About: Simon Jones (DipBSoM) is a meditation teacher and the founder of Klarosity. After building a successful 20-year career in the advertising industry, he was made redundant in 2025, a turning point that led him to fully transition into the field of meditation and mental wellbeing. Having personally experienced burnout and clinical depression in his early 30s, Simon turned to meditation as part of his recovery journey. The transformative impact of this practice inspired him to retrain as a meditation teacher, with the aim of helping others build resilience, clarity, and mental strength through evidence-based meditation techniques.
Welcome, Simon. How would you describe yourself and your work today in a few words?
Hi. I’m a meditation teacher (DipBSoM), helping people who operate in high-performing environments learn how to meditate. I help them by teaching specific techniques that are proven to support resilience, focus, creative thinking and stronger leadership.
I typically support leaders, such as Entrepreneurs & CEOs, and remote teams in teaching them evidence-based meditation techniques that they can use to help improve different areas of their professional and personal lives.
I’ve always been a supportive leader and I find it very fulfilling to see how meditation makes such a difference to people when it finally ‘clicks’ with them.
My approach to teaching meditation is very pragmatic, and it lands very well with people who are clear on what they want to achieve and are actively looking for ways to improve that probability of achieving them.
You spent over two decades in advertising. What did that environment teach you about pressure, ambition, and mental endurance?
Yes, I had a very enjoyable career in advertising. I’ve worked across the most competitive industries; finance, travel and consumer goods, alongside some of the UK’s most recognised brands.
In terms of pressure, I think that’s a very personal thing as it manifests on many levels. The sense of pressure I felt in my career looks silly when you place it next to someone who is perhaps working in healthcare, working to save people’s lives. However, I think that we all feel pressure based on our own belief-systems and personal ambitions. Everyone’s individual pressures are unique, and we all feel them differently.
For me that pressure came from wanting to deliver amazing work for my clients, wanting to advance my career, help the team develop and also balancing that with being there as a father for my children. I feel like I placed a lot of pressure on myself, not necessarily that someone else was placing pressure on me. But ultimately, only you can learn to deal with the pressure you feel, wherever it comes from.
Again, ambition is a very personal thing. For me I grew up in an affluent community, the people around me had lovely homes, nice cars and amazing holidays. I didn’t grow up thinking that was normal, but I did grow up thinking that was what success looked like. Very materialistic sadly. I didn’t feel like I fit in, we had a nice home, but no fancy cars or holidays to far-flung destinations. I felt an insatiable need to prove myself. Looking back, I think this is where both my ambition and pressure came from.
When you’re operating in corporate environments then you need to find ways to manage your mental endurance. It can be absolutely exhausting. So many things to balance, so many targets to hit, so many people to please. Without a method for coping you’ll find you’re in too deep, far too quickly.
Being made redundant in 2025 was a major life shift. How did it change the way you viewed success and security?
Yes, it was an unpleasant experience. A victim of a significant restructure after a lot of hard work and commitment on my part. It really knocked my confidence. It really made me question my abilities and values. But on reflection, I always gave the agency everything I had, and whilst I still reflect on how I could have been better, I had no choice but to move on quickly.
However, I’ve never taken success and security for granted. I had seen my father go through something similar and I always knew that working in the corporate world could easily end that way.
I’d already decided that I wanted my later career to be focused around meditation in some way, and I had a plan ready to go should redundancy come my way. I don’t think there is much security anymore, you should always have a plan and you should always assume responsibility for your own progression.
You came to meditation during burnout and clinical depression. What made you trust this practice when things felt unsustainable?
I had always been interested in meditation and had an intermittent practice of sorts so I knew that it was something that I should try to do more of to alleviate my symptoms. That interest came from my mother who is an active member and spiritual counsellor with the Church of England. Whilst I wouldn’t class myself as being religious, I saw the peace that it brought to my mother and she would occasionally talk of her meditation practice.
