Anastasia Gosteva’s mindfulness program had much to offer me. I have experienced increased personal effectiveness during negotiations, my communication in a team became more productive. I felt the positive results of the program not only in my professional life, but in my family life - through gaining the ability to better listen to and understanding my loved ones.

And what’s most important is that this training develops our ability to live in the “here and now”, to fill our reality with clear feelings and bright colors, which many of us lack in modern life.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that MBR’s Executive program marked the beginning of a new life for me. I’ve become more mindful of myself and others, I’ve learned how to be the master of my mind and my emotions rather than to allow them to control me as they did before. I started learning yoga and spiritual practices and have discovered that all this is extremely useful in business as well as in my personal life. This is a feeling of general cleansing — your consciousness gets rid of rubbish and a bigger clarity emerges. I can see my goals and the path of my life more clearly. Thank you, Anastasia!

I read an article about the US Marines’ meditation program and got very interested if there was anything like this in Russia. Thus I met Anastasia and got into her Executive program. This mindfulness course became a door into a whole new world to me, an opportunity to improve myself. I became more composed in my communication with people at work and at home. I learned how to really LISTEN, to separate words from emotions. I was a bit confused when we were offered to practice Loving kindness meditation, but to my surprise, I later discovered that during the tough negotiations, this practice was more useful than the NLP techniques I used to study.

The charm and merit of the Mindful Leader course for me were in its complex approach, the set of techniques and exercises united by the same goal, but allowing one to change the object and direction of attention, and in its secularity — it doesn’t correspond to any religion or confession. The practice is naturally built into your everyday life without any connection to religious rituals. And I consider this to be of special value as it significantly broadens the field where it can be applied.

I used to practice Zen non-object meditation (without any system) and I know from that time that even 15 minutes of meditation a day calms your mind and stabilizes your inner condition. I’m now determined to start practicing on a regular basis. But it’s not simple. Even knowing what to do and how it is useful to be mindful in all my activities, I find it’s difficult to keep my focus on awareness of the present moment. I’m telling myself that success comes with tenacity.

Being a cynic without any inclinations towards spiritual seeking, I was critical enough about this program from the beginning. But my curiosity overcame my cynicism. What’s amazing about this mindfulness program is that Anastasia managed to translate into mundane business language the explanation of quite a number of things that were incomprehensible for me before. And I’m really grateful for this. What was useful? I’ve started waking up without an alarm at 6 am, feel less tired after negotiations, and have slightly changed the way I communicate with my colleagues.I have recommended this program to my colleagues and peers with great pleasure as I see how it changes the quality of one’s life and work.

I was very glad about the fact that meditation and this philosophy has finally come to Russian business. I’m actively telling my clients about the Mindful Leader program and some of them react enthusiastically to this idea.

What was most valuable and important for me in this program:

- Theory, neuroscience - it explains lots of things in my own behavior and emotional reactions and those of other people;

- Practices. The ones I loved and use now are body scan, loving kindness and open presence;

- Action Inquiry and loop-learning.

I definitely want some kind of sequel, workshops to deepen some aspects of the practices.

Anastasia Gosteva’s master class touched on an extremely important theme and system of practices — for myself as well as for the development of our corporate culture.

The Mindful Leader program became the most important developmental experience for me during the past few years. Anastasia intertwines the latest neuroscientific and psychological research into a much deeper context. If you are skeptical about meditation I would definitely advise you to take this course - and you will see very soon that your life has changed.

I’m extremely grateful to Anastasia for showing me the amazing potential I had to improve the quality of my life and my emotional and spiritual development through mindfulness. These four weeks of the course have really helped me to look at my life from a different perspective and to see my potential. What’s also extremely important for me is that I found tools to lower my level of aggression, to reduce my stress and discomfort in life. I really loved the practice of noticing patterns of earlier Action Logics in the module devoted to vertical development and Action Inquiry — you get to know what to attend to and where to grow! I wish Anastasia good luck and success in her important and beautiful work!

My overall impression of the Mindful Leader program is that it’s useful and interesting. A couple of years ago clients started asking me questions about how they could “get out of the dance floor and onto the balcony” and to observe different life conditions from the outside. This program explains and teaches how to do this. And the third module — on vertical development and Action Inquiry — shows that there can be not only one, but many balconies! This is something most people don’t even imagine. To my mind it’s very simple to be mindful. All you need is to become mindful of yourself and to master your attention. And then you need to learn how to maintain this condition in all circumstances.