LeonW

I'm feeling strangely saddened and also relieved seeing him lie completely still and peaceful at the memorial service. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bq-bD00jt0&ab_channel=PlumV...

In 2011, I co-founded a software startup called Buffer, which I left in 2017 to live in multiple Thich Nhat Hanh / Plum Village monasteries for almost 2 years. I felt completely disoriented at the time, uncovering the many delusions of money, tech and fame as the final life answers, alongside broken relationships and friendships and nowhere to turn. The monks and nuns took me in in a way that I will be forever grateful for and Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching was the beginning on a long journey of self-discovery, healing, relaxation and coming to terms with reality as it is, right now.

Thich Nhat Hanh taught me something very ordinary: That it is important to pause often, to reflect, to sit still or walk in silence and to observe and acknowledge what is happening around you, inside and out. And to then act from that place of stillness and quiet with calm and kindness to the people around you. And to keep practicing this over and over again, without fail or getting tired from it.

I feel tremendous gratitude to him and his teaching, as well as the monks and nuns that dedicate themselves to his many practices and insights.

May he rest in peace and may his intentions and practices live on for a long time!

Exactly the kind of comment I was anticipating...and I find it quite annoying, because it misses the point I was hoping to make. Which is that even when you have everything "picture perfect", it required me to find another way to relate to life. And I believe that is true for any kind of experience most people are having in the world day to day.

I wish every leader gets access to these frameworks and takeaways. The #1 issue I face with every single client I've worked with over the years as an executive coach is exactly what they are pointing out here: that dealing with our emotions and inner worlds is the biggest challenge of all. Learning to deal with that has the highest ROI on both success and fulfillment/happiness compared to any other activity for a leader imo.

I love this, realizing that we each have our own description and meaning of the word stored in the memories we lived. Thanks for sharing!

Another word someone brought up is "Geborgenheit", which translates to comfort or security. Briefly researching the origin it, it seems to come from the terminology around "Burg" (castle), and the feeling of safety and comfort we feel when we're inside one. In my understanding it also has a considerable amount of warmth next to the sense of safety and comfort. Overall, definitely one of my favorite words that I think belongs on this list too!

I'm touched by your vulnerability and openness. It reminds me of a client who had built a billion dollar company and wanted my help building his next one. My immediate sense was that that was not really why we were talking or why he was here. We kept going and eventually I challenged him asking whether he had really built a billion dollar fortress to never need to be vulnerable. He broke down and we went deep, uncovering some of the deepest trauma I'd seen someone go through when they were 4 years old. From there, everything shifted and things took a very different direction. It's those kinds of insights, when as you say "as my healing journey has progressed, any ambitions I held to achieve business success on par with the Airbnb founders has faded, and been eclipsed by the realisation in order to anything really well – from running businesses and leading social/political movements, to simply having successful friendships/relationships, a healthy family life and a physiologically healthy body – a healthy emotional foundation is of prime importance.", once we really get in touch with our inner world, things shift dramatically and what has meaning to us changes. That doesn't mean that we don't want to to continue having a meaningful contribution to the world, but the sense of ego-striving that is often just a mask for our wounds can gently fall away and allow us to walk through life a little more freely.

My learning has been whether you get to the billion dollar level or not, the untouched wounding eventually comes through and takes its toll if it stays unaddressed. It's stories like yours and the one I've described that make coaching the most meaningful thing I've done in my life to date.

I'd like to reframe this, I think there's only one way to know if someone is a good fit for you - to have a proper, real, deep coaching session. As a software founder I have the idea of a "trial" baked into me, so I think this is no different here. I sometimes coach people for weeks at a time (there's no payment), so that both of us know whether this is right for us (I have the privilege that money is not an issue for me). So that I think is the most powerful, because at that point someone can truthfully commit and go all in and I think for a coaching partnership to be successful, that's the only way in my mind. When someone asks me I often say "let's coach and you can make up your mind after...", this really takes the pressure off, which can otherwise dilute a process that I think is honestly, holy in my book. In other words, if there's a coach you think could be helpful, ask them for a free, full-on coaching session so you can understand if there's a good fit.

