This is why you don't meditate

We won't know what we're getting until we get it.

I can hardly think of a founder I know — or any person — who hasn’t tried to learn to meditate. Most gave up, some established a consistent practice, and a minority took their practice seriously.

There could be various reasons why you might not be meditating or trying to deepen your meditation practice. You might feel you don’t have time, you might have other priorities, and you might have different ways of meeting your needs. However, behind all of this, there is a simpler reason.

You have no idea what you’re missing.

It really is as simple as this. The paradox of meditation is that you only realise what you’ll get once you get it, but before you get it, you’ve got to trust that it’s worth it. And trusting that something hard is going to be worth it is difficult.

I must say that I have no idea what I’m missing, too. At all stages of the meditative path except the very end, we must trust that it’s worth it to keep going. However, the more we practise, the more confidence we get because we see progressive results. So, I’ve no idea what I’m missing, but I have seen enough by now to trust it’s worth the effort to continue.

“Enlightenment, highly recommended, can't say why.”

Bill Hamilton

Nearly every founder I know wants their mind to be calmer and more organised. They want to go to bed in the evening, close their eyes, relax deeply and go into a sweet sleep, knowing they won’t wake up at 3 am thinking about fundraising issues. They want to wake up refreshed, relaxed and grateful to be alive.

They want to make their morning coffee and enjoy its taste instead of gulping it down while checking their smartphone. They want not to feel constant anxiety. They want to know their life is deeply meaningful. They want to be deeply at peace with themselves, come what may.

Yet, I know from experience that suggesting that meditation can really help with all of that is of no use. They want to outsmart their investors and close new customers instead, hoping that it will give them peace of mind. Why?

They have no idea what they’re missing.

Then, there are founders who feel they’re in a good place. They’re working hard; they like the results and feel life is okay overall. These guys tend not to invest time in meditation either. Why?

They, too, have no idea what they’re missing.

I long gave up trying to suggest to anyone that they learn to meditate. I know that rational arguments are not enough, and suggesting to anyone to just trust the process is a fool’s errand. Imagine what it would be like to time-travel to 2009 to persuade a poor person to borrow to buy Bitcoin.

They would have no idea what they’d be missing out on.

From what I can tell, some people have this intuition, this faith, that there’s something here worth exploring. I don’t know why this is the case, even for myself. I continued meditating despite some pretty bad early experiences¹. It took me years to see a better way. It took me a further few years to see an even better way. Why haven’t I given up when it was all pain and no gain for quite a while? I honestly don’t know.

Yesterday, waiting in a student library foyer, I opened a book of inspirational advice from successful businesspeople that was on display. One chapter was written by a very accomplished businesswoman whose name you’d recognise.

She gave lots of great advice about working hard, setting ambitious goals and the like, but then said (quoting from memory): “Not a minute of my life passes by that I am not worried about something going wrong and thinking about how to address that”.

It blew my mind. Someone feels very successful and is seen by others as a role model (for many good reasons!), but she is living her entire life in a permanent state of anxiety, lost in thought, and seeing it as a fair price for her success.

She has no idea what she’s missing. Just no idea.

At the end of the meditation retreat I just returned from, someone new to meditation asked the teacher if the meditation would make them less ambitious. It’s a fair and common question. Some ambitious people are afraid (I imagine this businesswoman might be among them) that meditation will take their edge off, make them work less hard, and be content with smaller goals.

I see it differently. Learning to meditate would likely help them set far more worthwhile goals (that might be devilishly hard to achieve!) instead of setting for something comparatively mundane like making a life-changing amount of money.

There’s nothing wrong with making lots of money or building a great business. It can be a very worthwhile endeavour. It’s just not everything that life has to offer.

People who think they know what life has to offer don’t know what they’re missing.

The risk here is winning the battle and losing the war. Winning battles is important. Winning the war is more important.

If you haven’t tried to learn to meditate or have built a practice, never aspiring to take it deeper, but you have this faith somewhere inside your heart that there’s something very important to learn here, don’t let it die.

It might turn out to be more precious than you can possibly imagine.

1. First, I didn’t understand the essence of meditation for a long time; I just did the wrong thing with my eyes closed. Second, I accidentally chose an entry point (Goenka’s Vipassana retreats) incompatible with my internal state, skill, or understanding at the time, leading to unnecessary suffering and wasted time.