People desire a meaningful and healthy life. Working professionals are pushing limits to become successful, often at the expense of their mental and physical health. It is up to each individual to take control and responsibility for the type of lives they want to live. At the end of the work semester, most people withdraw from their frenetic lifestyles for a week or two in an attempt to recoup, rejuvenate and rest. However, people often return home feeling just as stressed as before.
To find a solution for this problem, me and my team used the Hult business challenge to develop a “coaching-concept” called AQAI. AQAI provides a unique combination of coaching in the areas of fitness and nutrition, yoga & meditation and mindset-coaching at destinations around the world. After graduating, I decided to realize our idea and turned the AQAI concept into a real business.
6 months prior to Hult, I went on a family vacation in Sri Lanka to work on my bachelor thesis about Culture and Communication. It was a very stressful time. To reduce stress I practiced Yoga, recorded a dance video, explored Sri Lanka and did my fitness as well as spending a few hours each day with writing my thesis.
Back in my home country Norway, I worked as a professional hip-hop dancer, was teaching yoga and worked as a personal trainer for many years while studying fulltime. I recorded 40 episodes of a TV-show called “Lip Sync Battle” ” in the last months prior to my thesis deadline. Only 10% of the graduates 2016 were graded an A on their thesis. Being one of them did not prove I was smarter than the others, but it made clear to me that if you take care of yourself, do the things you love, and surround yourself with good people, you can reach all your goals while still taking care of yourself and feeling balanced.
I transformed my experience and ideas into a concept, which was called “Fit-Fun & Sun” at this time. My plan was to turn it into a real business, but to realize this dream I needed some help and guidance. I googled: “the world’s most practical entrepreneurial Master degree” and HULT came up as one of
The story of AQAI --- Fitness, nutrition, yoga, meditation and mindset coaching around the world.
How the “Business Challenge” resulted in running my dream startup
By: Katharina Bierach
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