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(FORTUNE Small Business) — Two years ago on labor day I stumbled onto Bikram yoga in a studio on West 72nd Street in New York City and was hooked within a week. Now it’s an integral part of how I run my business.

Bikram, also known as hot yoga, involves doing a series of 26 tough poses in a room heated to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. When you are in the studio doing Bikram, you have to be absolutely present. Your mind can’t race to the plane that you’re going to miss or the client whose call you didn’t return, or you’ll be flat on the mat before you know it.

I have a wine consulting business, and I am a one-man show. I’m based in New York City, but most of my revenue comes from corporate clients around the country who want me to plan their events. Problem is, when a brand is based on one person, if business is up 20%, that person is working and traveling 20% more. For instance, over the past ten days I have been in six cities, and sometimes when I wake up, I can’t even remember where I am. It gets exhausting as you get older (I’m 44), and it takes its toll on sleep, on hydration, on your stress level.

I used to have a shotgun approach to dealing with stress - I’d retreat to a health spa for ten days - but I really needed a day-to-day routine.

Now I spend around ten hours a week on yoga - five Bikram classes of 90 minutes each, plus dressing and shower time. I buy the classes in bulk, so they cost me around $15 each. Add on water, towels, and tips, and the total cost comes to about $125 a week - worth every penny.

I always do yoga before seeing a client. For an out-of-town meeting I’ll take the earliest plane, land, and head directly to the studio with a T-shirt and shorts in my bag along with my presentation. I know the studios for cities I work in regularly - Boston, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas - and Bikram is easy to find in other major cities. To be sure, Bikram-on-the-road is a time commitment - I find I need two to three hours to get there, work out, shower, and head to the meeting. Keeping to my routine during my busy season is hard.

It’s worth it, though. Since I’ve learned to focus, the details of business have become less overwhelming. I have begun to delegate. I hired three full-time people to back me up (two work on marketing, one does administration), raised my prices 25%, and outsourced public relations. The result: My company’s 2007 revenue was up 39% over the previous year, and I expect sales to be $1.2 million in 2008.

- As told to Renuka Rayasam  

HOUSTON (AP) — Enron Corp. shareholders and investors hoping to get their cut of more than $7.2 billion recovered as part of a lawsuit they filed in connection with the company’s collapse are going to have to wait a little longer.

A federal judge delayed a decision Friday on whether to approve a plan to distribute the money, part of a $40 billion lawsuit alleging that financial institutions that worked with Enron participated in the accounting fraud that led to the company’s downfall.

U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon also held off on whether to approve $688 million in attorneys’ fees being requested by San Diego-based Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP, the law firm for the lead plaintiffs in the case. If approved, the attorneys’ fees would be the largest in a securities fraud case.

After a 4-1/2 hour hearing during which attorneys, Enron investors and former Enron employees argued both for and against the distribution plan and the attorney fees, Harmon said she would make decisions on both issues as soon as possible.

Patrick Coughlin, attorney for the regents of the University of California, who are the lead plantiffs, called the plan to distribute the $7.2 billion "fair and reasonable."

"The plan is doing whatever it can to help employees get whatever they can," he said.

In general, the plan is calculating shares of the settlement fund using a formula that factors in such things as when a security was bought or sold, the purchase price paid and the type of stock that was bought.

Enron stock sold for as much as $90 per share before plummeting to as low as $1 right before the company declared bankruptcy. But under the plan, shareholders and investors are set to get only a fraction of what they lost after the once mighty energy giant spiraled into bankruptcy.

To be eligible for the settlement, investors and shareholders needed to have bought Enron or Enron-related securities between Sept. 9, 1997, and Dec. 2, 2001.

About 1.5 million individuals are eligible to receive money from the settlement fund.

Coughlin also asked Harmon to approve the $688 million in attorneys’ fees, saying the amount is part of an agreement his law firm signed with the regents when it first took the case six years ago to be given 9.5% of any settlement.

In justifying the fees, he cited several reasons, including that the 9.5% was far lower than the standard 33% most lawyers get in similar cases; the complexity of the lawsuit; and the risk involved in taking on a case that offered no guarantee of any settlements.

"This is the largest class (action) settlement ever. There is no case comparable to this result," he said.

But attorneys for several investors objected to the distribution plan and the attorneys’ fees.

Avi Garbow, an attorney for former Enron workers who lost money through the company’s savings plan and employee stock ownership plan, said the distribution plan was unfair because it doesn’t treat all investors and shareholders equally and some will be compensated more than they should be at the expense of others.

