From hobby to a life-long career, yoga gaining prominence across business and corporate landscape

NBA champion Dwayne Wade started practising yoga years back and was immediately hooked on the serenity that it offered. In fact, he highly credits his flexibility and performance on the court to yoga, which he started practising during the 2011 NBA lockout.

Yoga and pilates may not sound like a workout routine a basketball champion would engage in but nor do they seem like something an entrepreneur would adopt.

However, the reality is that an increasing number of businesspersons of all walks of life, hailing from various industries, have already been embracing them. While some have been practising yoga as a hobby to keep themselves calm amid the chaos, others have been turning this fitness mantra into a business idea.

Drawing the similarity between yoga and entrepreneurship, Rajat Khare, founder of Boundary Holding, says that just like yoga necessitates entangling yourself in poses or postures to gain strength and flexibility, in businesses, one has to entangle himself/herself in challenging situations to achieve success. He has even created a Facebook page called Rajat Khare – Yoga, with a mission to inspire the entrepreneurial community and like-minded people through yoga. 

The techno-preneur has taken up yoga and meditation as a hobby to balance his inner peace and maintain physical strength. On the other hand, we have Nuthan Manohar who gave up her lucrative corporate career to pursue a full-time career in yoga. 

The realisation to deviate from corporate to yoga entrepreneurship struck after she attended a two-week programme in an ashram in 2010. Fast forward to today and Nuthan now successfully runs a wellness start-up –‘Me Met Me’ which offers workshops on overall wellbeing predominantly to corporate executives in India and abroad through yoga and other Vedic concepts.

Not everyone gets to pursue their passion as a life-long career and people like Nuthan definitely makes us want to take a chance in life. However, when it comes to yoga, its significance is more than merely earning remuneration. 

From gaining a sense of tranquillity to achieving an enhanced energy, many successful entrepreneurs have found an edge through regular yoga practice. While this ancient Indian practice has gained prominence only in the recent times, now more than ever is it crucial to embrace it because of the uncertainty the pandemic has thrown at us.