10 reasons to practice Yoga for an Entrepreneur

1) Keep confidence in yourself and in your project: yoga is one of the few disciplines that allows during the same class (usually 1 hour to 1:30) to engage both beginners for whom this is the very first time and experienced practitioners (yogis). And this happens with the greatest harmony and without any feeling of gap or offset. Everyone comes with his own level, desires, goals and finds a rare balance between an individual practice and group dynamics. You take confidence from the start thanks to the teacher’s genuine kindness. You always leave satisfied with a sense of pride for having allowed this time to yourself and for having provided these efforts, even some days when you have felt less comfortable without really knowing why. You do not compare yourself to others, not even to yourself from previous classes by the way: you end each class with this extra level of trust to add to your project which needs it so much every day.

2) Keep the focus on execution. Launch and manage a startup also means running the risk of not always knowing how to prioritize among a series of opportunities and different possible journeys to success, with the constraint of only 24 hours in a day and limited resources (cash, team, first and demanding customers, etc.). A yoga class consists of a series of postures (that can vary based on the different yoga types) as diverse as the number of opportunities for your project: but it still will invite you to focus on this specific posture, this unique flow, at this very moment ... It maintains and develops your ability to focus. It allows you during this posture to make precise choices on the level of energy and ambition you are ready to engage that day. It helps you to decide quickly by focusing on a single goal in this single instant. For its leader(s), the development of a young company is about learning how to make some decisions quickly and translate them into concrete actions for himself and its team day by day. I bet your financial partners (Business Angels or Venture Capital funds) would be ready to pay for your subscription if they consider that dimension!

3) Stay determined. Yoga is essentially a school of determination. The determination to decide to step into a new discipline that you feel will generate well-being and values. The determination to practice and go 2-3 times per week either early morning still half asleep or late evening after a long day at work or even during a whole week for a deserved retreat somewhere far and exotic. The determination during the class itself to go through the 60 or 90 minutes and finally to the heart of every posture to tend towards a goal that you set for yourself at that moment as small as it may seem.

4) Tame the fear of failure and risk aversion. The fact of being constantly on the edge of balance and sometimes to be encouraged by your yoga teacher to lose it on purpose, will make you naturally at ease with the notion of failure. The practice of yoga invites you to take your time to feel your limits and be aware of the boarders of your comfort zones. You can identify your limit at that moment, sometimes you lose your balance and recover your focus, you come back into the posture and you come out of it positively. By essence yoga is a school of tolerance to failure and management of its natural aversion to risk-taking. Without comparing it to martial arts that promote more the ability to recover from a blow or a fall, it nevertheless contributes to a form of resilience and potential to 'pivot' strategy when the time is right.

5) Cultivate humility, humour and self-derision. Yoga is often wrongly perceived as too much of a serious if not austere discipline. I recommend giving yourself time to find your style of yoga (Power, Flow, Bikram, Strala, Moksha, Yin, etc.), as well as a nice studio near your home or office, and the right team of teachers who know how to add the zest of humour and joy during the classes in order to preserve within the entrepreneur you are the ability not to take himself too seriously.

6) Become even more sociable and open-minded. There are many styles of yoga that force not to fall into a partisan approach to one of them but to remain open to the bridges between them all or to some emerging ones. I had for instance an opportunity to test yoga on surfboards in California and I loved it: when I mean 'Open Minded'… During a yoga class, you are surrounded by practitioners of all levels, from all backgrounds, all ages, who all have different motivations (wellness, weight loss, flexibility, breathing, intense sport, etc.): you leave your doubts and weaknesses in the lock room and share a collective moment of positive energy enabling you to remain or become an always more sociable and open-minded entrepreneur.

7) Develop your instinct and intuition by listening to yourself. Yoga allows to better know yourself to understand when to go a little further and on the contrary when to stop and do not exceed your limit that day. It develops a mindfulness of your environment, improves your listening skills of both the instructor and yourself during the class. Qualities that are expected from an entrepreneur who has to constantly capture weak signals from the market and better understand the feedbacks from its customers and its teams.

8) Find the inner calm in case of external crisis. You are an Entrepreneur? You are then a champion of managing crises of all kinds now and in the future: crises with your customers, your teams, your financial partners ... you are a sort of machine to manage crises and often transform them into opportunities! Yoga will greatly increase your ability to be positive by making your mind always quieter, calmer and therefore reduce your stress. As you know, yoga is all about the art of breathing: relearn or learn how to breathe to better control stress.

9) Persevere and go the distance, mentally and physically. Your entrepreneurial project and your startup are not comparable to a sprint of 2 to 3 years but much more to a marathon of 5 to 10 years. It will be about maintaining a constant effort and be able to go the distance both psychologically and physically. Yoga is genuinely expected to improve health and increase resistance with virtues such as flexibility, better sleep, blood circulation and improved functioning of organs, and finally better nutrition generally associated with a regular practice.

10) Disconnect from digital addictions. I practice yoga, but also other sports: I am connected to my RunKeeper app to record GPS when I run,  I keep my iPhone at my fitness break with my music hanging on my arm, or even with a waterproof case during a ride in Stand Up Paddle. During a yoga session, sms’s, emails and other notifications and alerts remain in the locker. A true moment of exceptional disconnection for hyper-connected entrepreneurs we all are and need to be.

Enjoy your yoga break and keep your entrepreneurship flow going!