Lawrence Schonbrun, who represents another investor, called the attorney fees being requested exorbitant and "an affront to every working person in this country."

The $7.2 billion comes mostly from settlements made with such financial institutions as Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM, Fortune 500) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500).

There are still several financial institutions that remain as defendants in the Enron case, including Merrill Lynch & Co., (MER, Fortune 500) Credit Suisse First Boston and Barclays Bank PLC (BCS). Several former Enron officers also remain, including former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling.

But the lawsuit has been on hold since an appeals court last year ruled shareholders and investors could not sue as a class, which would have allowed them to pool their resources to sue as a group and have more leverage to settle the case out of court.

The U.S. Supreme Court in January refused to hear arguments in the lawsuit. The high court in a similar case gave a measure of protection from securities lawsuits to suppliers, banks, accountants and law firms that do business with corporations engaging in securities fraud.

Attorneys for Merrill Lynch & Co., Credit Suisse First Boston and Barclays Bank PLC have said they will again ask Harmon to drop their clients from the lawsuit in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the similar case.

Enron, once the nation’s seventh-largest company, entered bankruptcy proceedings in December 2001 after years of accounting tricks could no longer hide billions in debt or make failing ventures appear profitable. The collapse wiped out thousands of jobs, more than $60 billion in market value and more than $2 billion in pension plans.

Enron founder Kenneth Lay and Skilling were convicted in 2006 for their roles in the company’s collapse. Skilling is serving a sentence of more than 24 years. Lay’s convictions for conspiracy, fraud and other charges were wiped out after he died of heart disease in 2006. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A penny for your thoughts? Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson thinks the answer to that question should be not much. In fact, if he had his way, he would like to get rid of the penny.

Asked Friday whether he thought the penny should be eliminated, Paulson agreed that it would make sense, saying, "The penny is worth less than any other currency."

However, he quickly added that he didn’t think it was "politically doable" to eliminate the one-cent coin and it wasn’t something he planned to tackle in the final year of the Bush administration.

"I’ve got enough challenges to take on," he said in an interview on the "Spike O’Dell Show" on Chicago’s WGN radio.

The administration is pushing an effort that would give the government the authority to change the metal content of all the nation’s coins as a way to save money. That proposal, which was introduced in Congress last year, was prompted by the sharp jump in the price of copper and other metals in recent years.

The measure, being sponsored in the House by Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and by Sens. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., and Wayne Allard, R-Colo., has not yet been enacted into law even though Mint officials estimate it could save significant amounts of money.

"Metal prices have been fluctuating so wildly in recent years that the Treasury and the United States Mint need the flexibility to react quickly, if necessary, to change the materials used in the nation’s coinage," said Mint Director Ed Moy.

The Mint produces between 7 billion and 8 billion pennies annually and officials said if they were allowed to alter the metal content in just the penny and the nickel it could save taxpayers up to $100 million.

In the radio interview, O’Dell also asked Paulson, who made a fortune as the head of investment giant Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) before joining the Bush cabinet, how much money he carried in his pocket.

"I walk around with very little cash in my pocket," he said, depending instead on credit cards "like everyone else."

Paulson said he did carry a few dollar bills with him to sign for people who ask for autographs. The signatures of the Treasury secretary and the U.S. Treasurer are carried on not just the dollar bill but all U.S. currency. 

Question: My 63-year-old mother earns about $1,200 a month, has $90,000 in savings and, as a result of a recent refinancing, has a $90,000 30-year mortgage. In three years she will begin collecting an estimated $1,300 a month from Social Security. A financial adviser suggests she put $60,000 into a variable annuity that is guaranteed to double in value in 10 years. Is this a good idea? –David, Denver, Colorado

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force on Friday awarded Northrop Grumman Corp. and a European partner a $35 billion contract to build airborne refueling planes, delivering a major blow to Boeing Co.

The selection of Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman (NOC, Fortune 500) and European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., the maker of Airbus planes, surprised industry and elected officials. Air Force officials said the larger size of the Northrop-EADS aircraft helped tip the balance in its favor.

Chicago-based Boeing (BA, Fortune 500), which has been supplying refueling tankers to the Air Force for nearly 50 years and had been widely expected to hang onto that monopoly, could protest the decision, though the company said no decision has been made.

The contract to build up to 179 aircraft - the first of three awards worth up to $100 billion over 30 years - opens up a huge new opportunity for Northrop Grumman.