And the most effective means to tune in in my experience are simply finding ways to slow down. Pausing, in talking, in walking, being in places that are less crowded. Tuning in during a walk in a park is much easier than in a busy restaurant. And pointing things out that you notice if someone is really charged about something, although that is a delicate process of course. But that's where I'd start.

Yes, this happens through a process that Porges calls "neuroception" (easy to google). Essentially the subconscious part of your nervous system, especially the brainstem constantly scans your environment for threats of any kind (it takes in incredible detail, some say 1000s of times per second without it ever bubbling up to your conscious mind).

Here's an example: You see a tiger in the forest. Your eyes send that signal through their nerves to the brainstem, which makes your stomach tight and activates your legs to run away. The tight stomach and running legs then send their signals of movement and clenching back up through to limbic system ("I'm scared!") and the neocortex (your conscious brain, "I'm running away from the tiger!") to tell it to run. Because all of this happens so fast, our experience is this: We saw the tiger and therefore we're scared and are running away. That's not really what's happening under the hood, we're scared BECAUSE we're running and have a tight gut, the tiger was just a trigger for the brainstem/gut/legs. Makes sense?

Most of the time its a mix, it creates a positive feedback loop, which isn't really so positive, but it can be! Say your gut is tight, it sends a signal to your brain saying "I'm tight", now the brain receives this and reinforces it (the other 20%) by saying, "the gut is tight, we need to keep it tight!", which makes it tighter and the cycle continues. Does that make sense?

If we're in a grounded, reflected and self-connected place (i.e. if we have empathy or warm accompaniment from ourselves or someone else), we can interrupt this cycle. The signal "the gut is tight" from the gut can be discerned "ah, interesting, I wonder if it needs to be tight or if I should change the topic or watch a different movie or leave this room", etc.,

thanks! Yeah, I tried my best to link throughout the post. I can see how having the citations neatly at the end may be helpful too if that's what you're saying!

Thanks for the support!

Yes, I try to strike a balance with that. To me, knowing about it brings me a lot of safety, so I know what I'm getting into when I'm doing a session, crying, contorting, reliving old memories, etc. Ultimately, I agree with you, we can talk about how to ride a bike with as much detail and scientific evidence as we want, eventually we need to ride one to see what its like.

The most effective methods I've experienced were Somatic Experiencing, a body-based psychotherapy practice I've also trained in as a therapist. There's also an empathy resonance approach by a woman called Sarah Peyton that I find very effective (her book "Your resonant self" is great). Of course I believe in my own methodology of emotional resilience which is sort of a mix of the two above, I'd be glad to offer a free session to you anytime to experience it.

Ultimately there're lots of methods, like meditation, yoga, therapy modalities that try to accomplish what we're intellectually talking about when we say emotional resilience or inner healing. In my experience this is only effective whenever the practitioner has studied and experienced this on their own body and nervous system to offer it to you effectively. And that's hard to know when it's the very thing you're looking for and you only know it intellectually. A bit of a catch 22. And it's not really a requirement when you go to therapy school for example. So it can be a mixed bag. Trial and error, which can be painful when you open yourself up to these aspects inside yourself is your friend too I believe (I tried talk therapy, various meditation practices and a few others and settled on what was both most effective in my personal experience and had the most scientific backing, like the methods I described above).

Finally, I think we're all equipped as humans to offer co-regulation and empathic presence to each other to heal from whatever difficult or stressful experience we've had. Most of us just have unlearned it very young or there's not enough emphasis in our environment to practice that with each other.

Hope some of that is helpful, let me know if you have any more questions!

Couldn't have said it better myself, that's exactly been my experience and what I'd like to share with others both experientially in sessions and through my writing. And I'm having a lot more fun just being with all aspects of life from a human connection perspective leaving the striving, money, etc., on the side (even though it's hard and creeps back in).

Thanks man! Feel the love over here in the woods. If I can support you or your company with anything, please reach out! (l.widrich@gmail.com)

Great point, I feel incredibly indebted to Stephen Porges', both for my own internal well-being and the lessons I've learned and can share with others.

Yes, I'm a big fan of Tara Brach's work too! My experience has been that many of us live in such a cognitively focused world that the sensations and feelings of our bodies take a huge back-seat.

