A decade of weekly essays on life, work, travel, and the experiments in between. Migrated from howto.live.
I discovered that presence doesn't need perfect conditions when I found myself meditating in chaos.
I started noticing how different activities either activated or soothed the background hum of my nervous system.
I forget that what others see as extraordinary has become the unremarkable backdrop of my daily life.
Some thoughts need to move through me without landing anywhere at all.
I stopped trying to solve everything and found that the weight simply lifted on its own.
I felt wealthy for a moment until I realized I'd been treating time like a debt I could never repay.
A must-have ritual to start each year
I keep asking others the question I'm afraid to answer myself.
A pause so I can decide if I want to make any turns.
I learned that getting things wrong didn't mean I was wrong.
I was pulled into the momentum of shared movement.
Disagreement and misunderstanding are built into the structure of relationships.
Parking in Lisbon is a particular kind of stress.
The surprising joy in caring about something that didn't matter at all.
Momentum doesn’t care about the source, it just wants to keep going.
I hadn’t gained an hour, I had simply noticed one.
Repeated gestures, not of productivity, but of presence.
Sometimes the future is already here.
There was a tenderness I didn’t realize I had been craving.
I used to think an action was enough.
I used to think growth was about getting stronger, faster, better.
What gives energy today might ask for it tomorrow.
The pull to return to what is known can be strong.
There’s something seductive about having a plan.
Environments have a silent authority.
I used to think there needed to be a blueprint, a tradition to hold on to.
I would host my own funeral. A living one.
When it came to writing my living obituary, my page stayed blank
Being a beginner takes effort.
Most things aren’t that important.
Nothing matched the map in my mind. And that was the gift.
The expectation of perfection, it turns out, doesn’t retire peacefully.
There’s a difference between visiting a place and being somewhere.
For as long as I can remember, silence has been my default.
There’s a particular kind of joy that comes from doing something well.
I found myself caring deeply about a combination lock that guarded a fake treasure chest.
In a world obsessed with permanence, emotion remains beautifully fleeting.
I was in New York last week for the first time in five years.
I’ve been turning to AI more often than I care to admit.
It is more about how I feel around them
Sometimes, distance creates clarity.
Disconnection, it turns out, is not the opposite of connection.
Resistance grows in imagination, but shrinks in the doing
When everything matters, it becomes hard to tell what really does.
Not the kind of question meant to impress, but the kind that carries the weight of genuine curiosity.
"How do you write so much?" For a long time, I would say what many say: just start.
It is a deep question that requires first going inwards before going outwards
This past week marked five years since that collective pause.
I realized I was staring at a part of the world rarely seen by anyone.
What feels most striking about Bali isn't any single aspect but rather the ease with which apparent opposites coexist.
I recently asked ChatGPT today to tell me three things about myself that I didn’t know.
It’s strange how the body can feel perfectly safe while the mind insists otherwise.
It’s easy to forget that love can exist without being returned.
When something doesn’t go as I want, where does my attention go?
I wasn’t searching for it but felt it found me.
The answer was simple, true, and, unfortunately, often forgotten.
The first time I played the game, I was seven.
Inspiration can come from the unlikeliest of sources
Experimentation has been the lifeblood of my philosophy as an adult.
I start each year with a simple ritual that has really shaped my journey.
The waiter had just taken our order.
This is a sacred time of the year for me, holding more meaning than even my birthday.
I used to live a life ruled by plans.
“What brings you to town?” was the question I continued to hear over the past month.
The other day while sitting at a cafe, I found myself staring at a laptop on the table next to mine while the person had stepped away for a moment. I couldn’t help it.
There’s something magical about being tucked away in the mountains of Chile, surrounded by friends both old & new.
I can still picture my first bike.
My four year old nephew adores planes.
When my candle is used to help light yours, mine doesn’t get any less dim but rather there is now more brightness in our world
The longer you hold the pose, the more it reveals your weaknesses.
I had a long conversation with a close friend recently. She was calling from Europe, and I’m in Australia.
My mom called me yesterday, complaining about a home renovation project they are knee-deep in.
‘I’ll shower on it and get back to you.’
I went to turn on the car, and then realized I was sitting in the passenger seat.