"They don’t come along at this scale very often," Northrop Grumman Chairman and CEO Ronald Sugar said. "We do see this as being a very important component of our business for many years to come."

The EADS/Northrop Grumman team plans to perform its final assembly work in Mobile, Ala., although the underlying plane would mostly be built in Europe. And it would use General Electric (GE, Fortune 500) engines built in North Carolina and Ohio.

Northrop Grumman, which is based in Los Angeles, estimates a Northrop/EADS win would produce 2,000 new jobs in Mobile and support 25,000 jobs at suppliers nationwide.

"I’ve never seen anything excite the people of Mobile like this competition," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said. "We’re talking about billions of dollars over many years so this is just a huge announcement."

The deal also positions EADS to break into the U.S. military market.

In after-hours trading, shares of Northrop initially surged more than 5% before retreating to $78.83, an increase of 22 cents. Boeing’s stock price fell $2.64 to $80.15.

The Northrop-EADS refueling tanker, the KC-45A, "will revolutionize our ability to employ tankers and will ensure the Air Force’s future ability to provide our nation with truly global vigilance, reach, and power," Air Force Gen. Duncan J. McNabb said in a statement.

Air Force officials offered few details about why they choose the Northrop-EADS team over Boeing since they have yet to debrief the two companies. But Air Force Gen. Arthur Lichte said the larger size was key. "More passengers, more cargo, more fuel to offload," he said.

"It will be very hard for Boeing to overturn this decision because the Northrop plane seemed markedly superior" in the eyes of the Air Force, said Loren Thompson, a defense industry analyst with Lexington Institute, a policy think tank. And as the winners of the first award, EADS and Northrop are in a strong position to win two follow-on deals to build hundreds of more planes.

Boeing spokesman Jim Condelles said the company won’t make a decision about appealing the award until it is briefed by Air Force officials. Boeing believes it offered the best value and lowest risk, he said.

Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. analyst Troy Lahr said in a research note it was surprising the Northrop-EADS team won given the estimated $35 million per-plane savings offered by Boeing. Lahr estimated the Boeing aircraft would have cost $125 million apiece. "It appears the (Air Force) chose capabilities over cost," Lahr said.

Military officials say the Air Force is long overdue to replace its air-to-air refueling tankers, which allow fighter jets and other aircraft to refuel without landing. The service currently flies 531 Eisenhower-era tankers and another 59 tankers built in the 1980s by McDonnell Douglas, now part of Boeing.

But the new contract has emerged as a major test for the Air Force, which is trying to rebuild a tattered reputation after a procurement scandal in 2003 sent a top Air Force acquisition official to prison for conflict of interest and led to the collapse of an earlier tanker contract with Boeing.

The tanker deal is also certain to become a flashpoint in a heated debate over the military’s use of foreign contractors since Boeing painted the competition as a fight between an American company and its European rival. Lawmakers whose districts stood to gain jobs from a Boeing win were pressing this point on Friday.

"We should have an American tanker built by an American company with American workers," said Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., who represents the district in Wichita where Boeing would have done much of the tanker work.

In Everett, Wash., a few dozen Boeing workers protested outside a Machinists Union hall holding up signs saying "American workers equal best tankers," and "Our military deserves the best." 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Stocks tumbled Friday, in the second worst day of 2008, after AIG’s record loss added to worries about the financial sector and more weak economic news intensified fears about a recession.

Treasury prices rallied, sending yields higher, as investors sought safety in the comparatively safer haven of government debt, while the dollar held near a record low versus the euro. Oil prices dipped after topping all-time highs over $103 a barrel during the session. Gold prices jumped too.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost nearly 316 points, or 2.5%. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) index lost 2.7% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) fell 2.6%. The Russell 2000 (RUT) small-cap index also got slammed, tumbling 2.7%.

Stocks tumbled for the month of February as well, extending the wretched start to 2008.

"It’s a debacle today," said Dave Rovelli, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Canaccord Adams. "There’s just no good news out there."

AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) reported a steep $5.3 billion quarterly loss after the market close Thursday and said it took an $11 billion writedown related to big losses in investments tied to bad mortgage bets. Shares of the Dow component tumbled 7% Friday.

Brokerage UBS said financial firms could end up facing $600 billion in losses as the credit crisis continues to unfold. Banks, brokers and insurers have already lost more than $160 billion related to bad mortgage bets. UBS also cut its first-quarter earnings estimates on a number of investment banks.

Financial stocks were also under pressure as municipal bonds continued to be liquidated as fund managers struggle to raise capital.

