On Wall Street or off, yoga is a valuable personal success factor

What is the best way to create and enact a personal success plan? Different people have different answers to this question. For some, personal success factors come from having a good financial portfolio. For others, succeeding means having a healthy body and a clear head on one's shoulders. Now, some news sources are excitedly featuring interviews with individuals who seem able to balance both of these pursuits, even during tough economic times.

A recent article published by Bloomberg focused on Corina Cotenescu, who trades futures on the S&P 500 Index. She told the source that the night before the S&P dropped dramatically, she had a gnawing sensation that such a plunge was about to take place.

How does Cotenescu deal with the stress working on the volatile trading floor? She is also a yoga instructor.

The 34-year-old told the news organization that even when the S&P drops 5 percent in a day, as it did in mid-August, she can feel her frustration dissolving in front of her students.

"If I lost money, I go straight to class, because I know I have emotional baggage that I need to get out… Yoga gives me the physical and emotional gratification and trading gives me the intellectual gratification," she added, quoted by the source.

Success stories like this one are becoming more common, even among time-strapped Wall Street traders. Jason Wachob told NBC News that he found typical gym-based exercises to be hard on his frame. After long days working with stocks, he felt like he needed a gentler, more holistic healing system.

Enter yoga.

Unlike Cotenescu, Wachob ultimately changed his profession entirely, becoming a full-time yoga teacher. He told the news organization that what attracted him to yoga was the individualized care that small classes brought to his body. Likewise, he noted that gyms often do not have the same levels of interpersonal rapport that yoga communities do.

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