Scott Norton, The Condiments Guy Who Meditates
The podcast features Dan Harris and guest Scott Norton, co-founder of Sir Kensington's. They discuss how meditation helps Norton manage stress in his startup and how to apply mindfulness in the workplace, alongside advice on meditation practices and communicating its benefits.
Deep Dive Analysis
16 Topic Outline
Listener Call: Navigating Different Meditation Styles
Dan's Advice on Choosing a Meditation Practice
Listener Call: Avoiding Meditation Proselytization
Dan's Advice on Sharing Meditation with Others
Introduction to Guest Scott Norton of Sir Kensington's
Scott Norton's Personal Meditation Journey
Explanation of Vedic Meditation Practice
Meditation's Role in Managing Startup Stress
The Genesis of Sir Kensington's and the Condiment Market
Sir Kensington's Strategy Against Ketchup Dominance
Defining a Startup and the Nature of Business Challenges
The Balance Between Setting Goals and Enjoying the Journey
Building a Company Culture Like a Religion
Food Industry Responsibility and Addictive Products
Sir Kensington's Values-Driven Product and Business Approach
Meditation's Influence on Embodied Values and Decision-Making
5 Key Concepts
Vedic Meditation
A form of mantra meditation where one repeats a 'spokenless sound' in their mind over and over. The practice involves returning to the mantra as the mind naturally wanders, with more detailed aspects concerning preparation, sitting posture, and environment.
Stress as a Choice
While external pressures and challenges are objective realities, the decision of whether these pressures turn into personal stress is ultimately a choice. This perspective suggests an opportunity to gain objective perspective and grow stronger from challenges rather than being rattled by them.
Journey as the Reward
This concept emphasizes that while goals are important for direction, the emotional state upon achieving a goal is temporary, and new, often bigger problems will arise. It encourages enjoying the process, recognizing setbacks as opportunities for growth, and not solely focusing on the end result for happiness.
Company as a Religion
A framework for building an organization by recognizing that humans are emotional creatures who seek connection to something bigger than themselves, community, and a sense of meaning. Companies can co-opt elements like beliefs, guiding 'texts' (values), and standards of behavior to foster this, similar to how religions operate.
Vipassana
An ancient word, often associated with insight meditation, that means 'seeing clearly.' The practice aims to help individuals achieve an objective understanding of the world by experiencing sensory input, observing the mind, and feeling bodily sensations clearly.
5 Questions Answered
A beginner can initially 'taste test' various meditation forms, but it's recommended to eventually pick one and stick with it for a period to gather meaningful personal data. However, basic mindfulness (focusing on breath) and loving-kindness (Metta) are complementary and can be effectively paired.
It's best not to proselytize meditation, as it can be annoying and often backfires. Instead, model the skills and behaviors gained from your own practice, such as being a good listener and handling life's challenges with grace, which may inspire others to seek similar tools.
Meditation helps by allowing one to slow down and shift from a 'fast forward' default mode to a 'play' speed, which provides better perspective, more reflective time, and improved self-assessment. This enables individuals to navigate new challenges and 'see around the bend' in the future.
A startup can be defined by its attitude and culture — a mentality of being an outsider, a maverick, and constantly inventing its own solutions, rather than being limited by how long it has been in business.
A company can build a strong culture by designing it like a religion, offering employees a connection to something bigger than themselves, a sense of community and tribe, and meaning. This involves establishing clear beliefs, 'texts' (like core values), and standards of behavior that bind people together.
17 Actionable Insights
1. Choose Your Response to Stress
Recognize that external pressures are objective reality, but whether they turn into stress is a choice. View every challenge as an opportunity to gain objective perspective and grow stronger, understanding that ‘friction is polish’.
2. Embrace the Journey, Not Just Goals
Understand that achieving a goal is an invitation to new problems, not an end to challenges. Avoid thinking that happiness is binary or solely tied to future achievements; instead, enjoy the present journey and recognize that setbacks are not ‘killers’.
3. Cultivate Objective Understanding
Utilize meditation or other practices to slow down and foster reflective time, helping you understand the world objectively. Achieving this clarity and objective perspective is crucial for making the best decisions in any situation.