"The lack of liquidity in areas of the bond market is spooking people," said Rob Lutts, chief investment officer at Cabot Money Management.

He said banks are reviewing their asset portfolios and anything that is seen as having too much risk is being reviewed, cut back or eliminated altogether.

"Today the casualty is the municipal bond market," he said.

Dell (DELL, Fortune 500) reported quarterly profit that fell from a year earlier and missed estimates late Thursday. The PC maker also issued a cautious outlook, saying some large customers are holding back on purchases. Shares fell 4.6% Friday.

"We got some horrible news today with UBS and AIG, then you also have Dell, oil, everything else, and this market is just looking to sell off," said Greg Church, president at Church Capital.

After the close, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, Fortune 500)’s Warren Buffett released his annual report to shareholders, touching on Berkshire’s 2007 performance; warning investors not to count on the company always seeing big returns; discussing Berkshire’s involvement in the derivatives business; and detailing Berkshire’s successful bet on the Brazilian currency, the real.

Bond insurers get a mix of news. CNBC reported that a proposed $2.5 billion bailout of troubled bond insurer Ambac Financial has hit some significant snags, sending Ambac (ABK) shares 6% lower and adding to economic worries. Rival MBIA (MBI) declined too.

Also dealing a blow to Ambac and MBIA was news that billionaire investor Wilbur Ross said he was injecting up to $1 billion in rival bond insurer Assured Guaranty (AGO). Assured stock rose 12.6%.

Church said that some good news on the bond insurers in the near term could temper fears a bit. Yet, broader worries aren’t likely to disappear because of the uncertainty about the depth and extent of the housing and credit market crises.

Rovelli said that he thinks stocks will probably fall close to the levels hit on Jan. 23, which same Wall Streeters think was the market bottom in the short term. He said he doesn’t think stocks will fall to the intraday low from January, which was about 11,644 on the Dow, but they could fall below the closing low of around 11,971 from Jan. 22.

"Hopefully, that will be an entry point for everyone," Rovelli said.

But other analysts think stocks may be setting up for a bigger decline. Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank, said the market probably needs to pull back another 8% to 10%. He also said analysts’ earnings estimates remain unrealistically high for the year.

"We need to reset expectations," Ablin said. "Once the market gets back to fair value, at least there will be an entry point where we can get back in."

Economic news mostly negative. The Chicago PMI, a report on manufacturing in the Midwest, fell more than expected, sliding to 44.5 in February from 51.5 in the previous month, marking a more than six-year low. Economists thought it would fall to 49.5. Any number below 50 indicates weakness in the sector.

The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index was revised up slightly to 70.8 in February from an earlier read of 69.6, the lowest level since the early 1990s. Sentiment stood at 78 in January.

Both personal income and personal spending rose more than expected in January, the Commerce Department reported. But the report pointed to signs of inflation pressure.

Income rose 0.3% after gaining 0.5% in December. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com thought income would rise 0.2%. Spending grew 0.4% after gaining 0.3% in December, versus expectations for a rise of 0.2%.

Core PCE, the report’s inflation component, grew 0.3%, as expected, after rising 0.2% in December. But the measure, which tracks prices paid by consumers for goods other than food and energy, jumped 2.2% versus a year earlier. That’s above the 1% to 2% range for that indicator that the Federal Reserve is said to prefer.

Eye on the Fed. The Fed has cut interest rates steadily since September, leaving the fed funds rate, a key bank lending rate, at 3%. Wall Streeters expect the bank to cut rates by another half-percentage point at the upcoming meeting on March 18.

However, in recent congressional testimony, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated that rising inflation was making it harder for the Fed to continue cutting rates to stimulate the sluggish economy.

Fed Governor Frederic Mishkin and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren - speaking at a housing conference - said the crisis in the sector could hurt the economy more severely than it already has if steps aren’t taken soon to correct it. (Full story).

St. Louis Fed Bank President William Poole spoke at the same conference in the afternoon. Poole said the Fed has a responsibility to help out borrowers who got themselves into trouble, but less so the financial firms.

On the move. Stocks declines were broad based, with all 30 Dow components sliding, led by AIG. Other big losers included Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), JP Morgan (JPM, Fortune 500) and American Express (AXP, Fortune 500).

Elsewhere in the financial sector, MF Global (MF) slumped 18% in active trade, falling for a second session after admitting it lost $141.5 million after a rogue trader made unauthorized bets. Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and UBS all downgraded the stock and Moody’s and S&P cut their ratings on the company’s debt Friday.

