Daily Dose of Wellness: CEOs Do Yoga, too

by Damla Eytemiz

 

Yoga, Yoga, Yoga…

This week was my first week at teaching with Yogiños: Yoga for Youth®. Even though I began teaching this week, my journey with Yogiños: Yoga for Youth® started when last year I met Beth Reese, the founder and CEO of the company. In such short time, we became really good friends. That woman’s sincerity, energy, synergy, friendship and outlook on life made me search the underlying secrets of it.

And no wonder; that magic was Yoga and her company, Yogiños: Yoga for Youth®. As I got more interested, I started to read more about Yoga, wellness, health and all the subjects that will help me to make OHMazing™ decisions.

I read an article on Forbes and I felt the need to share it with you, my Life-Lovers friends.

I hope you enjoy it.

Yoga Made Me A Better CEO by Stanton Kawer

I never imagined I'd be writing an article about how yoga makes me a more effective CEO. I don't even know if I'm more of an authority as a CEO or as a yoga student. I do help run a successful organization, and I drive to and from work with a yoga mat and towel in my car (though it's not the "green" vehicle you might expect of a yoga student). And I now wear fewer ties and more bracelets when conducting meetings than I would have ever thought (not as midlife crisis or new age attire, but just for fun and self-expression). For kicks I have started off meetings asking employees to take a deep breath and to "live in the moment." But I promise I am not some counterculture contortionist opposed to standard business practice. Quite the contrary. I love business. I am passionate about growing companies. Still, I can share that since I started practicing more than two years ago, yoga has profoundly influenced my life in every aspect. It has redefined my sense of self. I have changed as a husband, father, friend and leader.

I proudly serve as the CEO of Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide. Even before I started practicing yoga Blue Chip made a clearly articulated pledge to all of our stakeholders. We call it "The Promise of Uniting." It embodies a philosophy that none of us alone is as good as all of us together. It recognizes that a culture that unites the best of heart and mind will achieve remarkable results. Little did I know that many consider the definition of yoga to come from the Sanskrit root "yuj," meaning to unite, or the practice of uniting body, mind and spirit. At Blue Chip we have always communicated that we have a social contract. We expect all of our talented professionals to deliver at the highest intellectual level (mind), and in turn we offer a nurturing environment (body) that respects them as human beings and professionals (spirit). We were yoga, and we didn't even know it. The result has been nothing short of remarkable. Like a yoga studio, we have built an organizational culture that encourages employees to contribute and astound without fear of judgment or failure. Ultimately yoga has encouraged me to build a corporate environment that is less constricting and more community.

On a personal level yoga has been instructive in helping me redefine my expectations for achievement. Perhaps the most salient lesson I've learned is that there are no scorecards to define success. In the yoga studio there are no winners or losers. No umpires. No victory measured against the loss of another. In yoga success emanates from within and is defined by self-mastery.

As a CEO I have learned the same goes for effective leadership. We all have quantifiable scorecards in business. We look at our numbers every day. Revenue, stock prices and market share all provide indicators of the success of our organizations. But as CEOs, we have other attributes that gauge our success as leaders, including establishing vision, creating an affirmative corporate culture, demonstrating emotional intelligence, displaying the courage of our convictions, assessing risk and offering buoyancy of spirit.

The meditative practice can strengthen a chief executive's--and an organization's--mind, body and spirit.

Damla Eytemiz is from Turkey and she is trilingual in Turkish, English and German. She started Yoga in 2010, and she has been doing Pilates since 2007. She loves sports and thinks kids should put “Yoga” in their lives so that they can readily work through life’s challenges and be happier kids. Damla completed her training with Yogiños: Yoga for Youth® in Fall 2010 and joined the Kula in August as

Director of Marketing & Sales and Manager of Programs in Corpus Christi. Feel free to contact Damla at yoginosmarketing@gmail.com