Bowen Islander Geoff Soloway wants to help men reduce their stress, anxiety and depression, and boost their focus, creativity, and performance. His method is teaching practices of mindfulness. He’s been leading workshops and programs in this area since 2006, which include meditation, but can extend into every day chores and activities like chopping wood or jogging. Mostly, he says, women sign up for these workshops. This is something Soloway and his business partners at Mindwell Canada want to change – and they’ve got support from the Movember Foundation to do it.
In their proposal, Soloway and his partners explain their plan to re-format training from the typical eight week, in-person course to an online format that works better for people with busy lives. The restructured online mindfulness course will require participants to spend just 1.5 hours per week for six weeks on any device and at any time they choose.
The new format will not just change the structure of courses, but also the perception.
“We want to promote this as professional development within the context of the workplace because if you say this is about ‘men’s health,’ most guys aren’t going to want to touch it,” says Soloway. “Mindfulness, as MindWell Canada is bringing it to the table, is about professional development and peak performance. And there are precedents for this.”
The Seattle Seahawks head coach, Pete Carroll, for example, encourages his players to meditate daily. Apparently, roughly 20 team members show up for the official yoga and meditation sessions three times per week. The team’s sports psychologist says that this kind of training helps players develop skills essential for any great athelete or leader: focus awareness, clarity of thought, and the ability to stay in the present moment.
Soloway also points to the US Marines as another organization that uses mindfulness training and meditation to improve performance.
At the moment, Soloway and his business partners are developing an on-line training guide for their program, and connecting with businesses who will pilot the program with their employees. Companies interested in participating in the pilot program can contact MindWell Canada at [email protected]. The two-year pilot is slated to start running September, 2015.
