I could not be more excited to start releasing this next round of episodes!

Episode nine is special to me because I was able to sit down (virtually) and talk with one of my co-founders, Mara Chaben.

Mara and I met a few years ago through a mutual friend, Cooper. We all shared a passion for entrepreneurship and life. I was instantly intrigued by Mara’s story - her resilience, demeanor, sense of sureness.

I remember our first coffee (RIP the Jam - best coffee house in Nashville), she told me about this wild idea - a mobile meditation studio in a BUS!

Now at the time, I had just been toying around with starting a different company in a bus, so this crazy idea made sense to me - creating almost a brick and mortar option but mobile. The meditation part though was still pretty foreign to me.

I had just started playing around with mindfulness due to anxiety and stress in my life, but I still had no idea what it was and how/if it could actually help.

Something about the way Mara described mindfulness - something so foreign and quite frankly a little scary to me made me instantly think this is what I had been looking for.

She talked about mindfulness in the simplest terms: creating a space to be present.

She was vulnerable and shared her story about how mindfulness helped her with her battle with cancer and how it had made such an incredible impact in her life.

I still remember this first coffee vividly, the three of us sitting at the window table for a few hours with three people sharing their passions. This meeting eventually lead us to launch ZenStop in July 2019 in LA.

ZenStop Bus

In a time with so much uncertainty of what the future holds, mental health is vital.

I knew I wanted to bring Mara on this episode to share her story and passion for mental health.

I won’t speak for others, but I know over the first few months of the pandemic I developed a level of anxiety I had no idea I could even have. My stress levels were out of this world and I normally run pretty chill. Something that was a saving grace to me was my mindfulness habits.

Also, if I read that last sentence three years ago I would not believe I wrote it.

I wanted to release this episode to shed light on the fact mindfulness is an attainable thing and easy to start. It just takes a small commitment to consistency.

Mara teaching inside ZenStop

Mara goes into great detail on tips to get started and even lists three books she recommends:

Search Inside Yourself 

Fully Present

How To Train A Wild Elephant

I personally read Search Inside Yourself when I just began looking into meditation and I absolutely loved the mindfulness backed by science approach.

I know meditation can be scary and weird to even think about trying, but it was worth it for me. This time period we are in right now, I think the more we do for our mental health, the better.

I really appreciate you taking the time to listen and hope you check out the books and ZenStop’s Youtube page!