Where we were just both always on the same wavelength, we understood each other he knew what I wanted to do, and he knew how to do it. The trials of starting a business—even if you forget, for a moment, the typical travails of day-to-day living—often overwhelm entrepreneurs. And then there’s the engagement bit which is how do we get people to keep doing this once they’ve started, and the team sends me out kind of to do all of those three things. At the time, Pierson was burnt out, and the two sought to learn from each other. I get invited… I’m very fortunate I get invited to some amazing things, and often I’m in the recording studio when I am here in Venice in L.A. Skip Navigation. “Most people assume that meditation is all about stopping thoughts, getting rid of emotions, somehow controlling the mind. Actually, it was a set of 365 meditation sessions — all are recorded and voiced by Andy Puddicombe. I’m sure people are fascinated you’ve got an epic product, but is there any tactics, strategies, marketing strategies, that you and Rich have implemented, the game changes that might be of value to our audience? “I’ve never met anyone in the world who wouldn’t like to feel a bit less stressed, who wouldn’t like a bit more calm, [or] who wouldn’t like a bit more clarity,” he says. My wife is a nutritionist as well, so all of these things were kind of around. Because I do think there’s a way of working where we can work long hours and work quite hard, but without kind of taxing the body and the mind too heavily. Those users are the reason why Headspace exists. Andy: Well, we actually launched as a company as a project back in 2010. And then the afternoons are dedicated more to meetings and emails and that kind of stuff. I guess compared to a lot of entrepreneurs I have quite an unusual background that being sort of training as a Buddhist monk. I remember closing my eyes and listening for about 20 minutes as a genteel British voice echoed instructions to the room: Picture a warm beam of light piercing your chest and trickling through your extremities. Obviously, you meditate every day use the Headspace app or you don’t? So unless we train that, it’s really hard to have healthy relationships with others, and when you think about what that means in the workplace, start ups, collaborative teams, where you’re working so closely together by when everybody is meditating my experience is that it just it takes the whole thing to another level. And I remember hearing that and thinking. Cooking advice that works. [Laughs.] He credits mindfulness meditation—the same practice taught by the Headspace app. Before we get into the details of vipassana meditation, some important background about how this practice ties into the story of Headspace: In his early twenties, Headspace co-founder Andy Puddicombe left his Sports Science studies and became a Buddhist monk. And we kind of started to look at I guess what this would this look like, and the relationship kind of formed very, very quickly. Half way through his degree, he left university and travelled to Asia. Puddicombe shared a story about a 74-year-old woman, who held onto regret about her divorce for nearly 50 years. What are some things you’re always eating on repeat? 63.6k Followers, 110 Following, 459 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from @andypuddicombe So for example we launched version one let’s say early 2012, it was really a beta products, we put it out there… it was put together like on a shoestring like 50k I think U.S. for everything. Puddicombe shared a story about a 74-year-old woman, who held onto regret about her divorce for nearly 50 years. So it was quite a big jump for me, to think how we could maintain the authenticity, and yet put it on a digital platform. When I first started, it was painful. At the time, Pierson was burnt out, and the two sought to learn from each other. Nathan: And I just like to touch a little bit more about how you’ve brought Headspace together. In 2010, the pair started Headspace, focusing on in-person events. Nathan: Look I am always telling people how much I love Headspace and how much meditation really helped me, because as an entrepreneur you thrash really hard and sometimes it’s a struggle, you go through ups and downs and you need to take a break. Andy Puddicombe has 51 books on Goodreads with 46946 ratings. Meditation’s benefits are wide. All rights reserved. Headspace’s approach is simple: listen to customers and create the best product possible. Andy Puddicombe is the co-founder of Headspace, a popular app that teaches simple, 10-minute meditation techniques. “It is part of the human condition: our minds are overactive.” Meditation can counteract that tendency. Buddhist monk to Headspace co-founder: Andy Puddicombe's journey to mindfulness - YouTube. And I think some of my favorites if I think about the different types of people, I love it when kids and teenagers write in and say thank you, my parents don’t shout at me so much anymore, since they started using Headspace. We'd hang and have lunch on the beach with friends, swim in the ocean, and then probably just relax at home in the afternoon. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. An accomplished presenter and writer, Andy is the voice of all things Headspace. Headspace’s approach is simple: listen to customers and create the best product possible. As people spend more time meditating, “it becomes a bigger picture,” he says. But he’s going to try. Once seated, turn your attention to the natural rising and falling of your breath. But it requires like absolute commitment, to think that we can get away with it any other way, it doesn’t mean we can’t do it mindfully, and I’m not recommending or suggesting that people should kind of burn selves out. Today, Headspace serves over 35 million people in 190 countries, with programs designed for specific ailments (like anxiety and sleep deprivation), and everyday activities (like running and mindful eating). Andy: I’d love to think that we were that organized. And then eventually after about five years I took full ordination in the Tibetan traditions. Andy Puddicombe says something about breathing again. So I quit university halfway through my degree, and I went off to the Himalayas. And as we started to gain greater traction as we had a lot more kind of resource and funds to use, we started to become very strategic in our thinking about how we could design a product which offered everything that people were asking for, and that they wanted. If you could take anyone to lunch and pick their brain about Headspace, who would that be, and where would you go? Yeah it can be… and the meetings are back to back, sometimes that can feel overwhelming, but I always remind myself… it doesn’t usually last that long. Andy: I think we’ve just in the last couple days passed the 50 mark, but we’re not huge, but I would say we’ve kind of at least doubled in size in the last six months. [Laughs.] Affectionateness kind of highly critical in judgment of ourselves, that is inevitably our experience of relating to others as well, it a direct reflection. Late nights, endless work, big choices, and extreme uncertainty can swirl together to form a raging twister that ravages the landscape of life, shredding business hopes and ideas along the way. “The moment we let go of that stuff and just come back to whatever we’re doing right now … that feeling of being overwhelmed tends to just disappear.”. Nathan: I’m excited, for anyone that wants to get started on meditation besides downloading the Headspace app, can you give us like a 30 second to a minute guided meditation, just show people how good it is, and sharing the ear buds with you. About Andy Puddicombe. Much of our anxiety, sadness, and frustration—the feelings that overwhelm us—stem from ruminating on the past and worrying about the future. “There’s a way of working where we can work long hours and work quite hard but without taxing the body and the mind too heavily,” he says. The idea of becoming a Buddhist monk in the Himalayas was first inspired by a girl Puddicombe was seeing in college, according to his interview with Foundr. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Your California Privacy Rights. Even within the meditation technique itself, when we’re after something for ourselves, the mind tends to kind of grasp, and in grasping it tends to become a bit tighter. Of course! My problems didn’t disappear, of course. He outlines an approach to working mindfully, saying that when we exert effort on a task, there’s often “an element of force or will, which is very tiring.” Saddled with exhaustion, then, many entrepreneurs burn out. And then I’d go off and kind of do this work stuff. His zodiac animal is Rat. But the forecast is much better for some, including Andy Puddicombe. I first meditated about four years ago with my brother. Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 622 Andy Puddicombe, a former Buddhist monk, the Voice of Headspace, and the UK's foremost mindfulness expert, is on a mission: to get people to take 10 minutes out of their day to sit in the here and now. Which just seems to kind of allow you to have a peace of mind or a sense of ease while all that craziness is going on around you. The thing that excites me sort of most I guess, and it’s not the thing that gets everybody excited, but for me, it’s about relationships. When I first started, it was painful. While entrepreneurs face a fast-paced path, Puddicombe says that “every environment and every ecosystem … has its own stresses and its own challenges.” Meditation, then, can be seen as a universal need. I just be fascinated because I’m sure you’ve got some really interesting stories around that. That was the moment I think where we felt that we were really fulfilling sort of the mission that we’d set out on. I really couldn't have been further behind in terms of my understanding and use of technology, digital, apps, or even telephones at the time. Andy Puddicombe is part of the Baby boomers generation. Discover what happened on this day. If you can follow these four steps, you're meditating, says Andy Puddicombe, creator of the popular app Headspace. People born on September 23 fall under the zodiac sign of Libra. The app was a later thing, I actually wasn’t convinced Rich wanted to go the app straight from the off, I wasn’t convinced mostly because I’d only very recently left the monastery, I’d only just got my first mobile phone. Andy Puddicombe is not your typical entrepreneur – in his early twenties, he gave away everything he owned to train as a Buddhist monk. You can meditate inside or outside, and you can sit on the floor, a cushion, a bench, a chair, or anything else that works for you. We're building it together, and we have complementary skills. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories. I guess, less cerebral forms of wellness. With an idea that might benefit others as well, all of a sudden the mind kind of opens, it starts to feel a lot softer, it’s a lot more malleable, it feels a lot more relaxed. The Health Diaries is a weekly series about the habits that keep notable people living well. But I think I have always had an entrepreneurial kind of mindset. Andy: Sure, yes as I said we launched version one in 2012, version two launched June, July of just last  year. Forget stereotypes about sitting cross-legged under a tree. Andy Puddicombe. Andy: It is I would definitely not wanna suggest I don’t find it difficult because it is. I'm incredibly optimistic and I genuinely believe that anything is possible. Andy: Well, I thought that’s what everybody did Nathan, did you not go to the monastery? It’s very, very cold and I’m missing the U.S. summer. I’m going to do that.’”