A Weekend at a Meditation Retreat
I was very privileged over the weekend to spend the Easter Long Weekend at Soma, an incredible property in Byron Bay. I was there for a founders meditation retreat, which was attended by a number of incredible young founders and operators.
Alongside us there was a monk called Dada who resides in California and does a lot of work with tech companies in Silicon Valley. He’s an incredible person. Someone who is spiritual and wise, but at the same time, incredibly down to earth, which makes him relatable and deeply human.
The weekend was abound with extraordinary moments, such as: meditation in the incredible dome, going for runs around the property, formal and informal chats with Dada, brilliant conversations with extremely intelligent people, going into Byron Bay for swims and dancing sessions by the beach, doing ice baths and saunas on the property, lots of music and singing and a whole lot of other fun things.
This combination of activities done in nature was the perfect setting to get into a calm and clear mindset and the quality of people attending meant there was significant intellectual stimulation. This gave me a lot of space to reflect on life and the world, with some of my reflections shown below.
The general reflection was a reframing of how I saw my actions and intentions of action within the world.
To frame this, I used to be quite an existential and lost person. I spent a lot of time when I was young thinking about world religions, spirituality and essentially how I should live my life. After a brief stint of thinking deeply about Buddhism, I sort of dropped that. What resulted was essentially a life’s philosophy which revolved around ambition and achievement, tied together with the idea of ‘making a positive impact’.
My ambition for a number of years is that I would spend the majority of my life building an impact centred VC fund, which is essentially a scaled way of making a positive impact in the world, when done in the right way. Whilst I kept that ambition with me at all times, it was noticeable that being extremely ambitious, winning and being high achieving were becoming just as important values.
The retreat was a big wake up call for me, because it begged me to ask, why is ambition and achievement fundamentally important? What do those qualities mean if they are not centred around some fundamental values or is not tied to some authentic calling? I feared that a life philosophy centred around ambition will lead to lots of money and success, but it would lead to a hollowed out life where I lost sight of what was really important to me.
So spending time reflecting in nature, talking with Dada the monk and meditating helped bring me back to a centre. A centre where my life was more firmly revolved around character, service and doing good for others. But where ambition could help scale those things at the core. We live in a world full of humans after all, what could be more fulfilling than uplifting humanity and doing good for other humans?
So after leaving the retreat, I left with the feeling that character is more important than everything. You can make all the money in the world or attain achievements, but I felt that rebasing on developing the strongest character I could is what would really matter in the world. Whether I did good in the world? Whether I was caring? Did I lead? Did I stand up for principles and others when I had to?
I know this will be a forever battle. Like other humans, I am in a continuous war with my ego and insecurities. I am a very competitive person who wants to win. So part of this is being realistic and accepting that I’m human. Another part of this, is being optimistic and knowing I have the power to constantly strive to be the better version: a reflective being who acts out of love for others and focuses on continuously developing strong character.
So what are the practical implications of this?
A refocus on character and integrity
Having character, integrity and caring for others are not commodities. They are increasingly rare and crucially important. In the world of tech, I always meet people of high ambition and extraordinarily intelligent people. It’s extra special if those same qualities are grasped by people that are high in integrity and are fundamentally caring people. From an investing mindset, as companies scales, it becomes easier to be greedy corrupted. If people have strong character and high integrity, they are less likely to be succumbed to the vicissitudes of unwelcome external pressures of ego.
With this refocus on character and integrity I have developed a newfound admiration for people that sacrifice their lives for the service of others and for religions that centre their messages around those of love and service. I may start spending more time around monks as a result or even start going to a Christian church as a result.
I think our generation lacks crucial messages centred around sacrifice, service and showing love to others but at the same time we have developed a strong distaste for religion. But religion focuses on so much of what we need? Personally, I find problem with religion when it becomes too fundamentalist, but I’m going to see if I can take in more religious sentiments into my life, whilst always trying to be truthful.
Also as part of this refocus on character and integrity, I am going to make a more prioritised effort to being close to mentors and peers who can keep me on a good path. I am lucky to interact with lots of successful people with good character, but I am going to lean into this more.
A refocus on an impact centred career
One of the turning points in my life was interviewing Adam Milgrom on my podcast, who is a partner of the impact investment fund Giant Leap. This inspired both Sachin and I to want to start an impact centred VC fund one day. Simply put, this meant a VC fund investing in companies that are actually doing good for people and the planet.
It’s easy to get unfocused on this, as you traverse through your career, meeting different people and having different experiences. I am re-affirming that this is my north star. I want to invest in brilliant people doing impactful stuff. This will mean the more obvious industries such as healthcare, education and climate. It may mean investing in less-obvious areas such as manufacturing and defencetech that ensure the strength and resiliance of a nation, or the area of femtech which has been overlooked forever, but offers incredible opportunities to help people with pain and uncomfort.
Aswell as investing, I want to mentor people as a primary facet of my life. Helping founders be their best selves, in a business and personal way. For me, this means leaning into what I perceive as my strengths of leadership, being personable, developing relationships and continuing to be able to ask great and important questions.
A refocus on daily awareness
This is actually the most important of all - because a refocus on daily awareness, through meditation and other means, leads to everything else. I used to meditate a lot and read broadly about Eastern spirituality, but I stopped it as a habit as I thought it became unnecessary, or that I didn’t need it.
But I reaffirmed that it is always helpful. Having heightened awareness allows you to look at yourself and the world more clearly. It allows you to focus on what matters, understand what is driving you and understand any negativity or positivity that is flowing through your mind.
I also think it is extremely important to start your life from an inward focus. To reaffirm who you are and what you want and then lead from there into the outside world. I’ve realised that when you start with an outward focus, you let things in the external world impact you and pressure you, causing you to change your actions without you changing internally first. I think this is often what leads to people doing soul crushing work .
Other stuff
Over the weekend I developed a new favourite song, which imo is a strong indicator of a great weekend: What you Say? - Extended (Young Marco).
As part of the retreat, I was constantly having conversations with people who are far more impressive and intelligent than me. Some of the areas of interest that we converged on include:
The future of preventative medicine
Ethical investment in defence tech and the new industrial revolution
Opportunities for indexing podcasts and newsletters on the internet
What the next generation of search and recommendation systems look like
The future of Biotech
What should new cities look like if we built them?
Opportunities for a second brain that can provide insights and recommendations for you, akin to Notion
