National Post (National Edition)
THE MILLIONAIRE MONK
FAMOUS WELLNESS GURU BRINGS HIS LOFTY BRAND OF MEDITATION TO NETFLIX
Headspace Guide to Meditation
Netflix
If the path to true mindfulness involves pushing ourselves outside our comfort zone, Andy Puddicombe, the Buddhist monk turned millionaire co-founder of meditation app Headspace, isn't shirking the work.
On New Year's Eve, in the middle of a pandemic, Puddicombe moved his family — including a six-year-old and a three-year-old — halfway across the globe, from Los Angeles to Lisbon, where they don't speak the language and barely know anyone. What is it they say about life's most stressful events?
He coped as always by going back to his basic Buddhist training: “Whether it's applied to the business or moving house, those are still skills I draw on a lot.”
Now entering its 11th year, more than 65 million people use Headspace, which generates revenue of more than US$100 million per year from paid subscribers (the basic version is free), who listen to Puddicombe's voice as they learn how to become more mindful through short, guided sessions.
Once described as “doing for meditation what Jamie Oliver has done for food,” Puddicombe's goal has always been to share what he learned during 10 years as a monk. To really reach the masses he needed television.
Well, just as the world has a collective anxiety attack, he's made it, and with streaming giant Netflix. Headspace Guide to Meditation, a new animated series, sees Puddicombe take viewers through the benefits and science of meditation over eight 20-minute episodes. (A second series, Headspace Guide to Sleep, will follow.)
“For me it's just a medium, right?” he explains. “There was a time when, in order to experience meditation, you had to go to a teacher, a monastery. Then it was groups, then tapes, MP3s ... the essence of the practice doesn't change at all, just the medium and scale.”
Born in London, Puddicombe had started a sports science degree at Leicester's De Montfort University when a clutch of bereavements altered his life. At 22, he was standing outside a pub when a drunk driver plowed into a group of friends, killing two of them. His stepsister died in a cycling accident a few months later, before an ex-girlfriend passed away during surgery.
He dropped out of university and travelled to the Himalayas to learn meditation. Over the next decade he studied all over the world, before being ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk in northern India.
Returning to lay life in 2004, he trained at the Moscow State Circus, then gained a degree in circus arts in London and became a meditation consultant. In the latter role, he met his future business partner, Rich Pierson. The two of them came up with Headspace.
What's happened since is, he admits, “quite surreal.” The app was launched in 2010, and immediately — along with its archrival, Calm — served an audience with an appetite for mindfulness, but unsure how to go about it. The company grew exponentially, prompting Puddicombe to move to Los Angeles in 2012, where he became a minor celebrity and gained famous acolytes, including Bill Gates and Gwyneth Paltrow. Other Hollywood stars such as Jared Leto and Ryan Seacrest are investors.
His wife, Lucinda, is a sports scientist, writer and self-described “raw food enthusiast and yoga nut.”
Their lockdown has been similar to many people's: a switch to more home working; a realization they probably live too far from their parents, one of whom became ill last year, partly prompting the move; and home-schooling. “That was definitely a test,” Puddicombe admits. “In the monastery, they should just stick a couple of toddlers in there and ask (the monks) to home school them for a few months, because that'll be the challenge.”
It would seem reasonable to say most of us are suffering from some level of stress and anxiety. What can we do?
“Step 1 is recognizing the importance of the mind, which sounds obvious,” Puddicombe says. “We don't have to feel that level of stress all the time. Once we prioritize that then things change. It makes sense to sit down for three, five minutes, 10 minutes a day. ... Just commit to rest. You don't even need to meditate, just take some time.”