The Quiet Truth About Your Yoga Mat and the Stock Market

You wake before dawn. The house is still. You roll out your mat, light a candle, and settle into the silence before the world starts asking things of you.

This is the life you've built intentionally—teaching yoga, leading retreats, keeping things simple. You drive a Prius, shop at the farmer's market, and spend three months each year studying in India. You've never felt drawn to Wall Street. If anything, the stock market has always seemed like the domain of people chasing something you've already let go of.

But here's something worth sitting with: the life you love? Public companies helped make it possible.

A Day in Your Life, Reconsidered

Let's walk through a typical morning.

Your iPhone alarm chimes softly at 5:30 a.m. That's Apple—a company you can own a piece of for about $200 a share, or a fraction of that through most brokerages. The device was assembled with components from dozens of global suppliers, shipped across oceans, and delivered to a store near you. All of that coordination happened because investors believed in the company enough to fund it.

You pad to the kitchen and put the kettle on for tea. The organic chai you love? Even if you bought it at a local shop, the tea leaves likely traveled from India on container ships operated by companies like Maersk, fueled by energy from companies like Exxon or Chevron. The stainless steel kettle was probably manufactured by a company whose shares trade publicly somewhere in the world.

You check your class schedule on your laptop, maybe a MacBook. You open Zoom to prep for your 9 a.m. class—Zoom Video Communications, ticker symbol ZM. Your students pay you through Venmo or PayPal. PayPal is publicly traded. So is Block, the company that owns Cash App and Square, which you might use at workshops.

After class, you drive your Chevy Bolt to the farmer's market. You chose an electric vehicle intentionally—no tailpipe emissions, no stopping at gas stations, no direct dependence on oil companies. It feels like a small act of resistance against the fossil fuel economy.

But let's look closer. General Motors, the company that made your Bolt, is one of the oldest publicly traded companies in America. The lithium-ion battery that powers your car contains materials mined by global mining companies—many of them publicly traded—and was likely manufactured by LG Energy Solution, a publicly traded Korean company, or perhaps by GM's joint venture using technology from public suppliers.

And when you plug in at night? That electricity comes from somewhere.

The Invisible Grid

Your power company is almost certainly a publicly traded utility. If you're in California, it might be Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) or Southern California Edison (owned by Edison International). In Texas, maybe CenterPoint or Oncor. In the Northeast, perhaps Consolidated Edison or National Grid. These companies are publicly traded, and their shareholders—which could include you—receive dividends from the electricity you pay for each month.

But where does that electricity come from? The answer is almost always: a mix.

Even in the most progressive states, the grid draws power from multiple sources. Natural gas, often extracted by companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, or ConocoPhillips—all publicly traded. Coal, though declining, still feeds some grids, mined by public companies. Nuclear power, generated at plants often owned by public utilities or companies like Constellation Energy. And yes, renewables too—solar and wind farms built and operated by companies like NextEra Energy, the largest renewable energy producer in the world and a publicly traded company.

That solar panel on your roof? Probably manufactured by a public company like First Solar or a Chinese firm like JinkoSolar. The inverter that converts the energy might be made by Enphase or SolarEdge—both publicly traded.

The grid is a web, and public companies are woven through every strand of it. Your decision to drive electric is meaningful. But it doesn't extract you from the system. It just shifts which part of the system you're connected to.

At the market, you buy what you can from local farmers. Beautiful. For everything else, you shop at your local food co-op—a member-owned grocery store that prioritizes organic, fair trade, and local products. It feels like a true alternative to corporate retail.

And in many ways, it is. Co-ops are genuinely different. They're owned by their members, not shareholders. Profits stay in the community. The governance is democratic.

But here's what's easy to miss: the co-op is still a node in a vast network of public companies.

The organic rice in the bulk bin? It was grown on a farm, yes, but it was harvested by equipment likely made by John Deere or AGCO—both publicly traded. It was transported in trucks built by Freightliner (owned by Daimler) or Volvo, using diesel refined by public oil companies, driving on highways built with asphalt from public materials firms. The rice was packaged—even bulk items arrive at the co-op in packaging—using materials from public chemical and paper companies.

The co-op's refrigeration units were manufactured by companies like Carrier or Hussmann. The building uses electricity from a public utility. The credit card reader at checkout runs on networks built by Visa or Mastercard. The co-op's bank, where it holds its accounts and processes payroll, is almost certainly a publicly traded financial institution.

