By Dana Zelicha, CEO, OWBA – The Wellbeing Agency
In 2010, if you had asked me where I envisioned myself seven years down the road, the words ‘mindfulness’ or ‘meditation’ would not have been part of the conversation. Working for large companies like Red Bull and Philip Morris International, I was a cog in the corporate wheel, where moments of quiet were seemingly non-existent, and stress and burnout were par for the course. Functioning on autopilot, I felt completely unfulfilled and disengaged from the work I was doing and the people around me. I would sit at my desk waiting for a cigarette break so that I could escape from the unsatisfying yet consuming environment I was in. Fast forward to 2017, and you will still find me in the corporate environment, except this time the picture is different; I am feeling at peace, there are no cigarettes to be found, and I am teaching executives, managers, and employees how to meditate. So how did I make such a 180° transition? In a moment of clarity amid my chaotic working environment, I discovered mindfulness.
The minute I started to be more mindful, I instantly became aware of the disengagement and disconnectedness of my co-workers, and saw just how many problems plague corporate culture. This sudden awareness led me to my personal mission: to make the workplace more mindful. Through mindfulness, I was able to see all that was wrong with this system, and through mindfulness I vowed to help fix it. This experience inspired me to launch OWBA – The Well Being Agency, endorsed by the London School of Economics, with the goal of helping everyone from CEOs and large corporations to entrepreneurs and start-ups make their employees less stressed, and their companies more compassionate. It is easy to feel lost amongst heavy workloads and mounting responsibilities, and it is my vision is to help people in the frantic workforce to slow down and remember that they are human beings, not human doings.
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