Talk at you next time.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Funding your center through Kickstarter – DSP 119
Crowdfunding has made so many projects possible that would otherwise not exist. It seems perfect for niche ideas, concepts that would otherwise never see the light of day, and passion projects that just need to happen. This sounds perfect for float centers, but there are some caveats.
Crowdfunding is time intensive and there’s not guarantee of success. Aside from that, there are some issues with it that complicate things for float centers that other crowdfunded projects likely won’t face. Graham and Ashkahn talk about the successes of float center crowdfunding and the not-so-successes as well.
Don’t Build Your Own Float Tank! – DSP 118
For anyone considering a DIY float tank, give this episode a listen first. This isn’t a discussion on the merits of doing things one way versus another or expressing an opinion on one side and playing devil’s advocate for the other. Graham and Ashkahn know painfully well from personal experience the pitfalls of falling into the hubris trap of thinking you can build your own float tanks. They built two large open tanks in Float On and even years later they still cause headaches.
What’s more, they’ve spoken with dozens of people who’ve also gone through this themselves and heard their horror stories after they didn’t listen to the advice of not doing it.
The perception that it can be a cost-cutting measure or a more reliable way to get an operating float tank in your center by going DIY is generally pretty flawed. There’s so much to it that you just can’t consider before the fact.
Should Your Float Center have a Blog? – DSP 117
This seems like a good idea on paper. It helps with SEO stuff for Google. It gives you an outlet to write about floating and share information about the industry. And it seems to fall in line with something that other businesses do, right?
So what are the downsides? How much time and effort does a blog really take? What sort of impact does it have for a float center? Graham and Ashkahn lay out the pros and cons as well as things you may not initially consider about the responsibility of having a blog.
Thoughts on Buying Yelp Ads – DSP 116
There are lots of businesses that experience the dogged persistence of Yelp sales people calling them. Float On has done both buying Yelp ad space and living without it and Graham and Ashkahn break down exactly what that experience was like.
They also go into exactly what Yelp ads mean and how it impacts your float center (or doesn’t, as the case may be) as well as how well Yelp stacks up in comparison to other ad sources.
When is it Time to Open a Second Float Center? – DSP 115
Okay, so… Float On only has one location (not counting Float On Hong Kong) and there’s certainly a reason for that. Graham and Ashkahn have toyed with the idea of opening up another center multiple times throughout the years but something else always came up. As they’ve met more people in the industry, they’ve seen some of the pitfalls and successes from people opening additional locations, franchises and whatever else. They share their thoughts on when they think it’d be best to open and why they say to wait a little bit.
Latest Blog Posts
Much Ado About Nothing
Today, I’d like to talk to you about nothing. But first I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Ashkahn, and I’m one of the co-founders of Float On. I’ve spent the last 2 years of my life entirely devoted to these magical boxes we’ve all discovered, and...
Past & Present of Oasis & Future of Floating
My focus here/now will be on the past [portion of this 'assignment'] that set me up to be involved in floatation work... It was probably inevitable that I would end up involved with float tanks .... When your last name is Wasserman, which means 'waterman' in german*,...
Past, Present, Future
My life is focused around balance. This is the key to everything I do; A balance between cosmic vows of spirituality, family, and the business with the scales constantly being tipped back and forth on the scale.To understand why I am involved in the Flotation Industry...
The Art of Managing Expectations
When considering opening a floatation center, I came across the following story that helped me understand the process that I was going to be going through as the owner of Float Matrix. There once was a plumber who was excellent at what he did. He knew everything...
