About
bmindful was founded to help athletes find balance in their daily lives, build more resiliency, and tap into their highest potential.
Ethan Saal
Founder, CEO and Lead bmindful Coach
Our founder, Ethan Saal, is a former collegiate tennis player and a certified mindfulness meditation teacher. On top of working with athletes, he is also a mental health and bipolar specialist. Ethan is also a public speaker that has given talks at many of the top institutions in the country including MIT, Tufts University, Wesleyan University and many more.
As a collegiate tennis player, he helped Brandeis University rise from outside the top 30 to #14 in the country. During his first year there, he discovered how meditation benefited his performance and mental health on and off the court. Soon after, he hoped to find a way to share those benefits with others.
During his junior year he co-founded B.mindful, a club at Brandeis where he offered students, teachers, and the local community guided meditations and mindfulness-based discussions. That same year, he also delivered a Tedx Talk named “The Silent Epidemic” aimed at breaking down the stigma surrounding mental health.
He received his mindfulness meditation teacher certification at Tibet House US in NYC under the instruction of Senior Buddhist teacher, David Nichtern. He also learned a great amount about sports psychology while conducting research for mental-training coach Rob Polishook, which he incorporates into the bmindful teachings as well.
Ethan’s TEDx Talk
‘The Silent Epidemic’
Ethan takes you through his own personal journey of struggling with his mental health and learning how to care for it. He shares the many lessons he’s learned over the years, with the help of the “roots” of his tree.
Eric Mandell
COO, Director of Growth and bmindful Coach
Eric is a former collegiate baseball player, our COO, Director of Partnerships and one of our bmindful Coaches. He’s the backbone of our company that keeps everything running smoothly. He oversees our daily operations, manages partnerships, spearheads marketing, and much more. As a coach, he’s trained alongside Ethan since 2022 and earned his Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification from Dharma Moon under the instruction of Senior teacher, David Nichtern.
Like many athletes, he’s worked through many struggles on and off the field. One area of expertise is on the mental side of the injury and recovery process due to the challenges he faced when he underwent a microfracture surgery on his knee his Senior year of high school. These experiences inspired him to help athletes develop the tools and resources he wished he had when he was a collegiate athlete to overcome injuries and other mental hurdles.
Before joining our family, he worked in the corporate space for 7+ years. While working at start-ups, large organizations, and with fortune 500 companies, he learned how to build team chemistry, handle success and failure, build confidence and relationships, and more. He’s motivated to bring these experiences and knowledge, paired with mindfulness and mental training, to companies of all sizes.
In short, he can do it all. That includes keeping Ethan’s monkey mind focused on one thing at a time, just like we work on in meditation ;)
Tessa Trate
Program Coordinator & bmindful Coach
Tessa is a former collegiate tennis player and our Associate. She started as an intern during the Summer of 2023, while she attended Christopher Newport University where she earned degrees in Psychology, Leadership, and Business. She’s currently in the process of applying to earn her graduate degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
At CNU she helped her team rise to #19 nationally, and was ranked #9 in the country in doubles. She and her doubles partner, Raine Weis, were the first doubles team in program history to attend the NCAA Championships for both doubles and singles. She was nominated as the ‘24 C2C Conference Academic Scholar of the Year and was named to the ‘23/24 Virginia Information Directors Academic All State team.
Her passion for sports psychology stems from her playing career and dealing with her own mental battles. These barriers impacted her ability to perform and have fun. Her team began working directly with bmindful, which helped her work through it all. This inspired her to help other athletes that struggle with similar issues.
While working with our team she received her Mindfulness Meditation Teacher training certificate through Dharma Moon and Tibetan House. With this certificate and her formal bmindful training, Tessa will begin coaching soon! We’re excited for her to help and influence many athletes in the future.