Why do you meditate, as a founder?
What was the trigger that made you start?
And if you don't meditate, what keeps you from trying it? :)
For me, I wasn't even the founder type when I started to meditate. I accidentally stumbled across it – and didn't even know until 2-3 months later, when I found out that what I was doing is what "meditation" is.
For me, it's helped me tremendously with more things that I could list down here. Better emotional-regulation, focus, less self-doubt, courage and resilience, creativity, relationships... sure.
But it just transformed so many areas of my life, it's hard to pick a few.
I'm curious to know what others thoughts/experience has been like, and how it adds value to their life.
I meditate for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with running a business, but the main business-related benefit is that meditation helps with context switching.
Specifically, as a bridge from switching from one kind of work (e.g. social stuff like answering emails or team chats) to another kind of work (e.g. "cognitive" stuff like writing a strategic plan or an essay) I turn on a timer for 5 minutes and do a quick meditation session. It's a great way to clear away all the cognitive residue from the first task so that I can do the second task with a clear head.
Granted, I'm a fairly advanced meditator, so I'm not sure most people could get similarly reliable results with 5-minute sessions.
Wow! I didn't get a single notification for the comments here.. Very weird. So sorry for not responding earlier.
Context-switching, with a hard refresh of your mind, is quite an interesting benefit indeed.
Knowing that you're super-curious, I bet that's what led you to explore meditation. Would your younger-self, skeptical of meditation perhaps, have seen the value in context-switching enough to pay $$ to explore it? :)
As a founder of long-termism, I think meditation is extremely necessary.
Because work consumes people's minds, the work of founders is especially intense. So we need a way to quickly replenish energy, and meditation is an effective way, lol.
Generally speaking, I drink tea and meditate for half an hour to two hours to let me recover from the exhaustion of work.
Sorry for not responding earlier... I didn't get a single notification for the comments here. Not sure what happened. Apologies.
I agree meditation is essential. The science and the evidence now make an even stronger case for it. 2-hours is quite a lot. I attempt to do about 21-min sessions, twice a day.
What got you into it, I'm curious. I bet, like most, you did have your skepticism before you explored it.
I did start meditating in the midst of being a founder, but not sure if it was exactly due to my business or just general age/life.
I think there a lot of things meditation helps with but I would say by far the biggest is just sleeping better and being more present throughout the day. I heard Naval Ravikant once say meditation should be "clearing your inbox"
Once I heard that, that is is exactly what I treat 5-10 minutes of meditation like. I spend the time thinking of every problem, task, inspiration, etc. and if I am not getting anywhere with the thought, I mark it as "read" in my head and move on.
When I spend the whole day stimulated on tasks and problems in front of me there isn't much time to think about anything else. My "thought inbox" so to speak, gets full. Then come night, the thoughts come in like a waterfall. By doing meditation and thinking about everything, I clear my inbox, and my ability to fall asleep is night and day (no pun intended :D)
Wow! That's beautiful. Thanks for sharing that. I didn't get any notifications for the comments here.. So sorry for not responding earlier.
I believe being present and sleeping with a zero mental-inbox is a game-changer for anyone, particularly for founders/creators.
Curious what Day -1 and Day 1 of meditation was like. What nudged you onto this side. Were you a skeptic?