Telecom Sprint Nextel (S, Fortune 500) tumbled 10% in active New York Stock Exchange trade after S&P put the company on a watch list for a potential downgrade because of the subscribers its losing. On Thursday, the wireless carrier reported a fourth-quarter loss versus a profit a year ago, said it lost 100,000 subscribers in the quarter and forecast it would lose 1.2 million subscriptions in the first quarter, topping forecasts.

Among other movers, shares of R.H. Donnelley (RHD) plunged for a second session after Bear Stearns and Deutsche Securities downgraded the stock of the phone book publisher and search engine operator. R.H. Donnelley slumped Thursday as well after reporting fourth-quarter earnings that missed forecasts and issuing a first-quarter outlook that is shy of expectations.

On the upside, Gap shares gained 4% in active trade after reporting higher quarterly income that met forecasts. In the late Thursday announcement, the clothing retailer also said its board had authorized a $1 billion share buyback plan.

Market breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, losers topped winners six to one on volume of 1.26 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, decliners topped advancers three to one on volume of 2.04 billion shares.

Other markets. U.S. light crude oil for April delivery fell 75 cents to settle at $101.84 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after ending the previous session at a record close of $102.59. The front-month contract touched a new trading high of $103.05 in electronic trading.

COMEX gold for April delivery rallied $7.50 to settle at $975 an ounce.

Treasury prices jumped, lowering the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 3.51% from 3.66% late Thursday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

In currency trading, the dollar touched a fresh all-time low versus the euro before recovering a bit. The greenback hit a three-year low against the yen.  

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Despite all the pain the U.S. dollar has endured in recent days, the greenback may still have further to fall before seeing any sort of relief, according to currency experts.

Driving much of the dollar’s decline this week were tepid remarks about the U.S. economy by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who hinted that the central bank would cut interest rates once again at the Fed’s March meeting.

Those comments, combined with a number of troubling signs about the strength of the U.S. economy, helped send the dollar tumbling to multi-year lows against a host of currencies including the Swiss franc, the Malaysian ringgit and Japanese yen.

"It all points towards a weaker U.S. economy and currency traders don’t want to be exposed to that kind of risk," said Gareth Sylvester, senior currency strategist and self-described "dollar bear" at HFIX Plc in San Francisco.

But perhaps the most notable move of the week was the dollar hitting successive all-time lows against the euro, breaking the key psychological barrier of $1.50 for the first time since the 15-nation currency was launched in 1999.

Currency experts, however, argue that the dollar will remain under pressure at least through the next month or longer.

If next Friday’s February employment report is as bad as economists are anticipating, argues Joe Francomano, manager of foreign exchange with Erste Bank in New York, the greenback could possibly hit rock bottom at that point.

"You are going to see the momentum of this week carry over as far as dollar weakness goes and culminate next Friday," said Francomano.

How far could it fall?

The prevailing forecast lately is that the dollar will bottom out somewhere in the range of $1.55 against the euro and fall further against the yen sinking as low as ¥101 or ¥102.

Even the most bearish currency experts agree that the pressure on the dollar should abate some time around the middle of 2008, after the Fed winds down its rate-cutting campaign and as the sluggish U.S. economy starts to perk up.

But where the dollar heads after that is anyone’s guess.

Greg Anderson, executive director of forex strategy at ABN AMRO, expects the greenback to move towards $1.56 against the euro as 2008 comes to a close.

Ertse Bank’s Francomano, however, argues that the dollar should wind up around $1.46 against the euro by year end as investor find

"When the bad data has been processed and the Fed has cut rates to 2 percent or so, then expect the dollar to look cheap," said Francomano. 

CHICAGO (AP) — Passengers using United Airlines’ "Easy Check-In" found it anything but that on Leap Day when the automated system failed, resulting in longer lines at its U.S. airport counters.

The Chicago-based carrier blamed the service interruption on software issues related to the leap year.

Spokeswoman Megan McCarthy says customers couldn’t get Easy Check-In kiosks to confirm they had been checked in or print out their boarding passes for several hours.

McCarthy says no flights were delayed because of the problem. The airline apologized to customers for any inconvenience.

McCarthy says United (UAUA, Fortune 500) didn’t have any such problems with the software on Leap Day four years ago. 

Berkshire Hathaway had another excellent year in 2007, posting an 11% gain in net worth, CEO Warren Buffett said in Friday’s annual report to shareholders. Berkshire has grown its per-share book value by a remarkable 21% annually since Buffett took the reins 44 years ago.