Mindfulness for Entrepreneurs: The Edge You Can’t Automate
Let’s get something straight: I didn’t come to mindfulness by meditating on a mountain or chanting in some candlelit cave. I stumbled into it in a 90-minute Bikram yoga class in LA. At the time, I was a 29-year-old VP in a real estate firm, hustling seven days a week, high on deadlines, low on sleep, smoking a pack a day, and wondering why I always felt broke no matter how hard i worked. Sound familiar? That yoga studio didn’t give me any magical enlightenment, but it cracked something open. For 90 minutes, I was present. Sweaty, gasping, dying, but present. And that planted a seed.
Now, years later, after building a YouTube channel in China, managing celebrity egos in West Hollywood, teaching business in Vietnam, and becoming a husband and stepdad in the same breath, I realize that seed grew roots. I didn’t find mindfulness. Mindfulness found me—again and again—through burnout, chaos, and the quiet moments that followed.
Which brings me to the talk I recently gave at GIBS Business School in Bangalore: "Entrepreneurship & Mindfulness: The 21st Century Advantage." This wasn’t your average “sit in a circle and say om” mindfulness session. This was about entrepreneurship in a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) and why developing awareness might just be your most unfair advantage.
Forget speed. Awareness is what wins.
You can have all the dashboards, KPIs, funnel hacks, and startup pitch decks in the world, but if you’re not grounded (mentally, emotionally, physically), you’re driving with the lights off at 80 mph.
Mindfulness isn’t zoning out with crystals. It’s zoning in on what matters:
Your team’s emotional climate
Your own blind spots
The gut instinct you’ve trained by actually noticing things
And no, this isn’t some soft skill. Emotional intelligence, presence under pressure, clarity in chaos, these are the hardest skills to master. And unlike that new AI plug-in or productivity hack, they actually age well.
The mindfulness industry has done a fantastic job turning presence into a product. Apps, retreats, t-shirts that say “Breathe.” But the commodified version of mindfulness sells serenity without the skill set. I’m not here to tell you to light incense and chant in Sanskrit. I’m here to tell you to pay attention to your own damn thoughts. Train your mind the way you’d train your muscles. That’s construct mindfulness; what the academic literature, neuroscience labs, and leadership studies are all pointing to as the real deal. And here's the kicker: You don’t need more time. You just need to show up differently in the time you already have.
Let’s be real. Building something that matters isn’t a walk in the park. It’s more like trying to pitch a tent in a hurricane while investors are texting you for updates and your kids are screaming in the background. Entrepreneurship is psychological. It’s personal. It’s often lonely. And the idea that you can just hustle your way through that without burning out is laughable.
You need resilience.
You need adaptability.
You need to stop reacting like a squirrel on Red Bull and start responding with clarity.
This is what mindfulness trains.
One of the most mind-opening flips for the students in my talk was this: Even if you’re not running a startup, you’re an entrepreneur. Your life is your company. You’ve got a marketing team (your social media), a finance department (your wallet), partners (family & friends), and a board of directors (hopefully your own values, not just your Instagram followers).
So what’s your leadership style? Is your inner CEO focused or scattered? Does your “staff” trust you? Are your systems built for resilience, or are you duct-taping it all together every time something breaks?
I’ve had mindfulness save me in alleyways behind five-star hotels. I’ve practiced it while completely alone on a locked-down Chinese university campus during COVID. I’ve had to breathe my way through performance anxiety before lectures, and find my footing during chaos in the back seat of Vietnamese taxis flying through Da Nang traffic. The practice doesn’t look perfect. But that’s the point. It’s built in the real moments. It’s forged in the fire.
Everyone wants to know: What’s the ROI of mindfulness? Here’s what I told the GIBS students: It’s not return on investment. It’s return on intention.
It’s clarity when others are confused.
It’s presence when others panic.
It’s leading with values, not just tactics.
It’s being the kind of person people choose to follow, not have to follow.
The entrepreneurs of the 21st century won’t just be the ones who scale fast. They’ll be the ones who stay clear, adaptable, emotionally intelligent, and rooted in purpose. The ones who’ve trained their attention like an athlete trains their body. You don’t need to wait. You don’t need a guru. You just need to start showing up, fully, for your own life.
As I told the students:
“If you’re not training your mind, your mind will train you. And sometimes... not in the best direction.”
Want to dive deeper? Catch some of my talks and short videos on this topic over on Walkabout Elevations on YouTube. Or if you’re into ideas that bend a little sideways, follow along here at Walkabout Elevations for more on flipped mindfulness, leadership training, and how to build your next big thing without losing yourself in the process.