Often children stories we think are helpful for children, but watching Inside Out recently was a reminder of how much more relevant the children stories can be for adults,
The bright green base was no bigger than the size of my hand.
It was three years ago this past week that I had moved spontaneously to Portugal, without much thought, without knowing anyone and without a plan.
The destination was a Michelin star restaurant that stood quietly alone near the top of the Swiss Alps, but I had no idea that’s where we were going until I got there.
“Over 100 countries”, he said when I had asked him how many places he had visited in his lifetime. He didn’t even appear that old.
“Do you like the heat?”
I was in Paris for the Olympics recently, and the city felt like it had come alive in a way I’d never experienced before.
“Thank you for your request but the restaurant has the day off today”
“Are you done with your phone?”
“Is your time yours?” has become my opening question when meeting new people.
The scene comes maybe two thirds into the story.
Six months ago, I was overwhelmed by a constant sense of annoyance living in Portugal. Every little thing seemed to get under my skin.
Walking the streets of Lisbon recently, a family of tourists asked me to take their photo in front of one of the many city lookout points.
One minute he would be in tears and the next he would be laughing and playing with his toy cars.
A seed was humbly planted at the start of the year and what grew from it surpassed any expectations I may have had.
To contrast that experience, a few weeks ago I was invited to a retreat in Southern Europe alongside a range of entrepreneurs and investors.
I have twenty years of experience driving and have driven in at least twenty countries and many more cities.
This is not a reflection about pigeon, a common and comforting yoga pose.
Sitting for dinner, at a beachside resort in the South of Spain overlooking the Mediterranean, I was with a group of entrepreneurs last week.
The root of the word mother is matr
After spending the last few months enjoying the Australian summer, and avoiding the North American winter
Imagine watching a boat speed away, leaving you behind, alone, on a tiny little island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
“One tiramisu. Four spoons please”.
“I go to yoga so I can post that I went to yoga”.
I noticed when someone took one out. I was also noticed when I took mine out.
I didn’t realize he had been holding it for so long. It must have been difficult for him, and I was completely unaware of it this entire time.
The day had started slow, or at least slow relative to what my norm had been.
The sun had not yet risen and my eyes were blurry, it was still early in the morning.
I walked in and felt intimidated. The music was pumping. The air conditioner was on full blast. The energy was intense.
For the first six years of my entrepreneurial career, I did not take a break or vacation.
It was the biggest risk I had taken in a while.
In the West, so much of what we culturally encourage is forceful
As I sat there in silence, quietly eating my meal and staring at all of these old people, I began to wonder about identity.
The wisdom of Ayurveda was initially passed down through oral tradition, with sages conveying the principles and practices to their disciples.
Earlier this month while on extended holidays in Australia, being in the worst possible time zone relative to my businesses, family and friends, actually opened up a new sensation that I am still making sense of.
I was trading voice notes with a friend recently, and they were becoming lengthier and lengthier with each turn
As the sun shined sharply on my body, while I was lying on the sand, I heard a voice directed towards me
It is an empowering feeling to be able to on a moment’s notice follow an impulse or feeling that is inspiring me.
There are many ‘forks in the road’, be it little tiny ones or big heavy ones
It’s important to let go of what was not, to make space for what might become.
So often, I am guided by the choices I made for myself in a previous moment.
A new yoga studio opened outside the doorsteps of my apartment building in Lisbon recently.
My hands were salty, as I had just finished another bag.
This past weekend, I turned off my phone for 48 hours continuously
Hosting is a metaphor for how to move through life.
Diwali, often referred to as the Festival of Lights and the New Year celebration in the Indian calendar, is still a significant celebration in my life.
As I have changed my country, my career, and my lifestyle, it is not my friends that have changed but how I relate to them
As I stood up from Wayne's chair, I felt lighter, not just because of the weight of the hair that had been cut, but due to gaining some additional clarity on how to live.
It was only when I relaxed and let the waves guide me that I was able to stand.
The knowledge of my mind mixed with the experience of my body created this wisdom that I can do things I don’t know how to do or know much about.
A healthy person has one thousand worries; an unhealthy person has only one.
My journey, like most others, has been often fraught with challenges and uncertainties.