So I really started to practice, combining it with more general health and wellbeing
approaches such as regular exercise and more structured nutrition. It helped me to find peace, an inner refuge and time away from the symptoms I was experiencing. Over time and with consistent practice I found that my symptoms started to ease and I was able to function more normally again.
A daily practice brought me both structure and time for myself. I enjoyed the immediate uplift of a morning or evening meditation session and found that the feelings it brought me became more consistent over time. I started to feel more balanced overall, my baseline symptoms improved and eventually I was able to manage the underlying issues without the support of medication. When I look back meditation was the one constant in my recovery and something that has stayed with me ever since.
You’ve said meditation was about survival, not escape. Why does that framing resonate with so many professionals today?
Initially, for me, it absolutely was about survival, on two counts. Firstly, I had a young family and I was the sole provider, financially, time out of work was not an option so I had to find something that would help me to remain a productive team member. Secondly, I was experiencing some very dark moments, I recognised these as well documented symptoms of the depression and again, having a young family needed to find a way to be there for them. Meditation became my way of fulfilling both of these requirements, as well as finding some space for myself.
I think it’s important to say at this point though, to your readers, I worked very closely with my GP throughout this process. Anyone experiencing difficulties with their mental health should absolutely be seeking advice from a medical professional.
Back to your question; ‘Escape’ I think of as finding way out of something. ‘Survival’ I think of as a way for handling something so that you can move forward. There is absolutely no issue with practicing meditation to find relief from a given circumstance such as pressure, or stress. But I believe that there is much more benefit in practicing it to help you move forward with acceptance and clarity.
For example; an occasional relaxing meditation at the end of the work day is a lovely way to unwind, but the work and pressures will still be there tomorrow. However, consistent practice, working with particular meditation techniques could help you to prepare yourself more comprehensively to deal with the pressures on a more consistent basis.
Research shows that the calming benefits of meditation can be felt ‘in state’ (during or immediately after the practice) but that the longer term benefits such as stronger resilience, focus, ability think more creatively or pro-social behaviours come with longer term practice, and it’s these benefits that take you from wanting to escape to being able to survive and flourish.
At what point did meditation move from recovery to becoming a tool for clearer thinking and better decision-making?
It’s an interesting question, and I don’t think there’s a clear answer. For me, I would say that forming the regular, consistent practice was the recovery stage. Forming the habit, doing the work every-day, even when you might not feel like it was the recovery part for me. Gradually the physiological symptoms of the stress and anxiety I felt started to dissipate. Then alongside that I naturally started to feel the benefits of having a clearer mind which-led to better decision making and the ability to focus more clearly.
This is where I started to get more interested in the science of meditation and started to explore and practice different techniques that could help me move from recovery into optimisation. I started to work with different techniques to get into different states; such as interoception for relaxation, mindfulness for decoupling with difficult thought patterns, focused attention for supporting deep work, open awareness for creative thinking and metta for supporting my leadership style. I now have a circular practice which rotates me through these techniques for balance, and will dip in and out of specific techniques if I need to dial in certain areas.
You often describe the mind as both an asset and a bottleneck. What signs told you your mind was under strain?
This was very clear for me. I couldn’t think straight, I had a foggy mind and I found little joy in anything. I was in a constant loop of rumination. I was also experiencing severe physical symptoms of stress (holding tension, visible shaking, irritability, inability to sleep, nausea, bad skin) which made me feel very ill. I was able to hold things together, but I can’t imagine that my performance at this time was particularly strong.
Having worked in finance, media, and entrepreneurship, what cognitive pressures do high-stakes careers quietly impose on people?
Many of the people I speak with experience similar cognitive pressures. Firstly there’s the pressure to perform. Whatever your targets are, you feel an immense pressure to achieve them, and there are many levers that you have to pull to do so. As a leader, the buck stops with you. That can take a huge toll on you cognitively.
This can lead to rumination, with so many levers to pull, you can quickly find yourself replaying decisions, conversations and future outcomes. Your mind can become an echo chamber very quickly leaving limited cognitive bandwidth for the things that matter.
