At 42, how much do you really need? This was the question Clive Mayhew asked on returning to Australia after working overseas during the dot com boom.

Instead of returning to the corporate sector, Clive decided to use his skills to give back to the community, rather than use them to make even more money. “I saw friends in a similar position continue working in well paid jobs, but that’s more about ego than anything else. A lot of the time if people are not involved in the business side of life they don’t know what to do with themselves – but a lot of people could actually choose not to make more than they really need,” he says.

Rather than re-enter the rat race, three years ago Clive developed the Yoga Aid foundation, which he calls “a trusted brand for giving within the yoga community worldwide.”

Yoga Aid has just celebrated raising its first million dollars and Clive is now running charity-based events for the foundation in more than 12 countries around the world. A recent Australian Yoga Aid event raised $176,032 for groups such as kids’ charity Barnados, Sunnyfield, which supports people with intellectual disabilities and the Nelune Foundation, which helps cancer patients.

Clive is also about to become one of first three people in the world to graduate with a Master of Wellness from Melbourne’s RMIT.

So how did Clive end up in a position in which he has been able to give up paid work and focus on giving back to the community?

Clive was one of the early pioneers of the internet in Australia and in 1995, at the tender age of 32, became the Australian managing director of the internet darling of its day, Netscape.

This was the launch pad for a successful IT career and, after completing an MBA, he moved to the US to work with a number of high-profile internet businesses.

But after five very successful business years came a very painful divorce (which he blames on his lack of life balance) so he decided to return to Australia. At that point in his life, Clive was 42 and questioned what he really wanted in his life.

“It’s probably the age when most people just want to make more money but for me, I didn’t want to go back into a world that caused the divorce in the first place,” he says.

“I just didn’t want to run my life that way again. I was craving more balance and it was time to give back, especially as I had been given so much in my life. I don’t miss the corporate life at all; compared to what I’m doing now it’s trivial.”

So Clive focused his internet business skills on developing Yoga Aid. He still keeps his business skills fresh as an angel investor in the tech sector but his true passion is developing giving-based projects.

He is especially excited about his new project for 2011, Give Karma, which involves a world tour of giving with a high-profile American based rapper, MC Yogi.

“It’s all about combining the fun of touring with giving and we start in March,” he says.

“People think they don’t have choices in life but they do. When I realised that it started me on this path. I don’t regret my corporate life but what I’m doing now is much more fulfilling.”