Corporate Yogi Undercover

It's happened: after 8 years motivating folks in conference rooms, ball rooms, cubicles, workstations and offices, I'm back in the ranks. Driven by the downturn, one of my clients approached me desperate for extra hands on a project, and I turned to her just as desperate for cash in my bank account. With things turning around economically, I was looking for something to get me through the gap until a few huge projects I'm pitching come in. Hard as it is on my ego, I packed up my yoga-teacher, Harvard-Business-Review-Events-presenter, international employee-engagement-expert self and hustled in to get an employee badge and be shown how to log-onto their systems.

Without naming names to protect the innocent and shield the not-so-innocent (and after all, aren't we all a bit of BOTH?), I'll just give you a topline of where I'm going everyday:

1. NYC HQ of a recognized media company
2. Notorious sweat shop working hard to change that
3. Global operations include every significant market on the planet
4. Former consumer of yoga/transformational workshops - like many organizations forced to choose between stretching dollars rather than employees, their programs have been dormant for a couple of years.
5. Like many companies, they've leveraged real estate downturn by moving office locations

This is the third day I'll be going in - and already the situation has been an amazing affirmation of all the reasons that led me exactly eight years ago to leave my job to start Balance Integration. My first day by the coffee machine, one of the guys said to me "oh, you're new, that must be why you're smiling". When something I said made him laugh - I pointed out that his face had not cracked.

I have to get to work in a few minutes, but check back here over the coming weeks for play-by-plays. So far, my meditation practice is still on track so all is well.

Side note about the awesomely appointed Wellness Room door in the picture above: It's a little 8x10 room with soft lights, a pillow and throw, a really great massage chair, some nice smelling stuff wafting out of a socket somewhere, and a cd player with spa sounds. When I first noticed it I wondered if anyone ever uses it given the 18 hour days people put in. I'm glad to announce that when I slipped in there while my computer was being worked on to take the chair for a little test-drive, another employee knocked to see if it was available.

Stay tuned...