Welcome everyone. I'd like to say a few words about meditation and entrepreneurship, then we'll do a guided meditation for about 15 minutes. If anyone wants to stay around for a bit afterwards and discuss, I'm happy to do that as well.
Two topics near and dear to my heart. I started meditating in 1990, 30 years ago! It's been a continual part of my life through many ups and downs. Without meditation practice, teachers and fellow practitioners, I'm quite sure I would be a big mess of a human being. So I'm grateful for this practice and the people who literally risked their lives to bring it to the west. I'm also honored to be presenting meditation to you today.
Can I ask, how many of you have ever meditated before? I mean that in the specific, formal sense of the word?
And how many of you have an active, several times a week meditation or contemplative practice?
Ok that's very helpful.
In terms of entrepreneurship, I got my first software startup job when I was in high school. I was a beta tester for the text adventure game company Infocom. Anyone remember them? After coming back east in 1994, I got another job in software customer support and I've been in software startups ever since. I'm currently working on my 3rd greenfield startup, BodesWell.io, which I encourage you all to check out.
All this to say I'm old. But I'm qualified to talk about the intersection of meditation and entrepreneurship.
Why Startups Demand Unusual Inner Strength
I'll start with the obvious. Starting a company, working in startups, working with startups like our friends at SVB do, is hard. It's physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically tough. It's hard enough to be a leader, someone in charge of a team of people trying to get something done. But when there's no map, no precedent and no safety net, there's extra stress.
The saving grace is that we signed up for this. Very few of us were forced by circumstances to start or work in startups. This is our choice. We signed up for this career. There's no one to blame for our situation. In fact, we have to take the blame for lots of things that maybe we don't feel deep down was really our fault.
To deal with the stress, we have to take care of ourselves. We have to be aware of our experience, know when to step back, when to walk away, when to go for a run or when to seek outside help. For goal oriented motivated people, that's not easy.
To deal with the responsibilities of entrepreneurship, we have to be strong. We have to be able to sit in one place while the storm rages around us. When the shit hits, we have to be like a mountain in a tornado. We have to be able to take responsibility, rejection, blame, away from other people and carry it so the rest of the team can get their work done.
Meditation: A Tool for Awareness and Resilience
So startups need us to be aware, sensitive, flexible and steady, strong, tough.
Luckily, we have a tool to help with both those demands. It's called meditation.
Guided Meditation Practice
I could talk for a while on what it is, etc. but it's better to just experience it. So I'm going to guide you through a short meditation session.
I will warn you at the outset that you should dramatically lower your expectations. My biggest hope is that you get a small taste of the depth and profundity and power of this practice.
take your seat.
eyes closed.
couple deep breaths.
feel weight of your body.
spine/shoulders/heart up to head scan.
hang off the golden string. Let the stress and tension wash off.
Thoughts come up, that's fine. give yourself permission to relax.
There is nowhere to go.
Let the tension leave you.
finish: So that was about taking care of ourselves. For more on why and how meditation works, see Why We Meditate and How. There are thousands of other types of meditations, including tools for developing strength and resiliance. But this seemed appropriate for today.
Ok thank you. I'm happy to stay around if anyone wants to discuss.