Bill Gates once said something about choosing a lazy person for a tough job. Why? They'd find the easiest way to do it.
The journey of paddleboarding, much like the journey of life, is fraught with challenges.
I find myself wanting to understand my grandparents better, to appreciate their struggles and their triumphs, to honor their memory.
As I stood there, I realized that this perfect day I had was a reminder about the journey, not the destination
Life continues to change me. I don’t need to control or direct the change. I can learn to allow it to happen.
The way I learned to dance was by doing it, whereas before I had been trying to think it.
As I stared at my empty hands, it took me a split second to acknowledge what had just happened.
It mattered less about where we were, what we ate or what we did, but rather who we were with and how we were with each other
Seeing the moon up close last night sparked something inside of me. It was a reminder to shoot for the moon. Permission to dream.
When I am in flow with time, choices become easy. When I am attempting to force time, everything feels difficult.
Life is not about trying to be right. It is about learning to live in harmony with my reality. To know it, accept it and thrive in it.
Being Canadian is a feeling, a silent commitment to universal values, and a quiet pride that needs no validation.
The power of compounding in life is a testament to the value of consistency, patience, and long-term commitment
The shape of my heart is not static, it continues to change
The realization that I understand myself more deeply than anyone else has been both liberating and empowering
My personal currency of inspiration serves as my compass, guiding me through major and minor life decisions
In my life, I've found myself living in two distinct modes.
A life void of risks is akin to a stagnant portfolio—destined for a slow decline due to inflation
It's a perspective shift, understanding that death is not the antithesis of life, but its culmination
Taking the leap and following my heart meant leaving the safety of my comfort zone behind.
I have recognized two powerful states of mind that can significantly impact my perspective on life
It's important to recognize that while I've benefited greatly from my passport, it's something that I didn't earn.
Having my sister to reflect back to me what it is about me that is likely nature versus nurture is illuminating
The world will keep changing. Those around me will keep changing.
The more I appreciate the value of space, the more I understand its necessity in moving through life.
The impact of unexpected kindness can be difficult to describe, and is best to be experienced.
I recently announced a new CEO for my technology business and it marks a profound shift in my professional identity.
The more I look, the more I see the invisible influence of a deeper value system of productivity or pleasure at play, influencing my choices
My mind is capable of imagining the ideal scenario, for practically everything. It assumes the ideal conditions and circumstances by default
I have been fortunate enough that the external events and people in my life have been a consistent source of confidence for me in life.
This past week, I got to spend time with the most inspiring person I have ever met in my life.
For nearly a decade, I have had a New Year ritual to pick one single word as my intention for the year ahead.
My experiment was to go into a silent retreat, in my own home, by myself, for 4 days.
When I observe for a moment my daily lifestyle, an abundance mindset guides my choices, without a doubt.
It mattered less about where we were, what we ate or what we did, but rather who we were with and how we were with each other
If I wanted to feel more relaxed, more often, my default thesis was that I need to make more time and space for relaxing activities
Very few of my friends know what I do, and even those that do don’t seem very interested in knowing more.
We all seem to live in our own little, for some large, empires of worry.
It mattered less about where we were, what we ate or what we did, but rather who we were with and how we were with each other
Spontaneity is also the antidote to overthinking.
Flowing with waves of desires arising and disappearing is how I will continue to swim through life.
Every choice, action or word is part of a chain of cause and effect. I appear to be more the effect than the cause in my life.
It mattered less about where we were, what we ate or what we did, but rather who we were with and how we were with each other
There is an energetic quality of trust that is magnetic.
There is a piece of real estate that I have discovered to be the most valuable in the world.
The desire to pick the best available option is also a fear of making a poor choice.
My conditioning has been to believe there are no limitations to my time, and that I can do anything, and everything.
The concepts of debt and deficit have relevance to our physical, mental and emotional beings.
There is an expectation that my motivation and interest in some thing, some one or some place, remains constant. Like a straight line.
There is a conflict with my desire for the new, and my conditioning to expect efficiency in every part of life.
It may often feel like you must have it all together and figured out in life. That you must know exactly where you are going.
The moments I have experienced the most stress, anxiety, anger, frustration and disappointment have been when my expectations were many
The ultimate freedom in life is the freedom to make mistakes.
