How I Built Resilience: Live with Alli Webb and Andy Puddicombe & Rich Pierson

Alli Webb, co-founder of Drybar, talks with Guy about why she believes that investing time into fashion and beauty is still worthwhile, even though many of us aren't going out much. Founders of the meditation app Headspace, Andy Puddicombe and Rich Pierson, talk about taking their business remote, and give some tips on how to approach meditation, even with an unquiet mind. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating these turbulent times. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

  We get support from US Bank. A question I love asking founders. What's the one decision you almost didn't make? The one that changed everything? Because it's never the obvious stuff. It's never, I decided to start a company. It's the small, boring, Tuesday afternoon decision you barely remember making until you realize it's the reason everything after it either worked or didn't. Say you're 18 months in. Business is growing. You've got expenses coming from six directions. Gas for the van, office supplies, your phone bill, team lunches that are actually client meetings, and you're putting it all on whatever card you grabbed in year one. You're not thinking about it. Why would you? You've got bigger problems.

• 0:45Guy Raz?

  But here's the thing. Path A, you keep going like that. End of the year, you're sorting through statements, trying to figure out what went where. You've left hundreds, maybe thousands, on the table in rewards you never earned. Money that could have gone back into the business. Path B, you pause and get the US Bank Triple Cash Rewards Visa Business Card. Now, you're earning 3% cash back on gas and EV charging, office supply stores, cellphone service, and restaurants. You pick up an extra $750 cash back as a bonus. And you've got a low APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 months while you're scaling. Same business, same expenses, two completely different outcomes

• 1:30Guy Raz?

  based on one small decision. Visit usbank.com/business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. Our presenting sponsor today is Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Every founder on this show started with a hard question. Not the marketing plan, the 2:00 AM kind. Is this idea any good? Am I the one to build it? Should I quit my job? Anthropic got built the same way. A public benefit corporation founded on one Hard question. How do we make sure AI goes well for people?

• 2:14Guy Raz?

  So they asked over 100,000 people their hopes and their fears and are publishing what they find, even the uncomfortable parts. Me? I've got my own hard question about AI. Here it is. If everyone has access to something that can help them write the business plan, build the prototype, analyze the market, maybe even come up with the idea. What separates the people who actually build something from everyone else? I don't have a clean answer yet, so I've been sitting with it with Claude. There's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai/hibt.

• 2:54Guy Raz?

  Does your team want a website that looks and feels handcrafted but is still fast to ship? Well, Framer is built exactly for that. With Framer, you design on a visual canvas with responsive layouts, hosting and a CMS built in, so the work is production ready from day one. And you can get it done with help from Framer's AI agents. Framer is the AI website builder that helps creators, teams and businesses ship production-ready sites faster than ever while getting every detail right. Prompt, inspect, edit and publish in one place at a whole new pace. AI agents and humans work together.

• 3:36Guy Raz?

  The agents bring speed and scale and people bring taste, judgment and control. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com/built for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/built. Rules and restrictions may apply. AI isn't just opening new business opportunities, it's changing the way businesses get work done. The questions they ask, the decisions they make, the routine tasks they can hand off. That's the idea behind NetSuite Next, the next generation of NetSuite with AI woven into the tools your business already relies on.

• 4:21Guy Raz?

  NetSuite Next surfaces insights exactly when you need them, puts agents to work on routine tasks and problems, and lets you ask complex questions in plain language, like talking to a knowledgeable colleague. But technology is only part of the story. AI is also reshaping how people and teams work together, and that shift is already underway. That's why NetSuite wants to put a new, expert-created business guide in your hands today. It's called Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work. And right now, it's yours, absolutely free. Inside, you'll discover how AI could reshape work across your entire organization, and how to position your business to prosper from it.

• 5:06Guy Raz?

  If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get NetSuite's free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work, at netsuite.com/built. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/built. netsuite.com/built. Hey, welcome to How I Built This: Resilience Edition. So twice a week, I've been sitting down for live video chats with different founders to find out how they're coping during the crisis. And on Thursdays and Saturdays, we're posting excerpts from those conversations right here. And today's episode is all about self-care, actually, self-care above the neck. We're going to hear from Andy Puttycomb and Rich Pearson, the co-founders of the meditation app Headspace.

• 5:51Guy Raz?

