After stepping out of the stressful world of investment banking and corporate maneuvering, successful entrepreneur Harry Yu decided to make a business out of his passion – yoga.

How long have you lived and worked in Shanghai?

Eight years. I actually consider Shanghai my home now. I came from Hong Kong originally and then I moved to Canada when I was 13 years old. I came back to Asia in the early ‘90s.

What did you do before Y+Yoga?

I was in consulting and investment banking. With that job I moved around quite a bit; Hong Kong, the United States, Taipei. And then eventually I went back to Hong Kong and in 2002 I was an investment banking consultant for a high tech company. After that job, I got out of investment banking and office politics and decided to start my own business.

"The practicing of yoga is a very good opportunity to separate myself from the buzz of the outside world, to really think."

How has practicing yoga affected your life?

I was a Christian when I was in college and actually I was a bible study leader – I was pretty serious. Then when I graduated, I was working in the investment banking world and forgot about it. But actually practicing yoga really brings me back to spirituality.

For a lot of people, you don’t necessarily have a religion, you don’t necessarily go to church, but you do somehow feel that [spirituality is] important … there is something deeper, something that is more about the meaning of life.

So the practicing of yoga is a very good opportunity to separate myself from the buzz of the outside world, to really think. Actually, our type of yoga is quite intense, physically, and you sweat out a lot and this allows clarity of mind so that you think deeper and bring yourself to another level, another state of consciousness.

How so?

It changes how I look at myself and also how I look at people, my ego. When you do yoga you feel comfortable and when you feel comfortable you tend to think about kindness. You know how to treat people better and how important it is that if you feel better, you have a better energy, you influence other people in a more positive way and they spread this energy out. I set up this business for yoga and I recruited a lot of students who do yoga and in a way I’m spreading out this energy.