For over a decade, I struggled to sit still. I tried everything—Zen monks, Christian retreats, new-age gong ceremonies, hiring teachers. I was a very, very slow learner. Meditation felt nearly impossible. But I knew I needed some kind of foothold—if not full control, then at least awareness—over the endlessly distracting chatter in my mind.

Eventually, I found a meditation app that worked for me. I stuck with it. A habit formed. And now, for the past 15 years, I’ve started almost every day with 12 minutes of meditation.

It has been life-changing—probably the single most impactful thing I’ve ever learned to do.

This practice gives me something precious: space. Space between a stimulus and my reaction to it. A guy bumps into me on the subway—before meditation, I might’ve fired off a sharp response. Now? Usually nothing. Just a pause. A breath. A choice.

That’s not to say I’ve reached monk status. I’m still reactive. I’m still intense. But there’s more calm, more peace, more agency in how I respond to the world. Meditation didn’t turn me into someone else—it just helped me be more me.

Why Meditation Is for the Strong

Until recently, I was a competitive ski racer. (I know—maybe not the most longevity-aligned hobby, but that’s another conversation.) In any high-performance sport, you lose. You crash, miss the shot, strike out early. If you spiral into self-judgment, it’s game over. You can’t perform when you’re trapped in a mental loop of failure and doubt.

Meditation taught me how to recover. It trained me to notice the loop, exit it, and re-center. It’s like a reset button for your brain—especially useful when you’re your own worst critic.

There’s a persistent (and frankly misguided) belief that meditation is soft—that it’s for the weak. I used to train in martial arts, and the toughest people in the dojo? The meditators. They moved with a kind of slow-time precision—total presence, zero panic.

Same goes for elite military operators I’ve met—yes, I’m talking SEAL Team-level. These are people trained to perform under unthinkable pressure, and they meditate. Not because it’s trendy, but because it works.

What Meditation Really Gives You

Meditation isn’t about giving up. It’s about letting go of the mental clutter that holds us back. The useless obsessions, the overthinking, the stories we tell ourselves on loop—they’re not who we really are.

The noisy mind might feel like you, but it’s just a fraction of what’s available. When we lower the volume, we open a channel to something deeper, clearer, and much more capable.

And if you're like I was—skeptical, restless, convinced you're “not good at meditating”—that’s okay. Start small. Be consistent. And give yourself permission to suck at it for a while.

Because that’s how life-changing things usually begin.

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