As you may have heard, mindfulness is the new jogging. This is not to be confused with sitting, which is the new smoking, or scooting: the new cycling. Unclear? Don’t worry, there are apps for that. The most popular was created by Michael Acton Smith, a British entrepreneur more commonly known for the children’s computer craze Moshi Monsters. For a monthly fee of £9.99, Calm provides a library of bedtime stories for adults, calming music, meditation tutorials and video and audio to help reduce anxiety, gain better focus and even hone professional or parenting skills. Its closest rival, Headspace, is another hit among the Silicon Valley crowd. It too was created by a Briton. This seems at odds with our culture. While the UK is known for keeping calm and carrying on, actual meditation was largely considered the preserve of the almond milk-drinking yoga crowd on America’s west coast. Google has offered meditation to its employees for years. Steve Jobs spent months searching for gurus in India and was married by a Zen expert. Acton Smith, on the other hand, has an air of Bob Geldof about him, but with better style. The 44-year-old is a member of the Silicon Valley expat member’s club GBx Global, which holds black-tie balls to the amusement of the casually dressed natives. But Acton Smith doesn’t need a pair of sandals. Calm is now worth more than $250m (£191m), he claims. In June he and co-founder Alex Tew secured $27m from investors including former… [Read full story]
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