  But first, an excerpt from a conversation with Ally Webb, co-founder of Drybar. And if you heard her episode on the podcast a few years back, you may remember how she launched a super-successful chain of beauty salons that specialize in blowouts and hair products. Earlier this year, Drybar was acquired for about $250 million. But Ally is still involved in the brand, and personally, she's trying to make the best of the shutdown.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  I've been on this like treadmill for the last 10 years and just running, running, running from place to place and traveling and a million things. And it's been nice to slow down. I have to say I've enjoyed the slowdown. I've enjoyed the like, you know, presentness that this has brought me.

• 6:35Guy Raz?

  Yeah, for sure. But before we kind of dive into some of the things you're doing, let's talk about Drybar. I know the company was acquired in January. So can you just kind of describe what your role is with the company right now?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you know, my role, my role has, you know, shifted throughout the years, and I'm still heavily involved in product. And I still sign off on every product that goes out the door. And I'm very proud of that. They are my babies. So I feel very strongly about that. It's really interesting. And I know you know this better than anybody, you know, being a founder, and you want a business to be a certain way to access thrive and to act a certain way. But, you know, I'm not the best person for running and scaling a business. It's just not what I do best.

• 7:17Guy Raz?

  Which I think is also a super interesting perspective, right? Because it's, that's it's hard for some people to say that. But it's also really important when you know that like, your skill set is, you know, in another area. And that actually, for a lot of people, it's not that interesting to run a company. It's more interesting to kind of create a vision.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  And I don't think I could have said that to you five years ago, you know, because it was like, it was like, I was, I had a very tight grip on the company for so many years. And, and I mean, and listen, I don't think anybody can run a Drybar store better than I can. But, you know, to grow and scale to the size that we have, that takes people who understand that world and that and how to do that. And that wasn't like my strongest suit.

• 7:56Guy Raz?

  Let's just briefly talk about Drybar now. I know that some locations have reopened in like Colorado and Arizona, Georgia. They've been open for a couple of days. What do you know about how that's going? And what do you know about like, how to make sure that like, customers and the employees are safe?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Well, we've put in so many new protocols. Now, clients are sitting a seat apart. So there's a, you know, a client, then an empty chair, then a client. The stylists are all wearing masks. We're doing virtual check in. So people aren't actually sitting and waiting for their appointment inside the shop. They're waiting in their car. And then they get alerted, you know, when their appointment is. There's a lot of health check ins before you come in for both our stylists and clients. I mean, you know, to the point where if, I mean, it feels crazy, but it's so important. You know, I mean, from a business standpoint, it does. Not allow us to do nearly as many clients as we've done in the past because we're only letting, you know, it's like every other chair is being utilized.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  But there's been a lot of excitement and I, you know, a lot of people are very happy to be getting back in. And, you know, it's only on a very small scale right now.

• 9:00Guy Raz?

  I should, and, and for anyone who doesn't know Drybar, um, cause most of your clients are women. Of course you offer services to men too, but it's, it's, it's blowouts, it's not haircuts.

• 9:11Guy Raz?

  I am obviously in dire need of a haircut. It's been 10 weeks, but I'm nervous about it. Even when, when people say, okay, it's okay to go back out. I think I'll still be nervous about sitting in a chair in such close proximity to somebody. How does that, how does your industry kind of think innovatively about how to accommodate customers in this really weird, crazy time?

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I mean, that's really what we've spent the last two months, you know, is like getting our, you know, technology in place so we could do like things like the virtual check in, you know, being able to test the health and like temperatures of people walking in the door. Um, which again all feels so surreal, but I want to see my stylists go back to work because it's their livelihood. And, you know, there's just really no other way for them to make money. We're very limited, so I'm at a loss too.

• 10:03Guy Raz?

  So here's a question from Melissa Surrays. She's in Michigan. What have you been hearing from franchise owners about opening back up and, and how they've been able to do it? And, and how are they able to stay afloat since the shutdowns happened? I mean, I'm assuming this has been really, cause many of Drybar locations are franchise operations or significant number of them are. So these are small business owners, right? I mean, this is a, this has got to be particularly tough for them right now.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's true. I mean, and I would say like, you know, luckily we've been able to get landlords for the most part have been very forgiving in allowing us to, you know, push rent back. And so that's been a really big, I think, help to, you know, for us to be able to keep the doors open or to keep the, not go out of business completely. And then, you know, cutting back and, you know, speaking of businesses, and we haven't really talked about this yet, but we've started this other concept called Squeeze, which is a massage concept. And we've had to really cut back on what we're paying people and what, you know, and furloughing people and and just a way to like not completely go out of business. But we've been really fortunate. I would say like the vast majority of our landlords in all of our locations have really stepped up to the plate.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  And I think that's been such a huge lifesaver for the business.

