My friend John struggled with finances in his 20s after he dropped out of college and was kicked out of his parent’s house.
He lived on various couches for a few years until he could save enough money from working in retail to secure an apartment of his own.
During this time he longed to work in the health and fitness industry because of his strong passion for yoga. He studied Eastern Philosophy in college and fell in love with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism to the point that he started meditating and practicing yoga daily. I loved discussing philosophy with him, but I struggled to adapt to yoga like he did. I feel like I lack the flexibility and endurance to do yoga on a daily basis. However, the meditation aspect is quite nice, and I’ve adapted it into my daily schedule on days when I’m not extremely busy. John eventually joined a yoga training school and got his certification. Right when the pandemic started, there was a large demand for virtual fitness trainers and yoga instructors. He jumped into the market at the perfect time. Now that the pandemic is finally starting to evolve into an endemic, there’s a huge demand for in person fitness coaches and yoga teachers. While John still has a once a week virtual yoga class, he makes a lot more money working in a fitness center for five of the remaining six days out of his week. The fitness centers were forced to close during a large portion of the pandemic, but now they’re back open and people are flocking en masse to get gym memberships again.