Michael Chaskalson

Mindfulness teacher Michael Chaskalson joins us to talk about his experiences teaching mindfulness in the corporate world.

Think about the workplace for a moment. What’s it like? For some, it may be the hallowed halls of academia, or a construction project, or perhaps you’re fortunate enough to work from home. For others, the workplace may be a military base, or the high pressure environment of a corporation. Wherever you spend most of your waking, working hours, you as a human being may encounter difficulties along the way. Imagine what it would be like if your workplace supported the cultivation of your mindfulness practice. How might that change things for you, and why is that a bad thing, as some critics suggest?

Michael also has an entrepreneurial background. In 1979 he founded a fair-trade company. Now known as Windhorse:evolution, the company has sales of £10 million and employs 200 people in the UK and elsewhere. Having given his shareholding to a charitable trust, Michael left the company in 1988 and devoted himself to investigating, teaching and studying mindfulness and related matters. He is an honorary lecturer at Bangor University, where he is a member of the Core Teaching Team at the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice in the School of Psychology. He is also on the faculty of the Executive Masters in Positive Leadership and Strategy at the IE Business School in Madrid. Michael’s work is deeply informed by his own mindfulness practice and his knowledge of the contemporary research – including cutting-edge neuroscience research – into the use of mindfulness in a wide variety of contexts. Michael designed our Mindfulness for Leaders programme and the Mindfulness for Coaches course. He works one-to-one with senior people as a coach or mindfulness trainer and is intimately involved in every element of our work, much of which he delivers personally. Michael is based in Cambridge – a city he deeply loves.

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Web Links

• Mindfulness Works

Music for This Episode Courtesy of Rodrigo Rodriguez

The music heard in this podcast is from Rodrigo Rodriguez. You can visit his website to hear more of his music, get the full discography, and view his upcoming tour dates.