• 11:16Guy Raz?

  There's been a little bit of a backlash, particularly in social media with people saying, you know, why is fashion or beauty relevant now? You know, is it is it something people really should be spending their money on? And I'm sure you've heard that, right? That that there's sort of this this question like, why would you go and get a blowout? Or why would you go buy some a nice piece of apparel right now when we're basically all at home or or in Zoom calls? What what do you what do you say when people ask that question?

• 11:44Speaker 01

  I mean, listen, that that drives me kind of crazy because just because we're at home doesn't mean we don't need to feel good. I mean, there's such a massive mental capacity to all of this, you know? Frankly, that's why Drybar has been so successful. I mean, yes, we're doing great blowouts and your hair looks amazing. But it's about the way you feel when you have great hair or the way you feel when you put on an outfit that makes you feel good. Or if you do a little bit of makeup, and I think that I think it's it's actually crucial to not lose our sense of self and our sense of like what makes us feel good. And perhaps that sounds rather vain, but I feel like, you know, there is there you can't avoid that. I mean, the way we feel on the outside so largely affects the way we feel on the inside.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  So I I don't prescribe to that at all that there's there's like you should just, you know, whatever that doesn't matter that stuff now. I think it matters more than ever.

• 12:34Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I think that's an important point. I I know, I mean, I know that when you were in the beginning as a Drybar, you were still not entirely sure it would work, which of course it did. What like what advice and I I know you get asked for advice all the time from people who are, you know, inspired by your story, but. When you're looking to validate an idea, what advice do you have for entrepreneurs who are kind of looking to to figure out whether their idea will actually work? Do you think that, you know, it should be data driven? Is it about talking to friends? Is it just like an intuition? Is it a combination of those things?

• 13:10Speaker 01

  I think it's a combination for sure of those things. And, you know, we are, we have a couple of other businesses in the hopper right now. And even during this time, we've thought of another business of something that we wanted that doesn't exist. You know, I mean, I, I say all the time that, and especially with Drybar and with Squeeze, our massage business, like, these are things that have existed for hundreds and hundreds of years. We just created a better experience around them and, and made them a successful business that way. You know, and I tell you, I urge people all the time, like, there may be something that you love that is just not executed well or branded well or run well, that you could probably take that same idea and make it your own.

• 13:50Guy Raz?

  Yeah, and right now is, is, is one of those moments because the pause where, and I've said this on the, on the show before, which is, I think in five years' time, I'm going to be doing tons of interviews with people who came up with their ideas during this period.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Oh, 100%.

• 14:02Guy Raz?

  Obviously, this is a difficult moment for a lot of people. And certainly, we're in the middle, middle of a health and economic crisis. But it's also, could be a time to just step back and think, right? You've got two business ideas that are stealth, that you can't talk about, that you're working on. But then you've got this other idea, Squeeze, which is kind of like Drybar but for massages. And so how do you, how do your ideas come to you?

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Well, Squeeze came to us because, you know, largely because my, my brother, Mike Olanda, who's my business partner in Drybar, you know, we both have gotten massages all of our lives. And we've always been really frustrated with the experience around getting a massage. And the, the beauty of Squeeze is that it's all, even though it's a brick and mortar, it's all app based. So you book on the app, you pay on the app, you tip on the app, and you put all your preferences in an app before you even walk in the door. So you walk in and you say, hi, I'm Guy, I'm here for my massage. And your therapist already knows all the things you want, whether like the temperature of the room, if you want the bed heated or not, if you want oil or lotion, and on and on and on. So it's a very highly, like, specialized massage experience, which, which really frankly didn't exist.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  And so, again, back to my earlier point, massages existed, you know, forever, but we have created a better experience around them. And there's a million other things that I'm not even mentioning that make Squeeze so special and unique.

• 15:21Guy Raz?

  Yeah. When you, if you, if you were to look back on this time in five years, right, and say, this is what I got out of that period. I know you mentioned just the pause, you know, being just slowing down. What is it that you want to take away from this time that, that you want to kind of build into your future life, that you want to inform the way you think about how you run businesses, how you live your life, everything?

