User of the Month: Simon Hamelin, Entrepreneur
🤸♂️ Simon Hamelin
💻 Co-Founder + CEO, Lumeeo
🇫🇷 Lyon, France
As a CEO and business owner, Simon Hamelin’s life moves at a quick pace. With meetings to schedule, decisions to make, and a company to run, he turns to yoga and meditation as a way to drown out the noise of the day. Read on to learn more about August’s User of the Month.
How long have you been practicing yoga?
My falling in love with yoga took three encounters at three different stages of my life over a span of 20 years (I can be stubborn like that). I first heard about it from my grandmother when I was probably around 6 or 7. Born from a Jewish family, she'd become Buddhist throughout her life and was the first person to challenge my spirituality — or lack thereof. She was doing yoga and meditating before it was cool and I only realized recently how much of an impact this had on my development on a subconscious level.
My second encounter was during a trip in the Maldives where I was taught the Sun Salutation A that I mechanically incorporated into my workout routine, seeing it as a nice way to stretch and warm up.
The last one was one year ago when my friend introduced me to Alo Moves. The first series I ever did was Plasticity: Fascial Stretching by Dylan Werner — and it got me hooked.
What first drew you to the practice?
I came for the physical benefits and stayed for the spiritual ones. I have to be honest, I still can't quite wrap my head around exactly why I do it. It seems like there's many different answers to this question. Sometimes I do it because I need to blow off steam. Sometimes I need to ground myself in the moment and fight off negative objects in my mind. Most times, I do it because it brings me peace of mind.
And now, I'm here to stay. I don't see myself not doing yoga and not sharing my practice with others, which is why I will be doing a teacher training here in Lyon, France, in the fall and start teaching in January. I haven't been more excited about anything in a while (Come say hi if you're around)!
What’s your most repeated class on Alo Moves?
I need diversity, so I'm always switching it up between series and teachers. If I had to pick something, any class from Full Body Strength 2 by Patrick Beach does the trick for me, it's the guarantee I'll be leaving it all on the mat and somehow feeling spent and rejuvenated at the same time.
As an entrepreneur, what keeps you feeling creatively inspired?
Diverse and high energy inputs! I read a lot of uplifting things from various sources. I've prioritized people and activities who give me a lot of energy and inspire me. It has meant cutting out some people and behaviors that didn't benefit me and replacing them with things like learning to play the guitar, reading more fiction, writing more, doing a ton of yoga and other forms of movement, etc.
Basically, I realized that the more I do me, the more I have to give to my business and the people it serves.
How do you stay grounded amidst the hustle and uncertainty of the entrepreneur life?
Meditation and conscious movement every day!
Want to be featured? Keep tagging us in your Instagram posts and stories, and you might just be selected as our next user of the month!