Mr Meditate wins small business award from council

Long-time Docklands resident and meditation guru Tomas Jajesnica has been recognised in the City of Melbourne’s small business awards.   

In September, Mr Jajesnica’s business Mr Meditate celebrated its 10th year in operation and earned an honour in this year’s Lord Mayor’s Small Business Awards as a result.

The Victoria Point resident has lived in Docklands for 15 years and it’s been during this time that his journey away from working in the legal sector into corporate meditation has manifested, and now has 10 people employed in his team.

Located in Harbour Esplanade, Mr Meditate specialises in corporate meditation for helping improve mental health and performance, as well as helping to stimulate innovation in the workplace.

Offering meditation services ranging from experiential workshops to one-on-one training and coaching, Mr Meditate has worked with some of Australia’s biggest employers including NAB, Mercedes Benz, Salesforce, MYOB, and PwC.

Speaking of his honour, Mr Jajesnica said, “I feel validated, encouraged and supported”.

Mr Jajesnica said he got into meditation “because I wanted to be happy in this life”.

He initially worked in the legal profession in a business development capacity, but added, “When I learnt they [law firms] became the most depressed in 2012, an epiphany came to do something else.”

He said having an impact on people’s lives continued to drive him, in which he summed up as “eudaimonia”.

“Hedonistic happiness is where you go make more money and ‘what I can from the world?’ But eudaimonia is ‘what can you contribute to the world?’”

“When I see people really suffering from the common traits of brain fog, exhaustion and sleep deprivation, and when I hear that they’ve progressed that gives me a really good warm feeling that I’ve contributed to the planet.”

But he conceded, “progress is more important than perfection”. One way of personally achieving this he said was taking a “mini retirement every five years”.

“It’s not an escape as such because often people view meditation as an escape into some lush, tranquil forest. I don’t promote that,” he said, but rather finding a balance “amid the circle we have called life”.

“I highly recommend it. I do as my heart desires.” He said this usually involved travelling, and in one instance, he didn’t have a phone for nine months while in South America and San Francisco.

“It’s so liberating! No one could disturb me. If I wanted to ask for directions and if you need to get somewhere I will just ask someone else’.”

Mr Jajesnica is one to always push the boundaries, admitting he took two months off work every year.

“Last time I decided to Uber [drive]. It was a social experiment asking people about how they deal with life’s ups and downs, and I’ve got a vast array of responses,” he said, which he could use as examples in future conferences.

“It was supposed to be for two months, but I loved it so much, I kept doing it,” he said after finishing the Uber stint in May.

He also discovered that “the new rich are the time rich”.

“Essentially, it’s how you utilise those 24 hours every day. If you’re stressed and so forth, you’re not very rich. If you’re loving what you’re doing and have purpose (then you are time rich).” •

mrmeditate.com