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Well, I think there's, there's a new level of thoughtfulness that I feel anyways, you know, that there's been something powerful to me in the kind of community and camaraderie and people coming together in a way that, that we've just really never seen, at least I've never seen in my lifetime. So I hope and pray that that is what comes out of this for a lot of people, that there is this like sense of we're all in this together. There's this commonality that didn't exist before this that I, you know, that I hope continues to grow.

• 16:10Guy Raz?

  Ali Webb, co-founder of Drybar. Thanks for joining us and, and I can't wait to hear about all these cool new ideas that you have.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Thank you. It was so fun to be here. Always great talking to you.

• 16:21Guy Raz?

  That's an excerpt from my conversation with Ali Webb, co-founder of Drybar. To see our full interview, you can go to facebook.com/HowIBuiltThis or to NPR's YouTube page. When we come back in just a moment, we're going to hear from Andy Puttycomb and Rich Pearson, co-founders of the meditation app Headspace. They've got some very welcome advice about how to let go a little during a crisis. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 16:51Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This, Resilience Edition. You know, years before we ever heard of the coronavirus, Andy Puttycomb and Rich Pearson had tapped into something really important, which is we humans, we are prone to get anxious. So they founded the Headspace app to help people meditate wherever they might be. And the story of how they built that app is incredible. We featured it on the podcast in September of 2019, so you may want to give it a listen if you haven't already done so. Anyway, when we sat down to talk with Rich and Andy the other day, I really just wanted their advice on how to find peace and calm and quiet during this incredibly turbulent time.

• 17:32Guy Raz?

  What what is it about meditation? Like, a lot of people think it's weird, right, to sit down and to close your eyes and to focus on your breath. But like, can you explain what it is that it actually does for you and and and how it reduces anxiety?

• 17:44Speaker 02

  It's only weird compared to the rest of our life, which is a life of distraction and overstimulation. So it's natural, I think, when we first sit down and try meditation, it feels weird. It feels strange not to be doing something and simply to just be being, you know. But once we kind of get past that, then for most people, we tend to feel a great sense of calm in the mind. I think if we can create a bit more space where we're seeing things either internally in our mind or externally in the news. And rather than reacting straight away, that we have that space where we're able to kind of go, huh, do we want to engage with that?

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Or do we want to let it go? And I feel like actually having that extra sense of space in our in our mind, in our life is a is a really fundamental skill.

• 18:31Guy Raz?

  Has it helped you, Rich? I mean, because obviously Andy trained as a monk and you met him when you were going through kind of a crisis in your life more than a decade ago, about a decade ago. And you are obviously a practitioner as well. How has it helped you just get through this moment? Has it kind of prepared you and and allowed you to kind of cope with it in a way that you might not have 10 years ago?

• 18:55Speaker 03

  I yeah, for me personally, I think without a doubt. And I think when I see other folks going through the same experience, I see that they're they're really struggling with the resting in uncertainty and not kind of knowing. And I struggle with that myself. It's not like I'm I'm I've got a lot of work to go there. But I think it's really helped me not try and plan too much for the future and not worry about what I think might happen. And I think that's where, for me personally, that's my own personal struggle that I'm always trying, you know, over the last 10 years to be trying to trying to work through. And I feel that if I could just bring it back to what I'm doing right now, you know, the future is going to kind of take care of itself in a way. Yeah, I don't know how I would have got through this.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  I don't know how I would have got through the last 10 years, to be honest, but I think particularly in this moment, I found it incredibly useful.

• 19:45Guy Raz?

  I mean, both of you, obviously practitioners of meditation, but you're also running a business. Andy, first to you, have you seen been seeing a spike in in in people signing up for Headspace?

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, we've seen a massive, a massive spike, especially in some of the the early data, right at the the beginning of the pandemic. Think that some of the media starts across anxiety and stress content were up sort of a thousand percent. The inbound from businesses, from organizations was up over four hundred percent. So I think inevitably, in times of crisis, we turn to, you know, things that we think might kind of help us. And I think Rich brought up a really interesting point just now. And with meditation, I think sometimes we look at it and, you know, we might kind of think it's going to fix everything. You know, it's not fix anything. It's not going to change everything around us, but it will change our relationship with those things.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  So whether we're in work or whether we've recently kind of lost, lost our job, whether we are in good health, whether we we kind of experiencing poor health. It doesn't change those things, but it does change our relationship with them. And it does allow us to kind of live peacefully through the the ups and downs of of this kind of crisis.

