12. Mindfulness at Work

Francis Lacoste, a Director of Engineering at Heroku, is a longtime meditation practitioner. In 2015, he attended public seminar on mindfulness by the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, which was co-founded by a former Google engineer. The workshop emphasized mindfulness as a benefit to businesses by framing the mental health benefits as something that could improve worker productivity. Enlightened by this discovery, he worked to bring the lessons over to Heroku.

Heroku's remote culture introduced some challenges to the original structure of the program. Participants are connected through Zoom meetings, rather than being seated in a room together. As well, the workshop take place over the course of a week, rather than two very long days. Herokai have responded very positively to the lessons, and some have earnestly applied the practices at home and with their families.

The actual practice itself is very secularized, even though it draws on Buddhist traditions. Francis Lacoste believes that culturally, we are not given the appropriate tooling to deal with conflicts and stress, and finds mindfulness to be a fantastic aid to those problems.

Links from this episode

• Search Inside Yourself
• DIY Meditation Guide
• Social Meditation