4. Commit to One Meditation Practice
After an initial period of ’taste testing’ different meditation forms, choose one practice and stick with it for a sustained period. This focused approach allows you to gather meaningful data on your own mind and assess if the practice is making you ’less of a jerk to yourself and others'.
5. Don’t Proselytize Meditation
Avoid telling others they ‘ought to meditate’ as it is often annoying and can backfire, making people feel you perceive them as ‘broken’. Instead, model the skills gained from your practice, such as being a good listener and handling life with grace, allowing others to naturally become interested.
6. Pair Mindfulness and Loving-Kindness
For beginners, combine basic mindfulness (watching the breath) with loving-kindness meditation (metta) as complementary practices. Dedicate 5-10 minutes daily to mindfulness, then add a short round of metta, either immediately after or at another point in the day.
7. Practice Loving-Kindness Before Sleep
Perform loving-kindness meditation, systematically picturing people and sending well-wishes, with your head on the pillow before bed. This practice is suspected to have a salutary effect on your ability to fall asleep and on your dreams.
8. Maintain Humility About Meditation’s Efficacy
While meditation may work for you, approach its potential for others with humility, as it is not a panacea and may not work for everyone. Avoid the assumption that your positive experience guarantees the same for someone else.
9. Practice Vedic Meditation Consistently
If practicing Vedic meditation, aim for 20 minutes twice a day, especially ensuring the morning session is completed. This consistent regularity is key, as the feelings of relief and contentment from meditation may not be predictable or consistent.
10. Don’t Measure Meditation ROI
Avoid treating meditation as an investment with a measurable return, especially in a business context. Instead, dedicate yourself to the regularity of the practice, trusting that positive feelings and benefits will emerge as they do.
11. Address Tech Hygiene Directly
Engage in conversations about technology use with your partner or others without lecturing them about meditation. Discuss ’tech hygiene’ directly if you believe it is impacting your relationship, focusing on the specific issue rather than a perceived ‘fix’.
12. Design Organizations with Core Beliefs
For leaders, consider designing your company’s mission and culture by imagining you’re designing a religion, providing a connection to something bigger than oneself, a sense of community, meaning, beliefs, texts, and standards of behavior.
13. Prioritize People in Your Company
Recognize that ‘people are the secret ingredient’ and that all company results and successes stem from your team. Use this as a core value to guide decisions, especially in ‘people challenges,’ ensuring you think deeply about what that means.
14. Think Long-Term in Decisions
Adopt a ’think long-term’ value to consider not only the first-order implications of a decision but also the second and third-order effects. This helps ensure that current actions are repeatable, buildable, and contribute to future success, impacting both strategy and how you treat others.
15. Build Relationships Over Transactions
In business, ensure your company is ‘only as good as the companies we keep’ by treating suppliers and customers with a focus on relationships rather than mere transactions. This fosters good partnerships and reflects a values-led approach.
16. Develop Products with Personal Authorship
For product development, adhere to the value ‘if we don’t love it, we don’t launch it.’ This means creating products from a sense of personal authorship and genuine excitement, rather than solely relying on consumer group testing or market trends you don’t believe in.
17. Choose Whole, Natural Food Ingredients
When developing or selecting food products, prioritize the value ‘if it’s not food, it doesn’t belong in our food.’ This means avoiding chemicals, synthetic sweeteners, or highly processed ingredients to ensure the product is closer to its natural state and supports human health.
5 Key Quotes
Are you less of a jerk to yourself and others? That's my yardstick for knowing whether meditation is working.
Dan Harris
Don't proselytize. It's really annoying, and it has a high, high likelihood in my experience of backfiring.
Dan Harris
It's not the kind of thing you should, you can or should measure return on investment for it.
Scott Norton
What feels like friction is actually polish.
Scott Norton
If it's not food, it doesn't belong in our food.
Scott Norton
1 Protocols
Beginner Meditation Pairing
Dan Harris- Dedicate several months to doing 5-10 minutes a day of basic mindfulness meditation, focusing on your breath and returning to it when distracted.
- Immediately after the mindfulness practice, or at a separate complementary time (e.g., before bed), do a round of Metta (loving-kindness meditation).
- During Metta, systematically picture various people (and even animals) and repeat well-wishing phrases like 'may you be happy, may you be safe.'