• 20:55Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Rich, I mean, just from a business perspective, I mean, you guys have a team, you know, you're constantly making new new stuff. So how is that happening? How are people, for example, recording things?

• 21:07Speaker 03

  Everyone, I think, felt an even greater sense of purpose. And I think everyone really felt like, wow, the thing that we're putting out there, people need more than they've ever needed it. And it's just been amazing to see the team kind of rally. And they've all got their own personal situations at home that they're dealing with, like all of us. And some of them are extreme and some of them are kind of, you know, they're doing well. And you've got people on their own, you've got people with sick family, you've got people that have lost jobs. Like, the ecosystem around our team is really varied, the experience that they're having.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Um. In terms of like the practical, like the team, actually, within about twenty four hours, the company was working online really, really quickly. In terms of recording, you know, Andy's actually in his recording studio at the moment. And in our team, like our video team, I've actually just get really creative. Like, we put out a daily video product every single day. And so they had to completely restructure the way that they produce that content. And they've done it and they've kept up with it. And the same with the audio, they've just, I think it's, it, I can't speak for anyone else, but I think internally, our team have almost become more creative.

• 22:13Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I want to get to some questions. Um. This is from Melissa Chaffin, Andy. She asks, you know, even without the coronavirus, um, she's not, I've not been able to clear my mind enough to get benefits from meditation. Do you have any suggestions for people like Melissa on how they can break through that? I, I, I get that, Melissa, I, I get like, I'm going through my to do list and, you know, it's, it's hard.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  I, I get it too. I used to have that a lot too. And then one day, a teacher said to me, you do know it's not about stopping thoughts, right? You do know it's not about clearing your mind. And I was quite surprised by this because I always thought that that's what meditation was about. And I realized that I was really focusing my whole practice on trying to stop thoughts and trying to achieve a state of mind that I thought was what they were talking about, when people talk about meditation. And he kind of retrained it for me and he said, look, just because you're sitting down doing something called meditation, your mind will still think. The, the trick is more about kind of how do you learn to step back from the thoughts? And the truth is, to begin with, when we step back from the thoughts, first we see just a lot of thoughts. And that is a surprise and a shock in itself, often an unwelcome one.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Then we see that to begin with, we're quite distracted, that we get caught up in planning for the future, reminiscing about the past. That happens a lot to begin with. And then as we continue kind of training, the distraction over time becomes less. And so I would say, Melissa, it's more around being okay with the fact that thoughts arise. It's about being okay with the fact that you get distracted. Over time, that distraction does become less and we tend to experience a quieter mind and a, a calmer mind.

• 23:52Guy Raz?

  Essentially, your, your mind might be cluttered and that's fine. That's, that's, that's totally okay.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can actually have peace of mind with a very busy mind.

• 24:02Guy Raz?

  Andy, you, I mean, anyone watching who hasn't heard this episode of the podcast, please go back and listen to it. I remember you describing moments of extreme isolation when you were at that monastery, I think in Burma, and you actually escaped from, I think you escaped from that place. And then when you guys moved to the US to launch this company, you were diagnosed with cancer and you overcame that. And now here we are in a new crisis and everyone is in this crisis. Like, I mean, of course, some people are suffering more, people who are ill, people who have lost their jobs, people who are alone and feeling really isolated. How did all those things in a sense maybe prepare

• 24:43Guy Raz?

  you for this? Or maybe you couldn't prepare for this moment? But I wonder whether you kind of felt prepared in a way?

• 24:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, my friends have joked that I'm skilled in very few things in life. The one thing that I am okay at is being quiet in an isolated place. So in some ways, I am quite well prepared for it. I think when we take ourselves away from the busyness of life, whatever the environment, whether it's a monastic one in the Himalayas, or whether it's kind of where we are now, we tend, it tends to amplify our thoughts and emotions. So everything sort of feels so much bigger and so much more intense. And the temptation is to kind of get spooked by that, rather than realizing, actually, we're just seeing the mind a little more closely. Not that the mind has necessarily changed, it's just that we're seeing those thoughts and emotions a bit more clearly.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  In terms of the cancer thing, I think what that taught me was that the truth is in life generally, we never know what the next day kind of holds for us. And when you're on that journey of cancer, it's so easy to either jump into the future and kind of just take a few words that the doctor said and kind of make something out of that and disappear sort of into sort of future scenarios that haven't yet happened, that may never happen, or to go back to a time when we weren't ill and to kind of wish it were different. And I think that really kind of helped, just being able to be present with what's happening now. And sometimes what's happening now is we don't know. And humans, we search for certainty, we search for security.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  That's kind of where we feel comfortable. And when those things are taken away, we kind of feel a bit more vulnerable. So yes, all of those things have helped in kind of being more comfortable in an uncertain world and feeling a little more vulnerable.

