Why I Ditched the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit to Meditate with my Mother
Free food from award-winning chefs. Live music. Scotch whiskey samples. Some of the brightest minds in the world. The Forbes Under 30 Summit would have been a blast, but I decided to skip it and go meditate with my mother instead. What on earth was I thinking?
As a startup founder, I sometimes have trouble drawing the line between my professional passion and my personal life. It gets even more complicated with events that are intentionally designed to bridge work and play, likes the Under 30 Summit. Every year, Forbes brings together recipients of its prestigious 30 Under 30 award (which my cofounder Sam and I are both very fortunate to have received), along with thousands of other young innovators and celebrities for a three-day event. This Under 30 Summit excels at being professionally enriching and fun at the same time (jogging with Michael Phelps, anyone?), and bright millennials travel from across the world to attend it.
But the truth is that after spending the previous week at the excellent Hello Tomorrow conference in Paris, I simply felt “conferenced out”.
In my experience, you can only have so many first conversations with amazing new acquaintances before you need to take a break and recharge.
So at the end of the work day, I asked myself: what will be better for my well-being and my work productivity: joining the Forbes Summit, or reconnecting with my mother? After pondering the question for a few minutes, I realized that on that particular day I would benefit far more from inner peace than from fun and networking.
My mother and I met up at the local insight meditation center, and spent forty-five minutes cultivating mental clarity before taking a lovely walk together. Since the practice of mindfulness meditation places a strong emphasis on noticing where your mind is, I kept a mental log of the thoughts that arose during that meditation session. Here is a rough breakdown:
The moral of this story is that sometimes it’s important to cultivate inner peace and reconnect with loved ones in addition to pursuing new connections. It’s not a new idea, but it’s one that we tend to forget all too easily.
I’ve met incredible people at social networking events like the Forbes Summit in the past. But in my experience, these events can also become emotionally exhausting, so at times, it can be even better for productivity and long-term energy levels to recharge with peaceful activities and close relatives. Whereas some startups expect 100-hour workweeks and ruthless networking, I think there’s a much healthier way to be. I feel grateful to work at a place where it’s okay – even encouraged – to go meditate with your mother instead of hanging out Forbes 30 Under 30 honorees.
