Mircea Nicoară: Where Business Meets Spirituality

Explore the spiritual journey of Mircea Nicoară, founder of UP Yoga, and how he combines passion for business with personal growth and wellbeing.

Mircea Nicoară is a visionary spiritual entrepreneur who, from his teenage years, pursued a deep passion for business and health. After discovering yoga and meditation at the age of 25, he transformed his life into a mission to guide people toward exploring the spiritual dimension of their consciousness. Today, as the founder of UP Yoga and creator of “conscious living” projects, he authentically combines passion with entrepreneurial rigor, building communities, methods, and spaces that open new paths toward health, happiness, and inner freedom.

C&B: How would you describe yourself in a single sentence to pique the curiosity of those who do not know you yet?

Mircea Nicoară: I am a spiritual entrepreneur, if such a category can be defined. Since high school, I have been fascinated by the world of business and how people like me, through ambition and vision, were able to create projects and companies that transform the national or even global economic landscape. At 25, I discovered that my true calling is to help people realize that there is something magical beyond their mind and body—something we call the spiritual dimension of human consciousness, which can be accessed by anyone equipped with the right tools. Today, as a spiritual entrepreneur, I create platforms to provide people with these tools.

C&B: If we were to look at a narrative thread in your career or business, what were the key moments that defined you?

Mircea Nicoară: The first stage would be the end of high school and the beginning of university when I discovered my interest in the world of business and startups, and when my mind started focusing on creating financial and professional independence.

The second essential stage was discovering meditation and yoga practice in 2013, the year I turned 25. It was the first time I felt I had found something that defined me completely.

The third stage was in 2016, when I left my corporate marketing job and began teaching yoga and meditation, both in studios and in corporate wellbeing programs.

The fourth stage was in 2024 when my wife Alexandra and I opened our own yoga and meditation studio, UP Yoga and Liberating Arts, here in Bucharest, and began building a stable community of spiritual seekers and people open to exploring beyond their current limitations and experiences.

The fifth stage is ongoing, in which I actively aim to develop my personal brand and scale the methods and tools I use by integrating them into rapidly growing industries such as healthy eating, conscious living, fitness, and wellbeing.

C&B: What challenges did you face at the beginning, in a market just starting to develop in Romania?

Mircea Nicoară: I have always had a very clear vision of what needed to be done and which directions would develop significantly over the next ten years. Therefore, in most of the projects I have undertaken, I interacted with a market that was largely or even completely uninformed about the benefits of the methods I proposed. However, I always found early on people who passionately believed in my direction and helped me spread the information and experiences I wanted to bring to my target audience.

C&B: Is there a dream or ambition that has always guided you, regardless of obstacles?

Mircea Nicoară: Since I was a child, my family called me “Professor” because I loved teaching others anything I knew that they found interesting. Later, over the past twenty years, I have been consistently guided by the desire to learn how to live healthily and happily, beyond what is superficially promoted in society, and to share this possibility of health and happiness with as many people as possible.

C&B: How did you look at the beginning of your journey, and how do you feel you have transformed until now?

Mircea Nicoară: Very enthusiastic and very naive at the start. I thought that the method that worked for me could be scaled almost unchanged on a macro level. Now, almost twenty years later, I am just as enthusiastic but much more grounded in social psychology and willing to adapt without losing depth.

C&B: If we met your team or collaborators, what do you think they would say about you?

Mircea Nicoară: They would say I am a very passionate and authentic person. The messages I promote through my projects are the very messages that guide my personal life. I would say my projects are impersonal mirrors of my values.

C&B: What is the most important decision you have made that changed your trajectory?

Mircea Nicoară: Without a doubt, the decision to start in 2016 creating projects independently, reflecting exactly what motivated me in my daily life.

C&B: What have you learned from your co-founder experience about balancing passion and business?

Mircea Nicoară: For me, they always go hand in hand. My passions have always been and will always be integrated into any business project because I cannot imagine spending my time building anything outside of what I consider essential for my life and the society I live in.

C&B: What sets UP Yoga apart from other yoga and wellness studios?

Mircea Nicoară: UP Yoga is a conscious & spiritual living project that brings the public the most unusual, effective, and playful methods to expand people’s appetite and availability for deep inner experiences. Our signature classes—Air Yoga, Kids Air Yoga, Wheel Yoga, Air Hoops—as well as our monthly 21-day challenges for the community, build fertile ground every day for more health, happiness, and spiritual sensitivity. We are the only studio in Bucharest that primarily emphasizes developing students’ presence and self-awareness, which is why we are the only studio implementing a phone-free policy before and after classes and constantly encouraging participants to engage consciously from entering the studio to leaving—from the specific greeting “Namaskar” (Sanskrit: “I honor what is beyond your person”), to meticulously arranging shoes, to the quiet and focus before and after classes; nothing is left reactive or incidental.

C&B: What does a typical day look like for you now, and which moments bring you the most satisfaction?

Mircea Nicoară: My day begins with personal practice and meditation. Then I divide my time between my family, class preparation, managing UP Yoga, and future projects. The moments of greatest satisfaction are when I spend undivided time with my son and my wife, and during classes, when I see how people’s faces change after practice.

C&B: What values or principles guide you in what you do, and how do you apply them daily?

Mircea Nicoară: Authenticity is essential. In every project I start or reshape, the first question I ask is, “Do I truly believe this is a method through which people can find a new level of inner freedom?”

C&B: How did the idea of UP Yoga emerge, and what motivated you to turn it into a business project?

Mircea Nicoară: I had been thinking for a few years about opening a studio where I could apply everything I considered important for people to experience in order to open spiritually. The final decision came almost as an effect of fate, as there was a sudden change in October 2023 regarding the space where I held classes, so I said, “This is the moment, let’s do it!” and within three months, we opened the UP studio.

C&B: What are the development plans for UP Yoga—new programs, locations, or initiatives?

Mircea Nicoară: UP programs are always fluid and adapted in methodology to how people respond to our challenge of inner liberation and journeys beyond the known. We have a full toolkit and use the most effective tools for the studio community and the Bucharest community. In the future, we plan to open another studio in northern Bucharest and, as mentioned, expand our methods into related industries such as healthy eating, conscious living, and fitness and wellness.

Mircea Nicoară continues to inspire through his passion and vision, showing that business success and spiritual growth can go hand in hand.