I have learned that the most important decision is not where to go, but how to get there.
It is now to make peace with the past year.
Last week I found myself back in New York, for the first time since leaving abruptly in March 2020, and I was scared to go back.
When I know that something is temporary, my tolerance for it appears to increase.
To see, want or expect only what I desire is to collect one-sided coin, except that one-sided coins do not exist.
Change feels hard. Change feels scary. Change feels unsafe.
For a long time, I naively believed that once my current desires were fulfilled, I would feel happier, or that my life would be better.
In every situation I am faced with, especially those with the unknown, I can choose to respond with fear or belief.
Along my journey through life, there are many moments when fear arises, usually associated with some unknown.
Like water, when my mind is directed in a single direction, it becomes powerful.
Living in a different country, continent and culture over the past few weeks has both inspired me and challenged me in unexpected ways.
Ten days ago, I booked a one-way ticket to a new country and continent.
It is easy for me to see only one side of a coin. To see the other side would require the effort to pick up the coin in my hand and turn it.
It mattered less about where we were, what we ate or what we did, but rather who we were with and how we were with each other
A little while ago, I booked a one-way ticket, packed a suitcase and left.
When I reflect on my life in chapters, each chapter has been defined by a primary motivation that I had been in pursuit of life.
I recently decided to get a car and found the process to make a decision surprisingly difficult.
Fear generally has a negative association with it. Our culture encourages me to become fearless, to conquer fear and to not talk about fear.
Now that in person connection has restarted in many places, I am curious about how the chemistry of connection will change for all of us.
While I am a neat and tidy person, my parents are not.
My currency in life is inspiration.
This is a question of knowing versus thinking. The pursuit of intelligence is a pursuit of learning.
Fear seems to have a gravitational field, capable of sucking in everything that comes into proximity with it.
There is a desire that I often feel to let go of the bird in my hand, in the hope that there will be two in the bush waiting for me.
Many decisions, big and small, will be made over the next few months that will influence the direction of my life over the next few years.
This morning while on a walk with my father, I asked him innocently ‘how are you similar to your parents?’.
To know what it is that I uniquely believe does not come automatically. It is much simpler to figure out what I should believe.
To try to know is like chasing clouds. I cannot actually do it for very long, as everything changes.
Everything changes. I know this to be a fact of life. However there is often a strong resistance to change.
I realize that my reality does not always measure up to my dreams and desires.
Over the past year, work from home has not been an idea but an experience.
In the past year, I have uncovered surprising and unexpected discoveries about myself.
I have a confession. I am an aspiring perfectionist. I may always have been, and might always be.
It is in my nature to be in balance. That is what I have now learned. The moment that I strive for balance, I am out of balance.
Yesterday, I took a walk by a frozen river while a fresh coat of snow fell gently to the ground.
I have been reminded recently that my life is a canvas, and I am the artist.
A few days ago, I held my newborn nephew for the first time and I noticed how my attention was immediately captivated, unlike ever before.
Mindset is the bridge for me to move from surviving to thriving. And one that I have to continue to cross, as it’s a two way bridge.
The truth is that my journey through life is unpredictable. The question is whether I am willing to see and accept the beauty in this truth.
I see now that the reason that I believe this is because that is the culture and society in which I have grown up in. We all have.
As I have begun to notice what I notice, I have seen my curiosity for understanding why I believe what I do grow.
While on my own path, there are some big decisions and many small decisions that inform where I go.
It is only once I accept the past can I move forward into the future
Machines are predictable, usually reliable and very consistent. Humans are not.
How do I know if something is true?
I woke up with no electricity and no water in the place I was staying.
It is quite effortless for my mind to imagine.
A little boy went for a walk. Lost in thought, he ended up deep into the woods.
Similar to the playing hide and seek, in the game of life, I am seeking solutions to many problems.
Pay attention to what you pay attention to.
All of the frustration, anxiety and nervous tension that I feel is when I want reality to be different from what it is.
Gratitude is a deeply personal experience. It is a state or feeling that I get to experience privately.
Reality is full of richness and all that it takes to see it is to open my eyes.
There is a magical space where life feels effortless to me and where I feel most alive.
Life feels like walking a tightrope. While I want to get to the other side, I have no choice but to focus on taking one step at a time.