• 26:30Guy Raz?

  This is a question from Jennifer Webb. She says, while all of the meditation topics are helpful, and I think she's referring to the topics on the app, she just lost her job. Sorry to hear that, Jennifer. She loved it. She was a huge part of a family, was a big part of her identity. She asks, as I try to gear myself up for a job hunt in a new field in these times, what topics should I start with? Any suggestions for Jennifer?

• 26:58Speaker 02

  And likewise, Jennifer, really, really sorry to hear that. So we're actually just dropping in some, there's short form kind of content that's specific for people who have lost a job and/or who are preparing to go out and look for work again. If you're feeling especially kind of anxious about the implications of losing your job, then obviously there's a course on anxiety, there's one on change, which I think is really, really kind of helpful. And then a third one is self-esteem. I think for most of us, our sense of purpose in life is often so tied up with what we do in terms of our work and life. When that's taken away, we can very often kind of lose confidence.

• 27:41Guy Raz?

  I know that you are now offering free subscriptions to people who've lost their jobs. How does that work?

• 27:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, so if you go to headspace.com/unemployed and you put in some details about, you know, when you lost your job and your last place of employment, we give you free access for a year to the Headspace app for people in the US. And it's free for healthcare workers in the US, UK and France, and free for educators in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. So yeah, there's a bunch of different ways, depending on where you are in your particular journey as an individual, you can get free access to Headspace.

• 28:19Guy Raz?

  Very cool. This is a question from Paula Palmer Raymond, and I totally identify with this question, Paula. She asks, does meditation help with frustration and feelings of, you know, whatever's going on is out of my control?

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, we deceive ourselves thinking that we control a lot of life. We control very little of life. I would say that actually, you could arguably define the journey of meditation as just that, letting go of control. It's letting go of everything again and again and again. There is a kind of an act of surrender in it. And a lot of people, you could look at that in a negative kind of way. So I don't want to surrender. I want to fight. Well, that's fine, but fighting doesn't get us anywhere. You know, it's not, there is a way of moving through life where we are both choosing the direction and moving intentionally in that direction whilst at the same time being open to what is unfolding around us in life. And

• 29:16Speaker 02

  when we find that balance, then I think we find a kind of flow in life where we feel like we're moving in the right direction. We're not sort of fighting against ourselves or those around us.

• 29:28Guy Raz?

  One more question from our audience. This is a question from Colleen Wilson Arturi, and also Nate Donovan. They talk about, or they're asking about, how do you stick with and be consistent with a meditation practice? What, are there any tricks or ways to keep doing it day after day?

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's probably one of the most common kind of questions and one of the most challenging things, I think, to keep up a regular practice. I think one is being really clear about your motivations. If your motivation is to quickly solve a problem in your life, then once that problem is solved or sort of resolves itself in some way, you're unlikely to continue. So kind of set up a more of a kind of a, I'm going to do this for a long period of time. Second one is tied to something that you already do. So most people just either forget about it or something else takes priority. So tie it to something like if you have a shower every morning, tie it to that. So it's shower and meditation, or it's coffee and meditation. What's that one thing that you do every single day, even at a weekend, even when you're on holiday?

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Once that's kind of there, then you're more likely to sort of remember doing it. And then the other one, which is a really interesting one, I we live in like an all or nothing kind of world, I feel. I think very often we kind of think unless we're doing it every day, then we're not doing it right. And if we miss one day, well, then what's the point? You might as well just give up altogether. That's not how it is, you know, I would say, but think about this as, you know, in the same way as we maybe kind of exercise, you know? If we hit three, four times a week, that's a really good thing. That doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. If you go a few weeks and you realise, oh, I haven't been meditating. Great, start meditating again. It's really important kind of not to give ourselves too hard a time, um, not to be too judgmental.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  And realise that to establish a a regular routine takes a takes a little bit of time practice.

