Who is Anu?
Say: “uh-Nuu”
I’m Anu Gupta, MPhil, JD, an author, speaker, attorney, and interspiritual wellness teacher, whose work bridges neuroscience, contemplative practice, and the world's wisdom traditions to cultivate greater resilience, ethical leadership, and human flourishing.
I’m the author of the award-winning Breaking Bias, with a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I founded and led Be More with Anu for twelve years, a social enterprise that trained and guided more than 100,000 professionals across 300+ organizations in mindfulness tools.
Anu’s Calling
I help people and institutions cultivate the inner capacities needed to meet a rapidly changing world with clarity, compassion, courage, and connection.
Through keynotes, workshops, retreats, writing, and transformative learning experiences, I teach practical tools for wellbeing, ethical leadership, mindfulness, emotional regulation, dialogue across difference, and moral imagination.
My work is rooted in a simple but powerful belief: the outer change we seek in the world requires inner development first. I firmly believe that we must learn to see clearly, relate wisely, and act with integrity in order to build more compassionate institutions and societies,
From Be More with Anu to Breaking Bias
In 2014, I founded Be More with Anu, originally Be More America, to help individuals and institutions cultivate mindfulness, compassion, and belonging across human differences.
At the heart of this work was the PRISM Toolkit, a methodology funded by the National Science Foundation that integrates neuroscience, contemplative practice, behavioral science, and interspiritual wellness. Through Be More, my team and I partnered with organizations across healthcare, higher education, law, technology, philanthropy, government, and the nonprofit sector.
This body of work culminated in my award-winning book, Breaking Bias: Where Stereotypes and Prejudices Come From — and the Science-Backed Method to Unravel Them (2024), with a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The book offers a practical, compassionate, shame-free approach to understanding how bias is learned—and how we can begin to unlearn it through mindfulness and compassion.
Breaking Bias remains the foundation for my broader work on ethical leadership, wellbeing, dialogue, and human flourishing.
A Contemplative & Interspiritual Wellness Path
My teaching is grounded not only in research and institutional practice, but also in a lifelong commitment to inner transformation.
I have spent more than 10,000 hours in contemplative retreats across the United States and Asia. I’m a 500-hour certified yoga and meditation teacher and a longtime student of Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, and other contemplative traditions.
My interspiritual wellness approach honors the wisdom carried across traditions while translating those teachings into accessible practices for modern life, leadership, and social change.
Current Chapter
My current work expands beyond the Be More chapter into a wider inquiry: How do we cultivate the moral imagination, contemplative wisdom, and inner courage needed to flourish in a rapidly changing world?
I now write, speak, and teach on wellbeing, ethical leadership, dialogue across difference, interspiritual wellness, and human flourishing.
I am especially interested in supporting leaders and institutions navigating burnout, fragmentation, uncertainty, technological change, and the need for deeper forms of connection and repair.
I write Soul Force for the 21st Century, a Substack exploring interspiritual wellness, contemplative practice, moral imagination, and human flourishing in an age of disruption and overlapping crises.
Credentials & Impact
I am a graduate of NYU School of Law and the University of Cambridge. I’m a lifetime Fellow of the Mind & Life Institute and have served as a TED Resident, Echoing Green Fellow, Senior Atlantic Fellow, Nathan Cummings Foundation Fellow, and Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Scholar.
I’ve taught meditation and mindfulness for more than fifteen years. I currently teach at Columbia Law School and NYU Stern School of Business, and regularly deliver keynotes and workshops for law firms, bar associations, and legal organizations on lawyer well-being, leadership, communication, and resilience. My work has been featured in leading media outlets and has reached more than 100,000 professionals, indirectly touching more than 30 million lives through institutional partnerships.
Drawing on more than 10,000 hours of silent retreat practice across Buddhist and yogic traditions, I integrate modern neuroscience with timeless contemplative wisdom to offer practical tools for everyday life. I’m the co-creator of PAUSE™, a practical framework for responding to stress with greater awareness, resilience, and intention. My work has been featured at TED, SXSW, and the Dubai Future Forum, and in TIME, Fast Company, Newsweek, People, and Vogue Business. Through my writing, teaching, and speaking, I help professionals and students build healthier relationships with themselves, one another, and the challenges of modern life.
A Personal Invitation
My work is driven by a deep commitment to helping human beings remember who we are, how deeply we belong to one another, and what becomes possible when we lead from mindfulness, compassion, and the wisdom of interbeing.
Whether through a keynote, workshop, retreat, essay, meditation, or conversation, my invitation is the same: to slow down, see clearly, and cultivate the courage to build a more compassionate future.