Each week has seven days in it, and none of them are called “someday”.
It is my own shadow that ironically gets in the way of me being able to see the fullness of my life at times.
In the face of The Unknown, we have options and get to choose how we show up.
The human condition is to want what others have, believing that it is better than what we have. It is to feel dissatisfied.
I feel lost in the current movement on racial equity. It has triggered a deeper reflection on the influence of culture on identity.
The richness of race, beyond my own, has continued to shape me in profound ways.
My empty spaces are filled with information, possibly the most valuable information and definitely the most relevant information that I have.
The company that we keep, the content that we consume, the contemplations that we explore, all shape our values.
In the pursuit of individual independence, we have run away from one another, and perhaps even run away from ourselves.
A fourth crisis is beginning to emerge, a result of the cumulative intensity from the health, economic and social crises.
Just when we thought Facebook might have been turning a corner, it is clear now that this is one dog that does not want to learn new tricks.
What I have learned about myself after 100 days in lockdown
I have been one of the lucky few, who somehow slipped through the cracks of a society and a system designed to discriminate against so many.
Like the Coronavirus, discrimination is a villain that continues to infect all of us.
There is a difference between working a lot and being productive. We may be working a lot, that does not mean that we are productive though.
The many social inequalities that we are witnessing are but symptoms of a different issue.
Over 500 hours on Zoom calls in the past 10 weeks have taught me how to be both productive and present.
Each moment is an unconscious expression of who I am.
The state of lockdown that we are in would have been completely unimaginable and absurd to talk about, even 100 days ago.
Evidence of our evolution from ‘More Is More’ to ‘Less Is More’ is in every direction I look, outwards and inwards.
This is a stressful time and I had previously made balance conditional on the issues facing our world be resolved.
We are more than what we do, where we are, how we appear and how we play.
I cry all the time now. While our culture has trained us to associate crying with weakness, I feel that crying is a sign of strength.
My mind has been conditioned to always desire to be productive, I have become curious to uncover why.
The past few weeks have been filled with many difficult decisions. The next few weeks will be filled with countless more.
Both valleys began with falling, deep into darkness, and both involved lifting up, to new heights that were outside my previous realm.
In the face of crisis, there is clarity. Choices that we previously feared are now easy.
In the wake of a global health pandemic, to take bold action is a response to fear and to not take action is also itself a response to fear.
Only 32% of employees feel their organization has prioritized workplace mental health. Here is how I now think about it and what you can do
Our society and culture has trained us to believe that life is conditional. Once this, then that. I believe there is another way.
Each year, I select one word to guide how I show up and inform the choices I make. It's become an important and meaningful practice for me.
Meditation is a form of mental strength training and in this guide, I share from my own experience how to get started and some resources
The skills I learned during a yoga teacher training program transferred into all parts of my life in beautiful and unexpected ways.
Learn to build a meditation practice with this simple, tried, tested and true 2 minute meditation technique.
There is a lot of dirt that seems to collect over time. And my Garden Shovel is a tool that helps me sift through that dirt.
Upon understanding the characteristics of my MBTI assessment, immediate acceptance came over me and from that moment, I was hooked
I now actually understood what is meant by the saying, “in life, pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.'
A reflection, inspired by Mother's Day, on the roots of all creation
After taking hundreds of flights in the past few years, I have come to the belief that jet lag is a choice and can be managed
Standing inside Nelson Mandela’s former prison cell in section B of the maximum security prison on Robben Island, I felt inspired by hope.
The most meaningful experiences I've enjoyed up in the air have not been in business class but in economy
A simple practice called Like, Wish, Wonder that helps me efficiently connect with everyone in the room at the start of my meetings
While on holiday in a tropical paradise recently, memories of both my consumerist and minimalist days haunted me
I handed over my passport to the airline agent and she asked where I was going. “I don’t know” was my short response
If you don’t like the culture around you, you have to choose to not buy it
Dr. Greg Wells interviewed me for his podcast and he uncovered what sparked my interest in mindfulness practices and the transformation
Guest post from my friend Jen who had the courage to trade in her smartphone for a dumb phone
I've long been curious as to whether practicing mindfulness is something one can only do once their basic needs are met in life
Writing blog posts was once an effortful process for me but thanks to a 3 step process I’ve developed and refined, it has become effortless.
