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About a decade ago, long before I opened my yoga studio, I was working at an expensive Manhattan Hotel as an assistant to the general manager: a job that I hated.

 

I shared a windowless office with three other employees, all sitting with our backs to each other.  The majority of my day was spent doing menial administrative tasks that A.I. could surely accomplish today in seconds.

 

Each day crawled by as I counted the hours until it was over. My body suffered from sitting endlessly in an uncomfortable suit in an over air conditioned office.

 

Like so many of us, I'd bought into the story that stability meant success. A steady paycheck. Benefits. The chance to climb the corporate ladder. It's what society expected, what my LinkedIn feed celebrated, what all my friends from college were doing. And I'd internalized it all, believing that following this path was the "responsible" choice, the "adult" thing to do.

 

And here I was wondering “is this really all there is?” Was I supposed to trade my mental and physical health for a paycheck in a dead end job? And just keep doing it until I retire? Sure, I could afford groceries and take an occasional vacation (barely), but I was deeply unfulfilled.

 

Thankfully, I had one thing going for me: my love for yoga.

 

While work drained me of my energy

(and my will to live), yoga replenished it.

 

On my lunch breaks I used to sneak off to a nearby studio and take just the first half of a class, wave goodbye to the instructor, and run back to work while scarfing down a granola bar.

 

Then after 4 more hours of hotel drudgery, I’d take an hour-long train to a serene little studio in Brooklyn just to practice yoga and feel balanced again.

 

It felt like I was living two different lives.

 

In one, I had a boss who didn’t value me, coworkers who I didn’t have anything in common with, and hotel guests who spoke down to me. 

 

In the other I had kind and generous friends who shared my passion for yoga and mentors to guide us on our personal journeys.

 

One life brought me down. The other brought me to life.

 

I had great admiration for my yoga instructors too. The way they could transform a simple room into a safe and inviting space with only their words and presence. Where diverse students could come together, share their practice and leave feeling lighter, calmer and more confident. 

 

I daydreamed about becoming a teacher myself, but the idea felt almost absurd. I was terrible at public speaking and didn’t know anything about anatomy or spiritual texts. 

 

Then I met Mathieu, a yoga teacher who traveled the world leading  workshops and trainings. He was so talented and inspiring. I told him how much I wanted to be a full-time yoga instructor, but immediately followed with all of my doubts. "I'm not good enough." “I can’t just leave my career.”  "No one would hire me." 

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And then I’ll never forget what he said to me.

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He said, “Samara, I have taught all over the world. Do you know how many people come up to me and say that they want to be a yoga teacher and have a lifestyle like mine but then they just never try?”

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That question kept me up at night.

 

I wanted to do it but what if I failed as a teacher? What if I couldn’t make enough money to make ends meet? What if people judged me for leaving a "real" career? But beneath all these what-ifs was a deeper truth: I was tired of living someone else's version of success.

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The next week, I signed up for my first teacher training.

The training was challenging in ways I never expected. The physical poses were just the beginning. We had to meditate in silence for what seemed liked hours. We had to memorize anatomy, philosophy, sequences, and teach in front of the whole group of 30+ people. There were moments I felt completely overwhelmed, but for the first time in years, I felt like I was going in the right direction.

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At the same time my boss at the hotel had been getting extremely frustrating. One Monday morning, I was called into HR because a guest had complained that I didn’t say goodbye to them when they left the hotel. (I had, they just hadn’t heard me as they walked out the door). In response my boss wrote me up, leaving a disciplinary action in my file with the company that would prevent me from getting promoted. 

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Something snapped inside me. All the times I'd been dismissed and devalued came rushing back. I finally realized I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by quitting this job. Maybe it wasn’t feasible to become a full time yoga teacher but I was going to find out.

Unfortunately, I soon discovered the program I had chosen had only prepared me for about 50% of what teaching actually entails. No one had taught me how to find teaching opportunities, how to market myself, how to price my services, or how to handle difficult students. How to make modifications for injuries. How to recover when I forgot my sequence. 

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While I had a teacher certification under my belt, I soon found out I had a lot to learn both in and out of the classroom. I didn’t know where to look for teaching jobs, let alone how to stand out from other candidates or what a teaching audition even entailed. When I finally landed my first full-time position, I realized teaching a room full of the general public was very different from teaching my fellow trainees.

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While I had a plan of what to say in class, I realized each class brought up countless situations I was unprepared for.

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I didn’t know what to do when my sequence started with abdominal exercises and a postpartum student came in saying she couldn’t do them. I didn’t notice when my music was too loud and students couldn’t hear me because I was too focused on remembering what pose came next. I wanted to inspire people but only knew how to mimic what my teacher would say in class.

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Had I leaped into teaching too soon?

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Then after one particularly small class, a student approached me with tears in her eyes. "Life has been pretty difficult for me recently," she said. "Your class is the only hour of my week where I feel at peace. Thank you for being here."

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In that moment, I realized something profound: In all my time at the hotel, not once had anyone thanked me for making a difference in their life. Sure they thanked me for the room upgrades and the late checkouts, but not once had my work felt meaningful. Here, even with just a handful of students, I was contributing something valuable to the world.

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Where I Am Today

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Since then, my journey has taken me places I never imagined. I've taught thousands of students from all different backgrounds – from preschoolers to grandmothers, from athletes to absolute beginners. I've led retreats in beautiful locations around the world. I've trained other teachers and watched them find their own paths. And yes, I even opened my own studio in Brooklyn.

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But the biggest transformation wasn't in my career – it was in me. That spiritually depleted hotel worker who measured her worth by her paycheck and others' approval? She's gone. In her place is someone who knows her value, who isn't afraid to live authentically, who understands that true security comes not from a steady paycheck but from being aligned with your purpose.

Many mornings when I walk into my studio, I think about that question Mathieu asked me years ago. And I'm so grateful I didn't become just another person who dreamed but never tried.

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I found more than a new career – I found freedom. Freedom from society's narrow definition of success. Freedom from the belief that we must choose between meaning and money. Freedom to be fully, unapologetically myself.

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And that's worth more than all the hotel promotions in the world.