Interestingly, being a leader can become an extremely lonely experience. As the one who makes the decisions and is responsible for the team, it’s easy to become isolated with your own thoughts. In an ideal world you will have the full-backing of the team, but even then, you may feel increased pressure from the responsibility. I remember asking the CEO of a 1000 person company the biggest pressure he felt and he said ‘hands down’ it was the weight of every single one of those people relying on him to provide salaries that paid for their mortgages or rent every single month.
And then we come to accountability. This is a huge pressure point. Whether that’s to yourself, your bank, your family, your employees, your investors or your board. Most of us are accountable to someone and ‘reporting up’ can take up a lot of your bandwidth.
People feel all kinds of pressures, but in the conversations I’ve had these are generally the ones that are most often discussed.
You surveyed 300 UK leaders about meditation. What misconception stood out most strongly in their responses?
Overwhelmingly our respondents viewed meditation as a tool for general relaxation. 87% of respondents primarily associated meditation with ‘relaxation’ or ‘sleep’. I don’t think this is surprising. The core narrative about meditation in the UK is all about wellness and the messaging can be very generic.
It stacks up though, according to a report by Mental Health UK, a staggering 91% of UK adults surveyed said they experienced high or extreme levels of pressure or stress in the last 12 months. There is a real need for tools and techniques to help with this, and meditation and mindfulness present a valid solution to the problem.
Many people still associate meditation only with relaxation. What deeper, evidence-based benefits do you think are most overlooked?
According to our survey, it’s the overwhelming majority (87%) that still associate meditation only with relaxation. I don’t see this as being a problem necessarily. It’s encouraging that so many people have taken the message on board, my hope being that some people will actually go on to try it.
But frustratingly, whilst 91% (Mental Health UK) of people say they have experienced high pressure or stress, our survey showed that only 10% (klarosity) of people have actually managed to develop a regular meditation practice. That’s a significant gap on the wellness front alone.
There is a raft of evidence to suggest that meditation can support in other areas of development. Most specifically; building resilience, improving focus, developing the ability to think more creatively and to improve empathy and compassion as a leader.
But there is a barrier of scepticism. In our survey 47% of professionals were either ‘neutral’ or ‘disagreed’ with the statement that meditation can help to improve workplace performance. Only 4% associated meditation with developing leadership skills and only 11% thought it could help them to think more creatively.
A study by Jain et al (2007) found that mindfulness meditation specifically reduces psychological distress by decreasing ruminative thoughts. A study by Baird et al (2014) suggested that meditation can help to improve the ability to accurately monitor one’s own cognitive performance. A study by Colzato et al (2012) proved that open monitoring meditation specifically improved divergent thinking and the ability to generate multiple novel ideas. And a study by Mascaro et al (2013) demonstrated that compassion training (such as Metta meditation) improves empathetic accuracy.
The research base is broad and diverse, but the majority of the evidence points to meditation practices as being supportive across the areas of resilience, focus, creativity and leadership. These are all areas that the modern professional would benefit from making performance gains.
klarosity treats meditation as a cognitive skill rather than a wellness habit. How does this reframe change the way people engage with it?
Yes, our framing is slightly different, and whilst we start all training with a reset / fortify module which supports in general wellness and resilience, we do go on to explore meditation as a way to develop other cognitive skillsets such as focus, creativity and empathetic leadership.
We find that many of the people we teach like to develop an understanding of why something works before they can have confidence in the practice. As such, the main way people engage is to connect the understanding with the practice first. This is core to our teaching programme. We are teaching evidence-based techniques, but perhaps more importantly we are teaching the science behind them.
This is very different to many meditation app and teachers, where you may just dive straight into a meditation without an explanation of why you’re doing it and how it works.
I must caveat, I have no issue with this way of teaching, as far as I am concerned, the more people who meditate the better. I absolutely think that individuals should choose a path that they are comfortable with and this works for many.