A short poem inspired by my...whiteboard
After returning to the studio after the first weekend of yoga teacher training, I soon realized that my experience with yoga has changed
Wait, what? Yes, that's right. I believe New York is the most mindful place on earth and it has inspired my practice in many ways.
This is a reflection on how a reminder of death can inspire urgency to live life now versus later
While on vacation with my parents, I learned first-hand the difference between acceptance and tolerance. True acceptance is unconscious.
Inspired by a weekend retreat in Rockport, I noticed my perspectives begin to change by changing my environment
Guest post by my friend Adrian on his experience leaving social media and then returning
While in the countryside in rural Quebec for a close friend’s wedding, I was reminded about the ingredients of wisdom
A memo for my team on how to find focus at work and in life
I jumped out of a plane a few years ago and chose not to tell anyone, as an experiment.
I became curious as to why people work for my organization and what resulted was a framework on how to understand values
Why a better future for work might look like a 4-day work week
Morning Pages is a creative writing technique that has helped me change my life in meaningful ways and one I continue to practice regularly
I’ve adopted a minimalist lifestyle however moving to New York, arguably the capital of the world for consumerism, has been an experience
Like the moment when one discovers that the world is not flat, I had a moment that has forever changed how I see a practice that I knew well
Being with nature reminded me of the strength and beauty that comes from being aware of my own identity and staying true to it
I believe we will look back at this period in history as the moment when we changed our relationship with mental health
I learned how to climb out of debt, mental debt that is
New York breeds innovation at every turn, which I have not seen anywhere else in the world. Here it's about solving for real life.
230 days worked, 1,327 hours in meetings, 1,602,783 steps, 17,894 minutes on my phone screen, 2,585 hours in bed and 456 hours practicing
What I was reminded of was that there is no one way. There is no right or correct path. The “rocks” are scrambled randomly and it is on you to find your own way.
It is time to become aware of our phone usage
When I share my passion for Slack as our internal collaboration platform with peers and friends in the industry, it’s rarely met with the same excitement.
Now as we spend an increasing amount of time in a digital space, the same value exists in learning to declutter and clean.
Willpower is a finite resource, and every action we take will either deplete it, replenish it or have a neutral impact on it.
Even though we were right out of school and it was a time when very few young people started businesses, our skills, passion and energy provided a depth to us that was not evident at the surface. Just like an iceberg.
Journaling has proven to be an effective grounding and problem-solving practice for me, with 4 specific techniques I turn to time and time again.
So you want to meditate? I got started with meditation courtesy of Netflix, a few good books and my phone.
We have a flexible time away and vacation guideline at Polar, and leading by example is a key ingredient to cultivating the culture we are trying to build at our company.
We sat down by a small lake to take in the calming environment when a butterfly came and sat down on my hand. I was still and so was she.
My meditation practice has been the foundational source of strength and conviction to combat these mini pickpockets.
The practice of checking in with yourself throughout the day is simple, practical and can be helpful.
I have been practicing awareness using several mindfulness tools (including meditation, yoga, and journaling) consistently for three years now and what I’ve learned along my journey is that awareness does not discriminate.
Out for dinner one night, I noticed something unique: people were actually talking with each other versus looking down at their phones.
The change you wish to see in yourself and in your outer world begins automatically once you become aware
Being fearless about staying focused while working.
When we think we are multitasking, we are really “switch tasking”.
Learning to live thanks to the generosity and kindness of strangers was wonderful, and seeing first hand the life of others encourages us to start think beyond ourselves.
Without awareness, it is difficult to navigate a world that is constantly changing
With email on your phone, you are likely reacting constantly to the needs of other people. And it frankly will feel like work.
And ask yourself at the end of the meeting, was that meeting necessary?
As an experiment, I decided to track my sleep, not to change it, but to become more aware of how I sleep and how my habits potentially impact my sleep.
Connections with people, places, experiences, knowledge, nature and most importantly, myself, have become such an important enabler for me to feel grounded, inspired and focused.
In our always connected, globally competitive business culture, leaders now more than ever need to be aware and mindful of ourselves.
