I created this blog as part of class assignment to explore hot topics in marketing. I have to say, the most difficult part thus far has been coming up with a name for my blog. After much deliberation, I ended up name my blog after my two passions in life, politics and yoga. While this might seem like a random combination, I believe that politics and yoga actually have much more in common that you would think.

Politics

I got bit by the political bug when I was in university, and when I graduated, all I wanted to do was work in politics. I joined a political party on campus, got an internship working at the provincial legislature and before I knew it, I had been elected to a youth political party executive, I had been asked to co-Chair the party’s Annual General Meeting and I was asked to co-run the youth campaign from the “War Room”.

Politics gave me some amazing experience to meet incredible people and to feel like I was able to have a tiny contribution to a party that I firmly believed it.

Politics taught me three key life lessons.

1.       Understanding yourself is paramount: Before you can try to convince someone to vote for you or your party, you need to have a strong idea of what you stand for and what you are willing to compromise. (For me, access to health care and education are always non-negotiable).

2.       Hard work and perseverance isn’t always enough: Working on campaigns taught me in certain situations, regardless of how many hours I worked; sometimes it was not enough to win the election. But, that doesn’t mean the effort; the time and the cause were not worth it. As in life and sports, losing really teaches you more than winning.

3.        Remember to breathe. Some of my most stressful moments in life stemmed from my experience working in issues management for the Minister of Economic Development, during the financial crisis and the Minister of Health during the H1N1 and eHealth Ontario crisis. These moments instilled upon me, the importance of taking a breath – to refocus and not to make decisions in haste that could have significant consequences.

Yoga

I am not going to lie, I still have a hard time calling myself a yogi and I still find some yoga classes and yoga studios intimating.

For me, yoga came into my life at a very critical point. Two years ago, I picked up my life and moved across the country to Vancouver. I had done a fair bit of yoga before moving to Vancouver, but yoga in Vancouver is very different than anywhere else I’ve done yoga.

Similar to politics, at times yoga can be a bit of a cult… That said all of the life lessons from politics are also applicable to yoga.

Yoga taught me three key life lessons.

1.       Understanding yourself is paramount: Yoga is many different things to many people. For me, it’s about understanding who I am today, where I am going and how I am going to get there. I have found that spending an hour on my mat multiple times a weeks has given me far more introspection that I could have thought.

2.       Hard work and perseverance isn’t always enough: Similar to politics, yoga does have some areas over which you have no control. For example, there are many, many postures that I know I will never be able to do properly. That said, every class allows me to get further into my own yoga practice and either motivates me to work harder on a posture, or deal with the challenge of having to settle my mind.

3.       Remember to breathe: Breathing is one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned from yoga. One of my instructors always says regardless of what position you’ve found yourself in, all you can do is focus on you can control – your breathe.

I hope this blog provides some insights on current events, particularly in the business and political arena and teaches you something about marketing.

This is an experiment, but I am looking forward to it!