. Andy does his best to maintain a positive mindset, but that doesn’t mean … But I think it was very healthy for us. Loneliness: what is it? In Entrepreneurs Run the World, Ali Francis gets advice and insight from game-changing entrepreneurs with big ideas. He’s A Cancer Survivor. Andy: In terms of in users honestly, yes, I had no idea what would be involved in reaching that number of users, and how big a team we would need to actually reach that number users. And that's, yeah, pretty much every day. The app caught on, and its user base grew even more once version two hit virtual storefronts last year. Meditation has been a part of his daily life since childhood, and now he’s succeeding at bringing it to the masses. But there’s a goal, and there’s intention and we’re working towards that. And you look at all these different types of stories, and there are stories from business and as I say kind of sports and relationships. But meditation transcends the individual. But what have you had to sacrifice to get where you are today? What were investors’ responses like? Coming Soon. A tour stop becomes a matter of life and death for a comedian when the fallout from a night with his brother threatens to destroy everything he's built. It's like, “Okay, we're all a bit neurotic and a bit loony,” but it's genuinely about understanding our neuroses, not trying to get rid of them. Over many years, at several different monasteries in different countries, Puddicombe journeyed into his mind, first learning as a layperson and later being ordained as a monk. “It requires absolute commitment,” he says. As a former Buddhist monk and co-founder of Nathan: Because to be honest it’s funny, when we jumped on the call you said it’s a little bit like when people start meditation it’s like they’re taking something away from it. If you don't recognise Andy Puddicombe's name, you MIGHT recognise the soothing sound of his voice. Please log in again. And sometimes if journalists are doing longer stories they might come and embed themselves for a few days, and so been shadowed by a journalist or something like that. Nathan: You really channeled some wisdom there, because I’ve always wondered, I wonder how Andy feels because he’s been doing for so long, is it something that you can achieve like you hardly ever feel stressed out overwhelmed it is hard. Meditation isn’t about eliminating stress from your life—that's not really possible. And that, for me, was really the beginning. Andy Puddicombe (born 23 September 1972) is an English author, public speaker and a teacher of meditation and mindfulness.He is the co-founder of Headspace, alongside Richard Pierson, a digital health company that provides guided meditation training and mindfulness for its users. And just take a big deep breath breathing in through the nose, and out through the mouth, and as you breathe out through the mouth just gently close the eyes. They are joining us as new voices and contributors to be a daily boost of mindfulness and positivity. It's hard to break free from that. Puddicombe’s story underscores a core lesson for entrepreneurs: work with great people. He was working in Adelaide doing everything that comes along with that. Can I we help another person and unless I have a sense of common clarity in my own mind. With seven and a half billion people on the planet, Puddicombe readily acknowledges that his is a lofty goal. And I feel like we have so in a kind of space right now, that there is a real danger, that if we don’t kind of take action now, and learn how to step out of that busy cycle of thought, and be comfortable just kind of resting in the here and now. As a meditator and entrepreneur, it is very encouraging to see how you craft and grow your business, esp hearing your early days of writing content in the wee early morning hours. So I guess over time, the motivations sort of became steadily… a little bit more kind of altruistic if you like, and that eventually led to Headspace. Yeah. Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe describes the transformative power of doing just that: Refreshing your mind for 10 minutes a day, simply by being mindful and experiencing the present moment. Nathan: I see, okay last question and I’m sure the audience would love this, I’m really excited about this one. So it’s like being in the madness but not part of the madness. Puddicombe also offers advice on a business topic that he deems “exceptionally hard:” growth. Every day, he receives messages from Headspace users who say that the app has changed their life. “I see it as our job, all of us as a team, to turn up each day with selfless drive, with a courageous heart, with a curious mind, and just to be present, doing the best that we can,” he explains. (He’s a Capricorn.) They were either overworked, stressed, anxious, depressed, a lot of people have kind of compulsive addictive type behavior personalities, and some are being referred by their doctors, some were simply coming along self referral. An expert at entrepreneurship, he started Foundr -- a global media and education company that reaches out to millions of people across the world. He came from a tradition in which meditation was taught in a room, not on a phone. And before we jump into today’s show and talk about today’s guest, I just want to share with you a little piece of wisdom, that I took away from the trip. So, I was working in a clinic in London doing one-to-one consulting. Especially as I say if you gotta a publisher being pretty firm about a book deadline. 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