Companies Come Together Through Yoga!
by Mark Devenpeck

How two companies, a small business owner and an Ophthalmologist came together through Yoga:

I walked through the doors of the Hyatt Hotel in San Francisco and immediately realized the significance of my life and the effect that yoga can have on our society. Every major Pharmaceutical company was there that was even remotely involved with the field of Ophthalmology. It was as if I was revisiting my corporate roots and realizing how much I could help these people. I had experienced their stress, their way of life first hand when I use to work for a subsidiary of what was then Worldcom/MCI. The deadlines, the schedules, appointments and budgets/financials, were all coming back to me.

My business partner, Newton Campbell, and I wanted to help the people in what is now one of the most corporate and success driven areas of the U.S., Irvine California because of our life experience. We saw this need five years ago when we opened and have been committed to helping every person that walks through our studio create balance in their lives. I never envisioned that this idea of helping individuals in corporate America, would lead to other areas outside of Southern California. That evening, I was barely able to sleep from the realization that the lives that we touch teaching yoga are so much more than in the studio, in teacher trainings or in the ashram. We as yoga instructors have an opportunity to help heal the world, to help bring people together from all different cultures, regardless of language or religion, regardless of race or ethic background.

These top women doctors in the field of Ophthalmology had come together to take a yoga class, at 6am on a Sunday morning, the last day of the convention. One women was pregnant (I teach the prenatal class at our studio), another women was a runner and worried that her body was falling apart after 40 years of running (I thought at one point that I would have to give up dance when I fractured my vertebra and then I found Yoga). Some of the doctors came from far distances such as Israel. The majority of the women had never taken a yoga class and there were a few advanced practitioners in the class. There was one brave male who had the courage to come to class because he really wanted to learn and the Women in Ophthalmology had opened the class to any male doctors to be inclusive. I could feel I was exactly where I was supposed to be because my life experience and yoga experience had merged. The class was amazing because of the people who took it. Every one thanked me with such sincere kindness. The runner from Napa Valley had said that she was immediately calling her husband and letting him know they need to take this and that she had hope that she could continuing running forever. The pregnant woman, who was quite far along, had never taken a class and felt so good she was going to enroll in a prenatal class when she got back home. The woman from Israel thanked me because she had such a long flight back which she was now prepared for physically and the gentlemen was so energized but yet calm and present, he was ready for his last day of presentations.

I then took a taxi immediately and taught a class at the Lululemon store in San Francisco. One of my first students from Orange County had moved to San Francisco and heard I was teaching and surprised me. Many of my friends from Lululemon were there and many new people. Another beautiful class and another beautiful group of people; expressing such love and kindness.

The moral to this story is that everyone took chances and gave unconditionally. Mildred M.G. Olivier MD, who is the membership chair of the Women in Ophthalmology, took a chance because she had never known me before our meeting in early February for 15 minutes. How did she know that I would even show up from such a distance and what would the response be from a women’s organization when they found out a male was teaching? Lululemon saw the opportunity to give and realized that some of these people might not even have access to one of their stores. Furthermore the San Francisco representatives from Lululemon took a chance on what I conveyed to them and truly lived up to their mission statement “to provide components for people to live a longer healthier and more fun life.” How many companies would do what Lululemon did and give with no guarantee of return? I took a chance because I had received no payment before the event and had nothing in writing. I was leaving my studio full of students behind and facing what I thought to be unknown territory. We all took chances and we all realized that this was no longer about any one of us, it was about all of us and it was about humanity.