Hi everyone, Leo here. I feel grateful for the HN community's response to this post. I only emerged recently to the "real world" again and feel still some hesitation and fear around showing a much more vulnerable part of myself with the work I do now. (Building marketing software was fun too!) So yeah, just want to say thanks and would love to discuss anything this sparks.

Great points here, I agree on all fronts.

A few things that I realize now, we should have put into the post for full context:

We replaced 1:1's with managers with peer 1:1's between people in equal positions. So it was true peer to peer mentoring on the same hierarchical level. This however didn't fulfill the need that people really want to hear from someone who might have more experience than them, or who can guide them onto the next step.

This is what we learnt and what we brought back.

A lot of people on HN and Twitter asked us how we're setup at Buffer, here's an in-depth interview that I hope answers some questions, I'm also keen to answer any more from the community here.

Great question and cpncrunch is exactly correct. We are at 0 (more or less every month) and if there would be any profit we would hire people so we can invest it back into the company. Let me know if I can help answer anything else!

Great question, the person on our team in Hong Kong is Michelle Sun. She is leading growth and that's her Twitter account: https://twitter.com/michellelsun

thanks for the heads up guys - fixed both! :)

Hey - I've been meditating daily for the last 6 months and had the same issue as you, where getting started was really the hardest part.

Here is what I've done. The first book that really got me thinking was "Happiness: Developing Life's Most Important Skill" from Matthieu Ricards.

I then went on to use an iPhone app developed by a buddhist monk called Headspace http://getsomeheadspace.com - this is guided meditation, where he walks you through 10 minutes every day for 10 days. Absolutely awesome to get started.

I hope this helps you as much as it has myself to get started! :)

Co-Founder of Buffer here. Great discussion, I hope I can clarify on the Buffer part. The key difference to the way Buffer + Kippt are working is that Kippt pulls in these updates before they are posted. So it is essentially an interplay between people adding updates and Kippt pulling these before they even hit Twitter and Facebook. Hope that clarifies.

Ahh, "quieting the noisy brain", that is a choice of words that couldn't describe it any better. Indeed, if you don't unplug and find "gaps" between your thinking, that you make larger and larger, until thinking is only a tiny chunk of your day, it is very hard to practice mindfulness. Will pick up this book, sounds intriguing!

This is very interesting and I completely agree with your points made. Exploring certain new activities and turning them into habits (as mentioned), whilst staying in an alert thinking state to figure out the issue on transferring computer components are both vital and important things to do.

What I'd like to pick up on is your last sentence on is "As a corollary, maybe if you limit your attempts to control to a reasonable degree and you are able to keep your thinking focused, you should think as much as possible.", which is what I believe this is all about.

When we aren't trying to figure out problems on transferring computer components, but when we are waking up and brushing our teeth, walking to the store, eating lunch, driving home, those are the moments were we tend to still think, when it isn't necessary. Eckhart Tolle put it this way:

"Your mind is an instrument, a tool. It is there to be used for a specific task, and when the task is completed, you lay it down. As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people's thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. Observer you rmind and you will find this to be true. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy. This kind of compulsive thinking is actually an addiction." (p. 19, The Power Of Now)

Looking back, "Why you should give up thinking 80-90% of your thoughts" as the title would probably help to clarify. Let me know if that makes any more sense to bring it into perspective.

thanks for the heads up, removed the confusion and exchanged with "present moment".

This is a great post, Ziglar's "You will get everything you want in life by helping others get what they want" comes to mind. Simply taking time out every day to help others on a consistent basis can go very far, the fact that this will prepare you to be one of the best startup advisors or angel investors comes without doubt, great inspiration!

This is a great post and I couldn't agree more. On top of the development cycle something else comes into play.

There are so many dynamics around mobile, especially on Android you need to understand. With Android, you really stand no chance to build a slick app, unless you have 600+ devices at hand where you can test the app.

With iPhone, it is very hard to track where your signups come from and content marketing on the web becomes a lot more difficult if you start with a mobile version. Directing traffic to a mobile only solution is never a very streamlined process for the user we found.

hmm, that's interesting, I believe we aren't bothered by the conflict at all, I don't believe it's something we will have to deal with.

Ah can understand that, I think travelling the world is very powerful for us in many aspects. The most important one though being that we can discover which culture, country we feel most comfortable in, as opposed to where I'm born in, kind of related to this article: http://sivers.org/singapore