Even the co-op's suppliers—distributors like UNFI (United Natural Foods Inc.), which provides products to food co-ops and natural grocery stores across North America—are publicly traded. UNFI's stock trades on the NYSE.

Your co-op is doing beautiful work. It's creating a more humane retail experience and keeping money circulating locally. But it doesn't exist in a bubble. It's embedded in the same global infrastructure as everyone else—and that infrastructure is largely built and maintained by public companies.

Your Annual Pilgrimage

Once a year, you fly to India to study with your teachers. You book the cheapest flight you can find—maybe Delta, United, American, or an international carrier like Emirates or Air India. You pay with a credit card, perhaps a Visa or Mastercard, because the points help offset future travel. Those are public companies. The plane you board was likely built by Boeing or Airbus. The jet fuel comes from oil refined by public energy companies. The airport you depart from was constructed with materials from public industrial firms.

In India, you might withdraw rupees from an ATM that runs on networks operated by Visa or Mastercard. You might stay connected with a local SIM card from Bharti Airtel, one of India's largest telecoms and a publicly traded company.

None of this diminishes the sacredness of your journey. It simply acknowledges the invisible infrastructure that makes it possible.

What This Means for You

This isn't an argument that corporations are saints. They're not. They're made of people, and people are complicated. Some companies pollute. Some exploit workers. Some make decisions you'd never support.

But corporations are also how the modern world organizes itself to meet human needs at scale. The tea you drink, the car you drive, the technology that lets you teach students in six time zones simultaneously—these exist because people pooled their resources, took risks, and built something.

When you invest in the stock market, you're not endorsing greed. You're participating in the same system you already participate in every day—just from a different seat at the table. Instead of only being a consumer, you become a part-owner. The profits that companies generate don't just go to faceless billionaires; they go to anyone who holds shares, including teachers, nurses, retirees, and yes, yoga instructors.

A Different Kind of Abundance

Yoga teaches us that abundance isn't about accumulation—it's about flow. Money is energy, and like all energy, it can be hoarded or circulated.

Investing doesn't have to mean abandoning your values. You can choose index funds that track the broad market, giving you ownership in thousands of companies at once. You can choose ESG funds that screen for environmental and social responsibility. You can invest in companies whose missions align with yours.

But first, it might help to simply recognize what's already true: you're connected to these companies whether you own their stock or not. Your life is interwoven with global commerce in ways both visible and invisible.

The question isn't whether to participate in the system. You already do. The question is whether you'd like to benefit from it in a new way—one that could provide security for your future, fund your next teacher training, or give you the freedom to teach fewer classes and rest more.

That doesn't sound like greed to me. That sounds like taking care of yourself. And isn't that what you teach your students to do?

The Math You Haven't Considered

Here's a question worth sitting with: what percentage of your income already flows to public companies?

Think about it. Your iPhone, your car, your electricity, your flights to India, the payment processor that collects money from your students, the distributor that stocks your co-op's shelves, the credit card in your wallet. Add in your internet provider, your laptop, the tea in your cupboard, the gas that heats your home or studio.

For most people—even the most intentional, minimalist, farmer's-market-shopping yogis—the answer is somewhere between 40% and 70% of everything they earn. It flows to publicly traded companies, quarter after quarter, year after year.

You're already a participant in their success. You're just only participating as a customer.

So here's the question: if 50% or more of your money is already going to public companies, is it really so radical to put 10% back into them as an owner?

Not as a betrayal of your values. Not as a capitulation to greed. Just as a recognition of what's already true—and a decision to sit on the other side of the table for once.

A Note From Me

I'll be transparent with you: I'm a financial advisor, and my practice has a minimum investment threshold that won't be the right fit for everyone reading this.

But I didn't write this to sell you anything. I wrote it because I believe this shift in perspective matters—whether you have a thousand dollars or ten million.

If you're earlier in your journey, the most important step is simply to begin. Open an account somewhere. Buy one share of one company whose products you already use. Or invest in a global index fund or target date fund and let it sit. The mechanics are simple; the mindset is what takes work.

And if you ever find yourself in a position where a more personalized approach makes sense, our door is open.

Next week, I'll explore something most investors never think about: your voice. When you own shares, you don't just own a slice of the profits—you own a vote. And that vote is more powerful than you might realize.