• 31:17Guy Raz?

  Um, before I let you guys go, um, in five years' time, when we look back, if if hopefully this has been cured and there's a vaccine and we're back to living a version of normalcy, um. What do you, what do you want to learn from this moment? I mean, that applies to to to you personally and professionally and and the two of you as leaders and and your company? What do you want to take away from this to say, that's what I learned during this time? First, first to you, Rich.

• 31:41Speaker 03

  I hope that we can look back at our this situation as a as a kind of start point for looking at mental health as as important as physical health. We've always thought that mental health kind of they they're inextricably linked. But I think the situation has accelerated that conversation way, way quicker than than it would have otherwise. And so I think the thing that I would hope is that this is in schools, this is in businesses, this, you know, we are taking the conversation of mental health as one of the most important conversations that we can be having as a global society. And I think that would be, that would be an incredible thing if that could come out.

• 32:17Guy Raz?

  Andy?

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, obviously, obviously, share sharing that, but also kind of how we prioritise what's important to us in life. I I've heard so many friends and people around me kind of saying, this has really made me, you know, it's an enforced stepping back, but in stepping back, it's really made me think about what's important to me in my life. How am I going to simplify my life so that I'm able to do those things that? Are important to me and I can spend more time with the people who are more important talk to me. So my, my hope is just generally we will come out with this with a greater sense of clarity personally. Um, as Rich said, also kind of as a community, as communities as well as as to what, what is most important in our, our lives, our health and our, our happiness.

• 33:00Guy Raz?

  Could you just, I mean, I have you here and, and usually you're in my, in my earbuds. Could you lead us for a, a short meditation?

• 33:07Speaker 02

  I'd be happy to. I'd be happy to. Maybe just do a couple of minutes? Is that what?

• 33:11Guy Raz?

  Like a, yeah, like a minute or so or two minutes? Sure.

• 33:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. We can, we can do a, we'll do a really, really fast meditation. Okay. Okay. So, um, for anyone tuning in, not familiar with meditation, don't worry if you haven't done this before. I'll lead you through the exercise and you can do this sitting up or lying down, whichever you prefer. So I always recommend just starting with the eyes open, just a really soft kind of focus. Where the space in front of you, I'm just taking a big, deep breath, breathing in through the nose.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  And as you breathe out through the mouth, just gently closing the eyes and just allowing the body to sink down

• 33:50Speaker 02

  into the seat or the floor beneath you.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  And just taking a moment just to enjoy not doing anything. And having anywhere to go.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  And as you sit there, just becoming a little more aware of the body. So use this as an opportunity just to check in with the body. And notice if the body's feeling restless or still.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Whether it feels heavy or light.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  And as you become more aware of those physical sensations, just starting to notice the breath.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  But we're just going to stay with the breath, just for a few seconds. Sometimes you might feel it in your chest, sometimes in the stomach. You can't feel anything, just gently placing your hand in your stomach. We can feel that rise and you fall in the sensation.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  So as you rest your attention on the breath, lots of thoughts are going to come up in the mind. Allow the thoughts to come. Allow the thoughts to go.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Keep going, just gently bringing the attention back again.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Just knowing this is a place you can come back to at any time during the day today. For now, though, just gently bring the attention back to that contact between the seat and the floor, or the floor beneath you. Whenever you're ready, just gently.

• 35:47Guy Raz?

  I can't, I can't actually want that to keep going.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. You can do that for home.

• 35:52Guy Raz?

  It's fine. It's so, so great. Even that just two minutes is so great. Rich, Andy, so great to see you guys. Hope we get to see each other in person. Thank you for joining us. Just so appreciate you guys so much.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Thanks, Guy.

• 36:10Guy Raz?

  That's an excerpt from my conversation with Andy Puttycomb and Rich Pearson, the founders of Headspace. To see our full interview, you can go to facebook.com/HowIBuiltThis. And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there or at youtube.com/NPR. If you want to find out more about the How I Built This Resilience series or other virtual NPR events, or even get RSVP reminders, you can go to nprpresents.org. And of course, check your feed every Monday for a brand new, full-length episode of How I Built This. This episode was produced by J.C. Howard, with help from John Isabella, Julia Carney, Candace Lim, Gianna Capadona, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, and I'll see you right here on Monday.

• 36:54Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.