The Rich Roll Podcast

I was first introduced to meditation and mindfulness principles 17 years ago during my 100-day voluntary incarceration in what is more amiably referred to as rehab. Initially, I balked at the concept. How can stillness possibly improve my life? Intellectually, I attributed every decent personal achievement not to innate talent, let alone some intangible force of the Universe. Instead I credited my prodigious work ethic — a huge capacity to grind harder and longer than my peers. Get up early. Stay late. Put in the extra mile. Repeat. Never stop. Do more. At best, stillness meant stasis. Mostly I wrote it off as regressive — wasted time lost. The purview of flaky, new-age hippies who couldn't begin to fathom my logic-based intellect, understand my terminally unique life problems, nor comprehend how I successfully navigated the world. Always good for a solid re-sizing, my rehab counselor — let's call him Hugh because that's his name — reminded me of one simple, powerful fact: My best thinking landed me in a ment