But we do find that those who are operating in high-performance environments, typically engage more readily with our teaching when they know the mechanism and have understood at least some of the theory behind it.
Many people try meditation briefly and then stop. What do they often misunderstand about those early experiences?
Like forming any new habit such as the gym, running or learning a new skill, it can be easy to give up if you experience early friction. With meditation it’s extremely common for people to have heightened expectations of being able to immediately empty their mind which can become a clear friction point.
Meditation is not necessarily a tool to ‘empty the mind’. This misconception leads to many people feeling they have failed when the mind starts to wander which becomes a major friction point and then leads to people giving up.
The practice can take a while to click and some persistence is required on the part of the student. Whilst most people will experience immediate ‘in state’ benefits such as a feeling of relaxation of sleepiness, it takes a longer period of practice to experience sustained levels of calm and focus.
Feedback from our clients suggest that this ‘click’ happens in around the third teaching session, which means that they will have been practicing daily for two weeks already. Some report initial frustrations with being able to focus within the meditation but that with practice it becomes much easier.
Meditation can sometimes feel uncomfortable rather than calming. Why do you think this side of the practice is rarely discussed?
Before trying meditation, many of us will rarely have ever sat still and paid attention to what is actually going on in our minds and this can feel very uncomfortable initially. Without having tried the practice the first few sessions can actually highlight exactly how busy our minds are and I think this is the piece that can feel uncomfortable.
You come to meditation hoping for a ‘quick fix’, to ‘empty the mind’ and before you know it your thoughts are busier than they’ve ever been because you’re paying closer attention to them.
Why is it not discussed? I think it’s partially because so many of the solutions out there involve plugging into an app with our headphones. We’re all looking for an instant fix and discussing the friction points put people off. There’s no quick fix here and students should be aware that it may take a little time for them to feel comfortable in the practice.
If meditation doesn’t remove stress from life, what does it realistically change in how people relate to pressure and uncertainty?
I would argue that stress is actually caused by the way we perceive and react to something, and stress looks different for every individual. Why is that? I think that’s because we all react to things differently.
So, meditation can’t remove the things from your life that might cause stress . . . Money problems, cars breaking down, the need to hit a deadline or work overtime . . . But it can help you to recognise the way you are reacting to those potential stressors and manage your approach to them.
The stress we feel is often caused by overthinking particular challenges, we play the event, the past or future outcome over and over in our minds in a state called rumination. By meditating, and in this particular case by practicing mindfulness, we can recognise and decouple ourselves from those thought processes and reduce the stress we experience.
It’s not about removing the stressor. It’s about adjusting our response to the stressor.
Finally, what would you say to someone who feels burned out or lost, but senses an inner shift, not another external solution is needed?
Well firstly, depending on how burned out or lost you’re feeling, I would always suggest speaking with a medical professional. There are many triggers for these kinds of feelings and your Doctor should be the starting point of you are feeling unwell. Meditation should be viewed as a complimentary therapy and is not a replacement for professional medical advice.
Perhaps though you just feel like meditation is something you would try. I would suggest you do a bit of reading around the subject, explore the tradition and the research. There are so many schools of teaching. Some come from the spiritual side, some from the wellness side, some from the self-help side. There are also many styles of meditation and it can be a very personal choice to find something that works for you. If you just want to get started and have a go at meditation then you could just try this very simple technique to try and calm the mind:
1 – Find yourself somewhere quiet where you won’t be disturbed
2 – Sit yourself in a comfortable position, back straight, shoulders back, chin slightly lowered
3 – Take a few deep breaths to ground yourself
4 – Gently bring your attention to the the breath and start to silently count the out breath
5 – As you breath, just count your breaths up to 7 and then start again
6 – When you notice your mind has wondered, just bring it gently back to the focus of the breath and the counting
7 – Repeat for as long as comfortable, perhaps starting with 5 minutes and gently working up to 20
The free learning resource referred to at the conclusion of this interview is available at the following link:
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