Calm App Founder: From $0 To $2 Billion By Making The World Meditate: Michael Acton Smith

Jan 31, 2022 1h 35m 25 insights
Michael Acton-Smith, founder of the Calm app, shares his entrepreneurial journey, including building and pivoting multiple businesses. He discusses the critical role of curiosity, deep foundational work, and the transformative power of mindfulness and sleep in navigating challenges and achieving success.
Actionable Insights

1. Prioritize Mental Health Universally

Recognize that everyone has mental health, just as they have physical health, and it’s crucial to understand, respect, and learn about our minds for overall well-being and to thrive.

2. Uphold Four Health Foundations

Prioritize nutrition, exercise, mind care (e.g., meditation), and sufficient sleep as the fundamental pillars for personal health and well-being, enabling you to support others and your work.

3. Prioritize Meaningful Relationships

Recognize that building and nurturing strong relationships with family, friends, and partners is ultimately more important than any other life pursuit, including career success.

4. Prioritize Deep Foundational Work

Before launching, invest significant time (months to years) in deep research, immersing yourself in the industry, and connecting dots to build a strong, clear foundation for your idea.

5. Achieve Product-Market Fit Before Scaling

Refrain from aggressive marketing or scaling efforts until you have a clear product-market fit and a deep understanding of your business model, as marketing is gasoline for an existing fire.

6. Implement Digital Detox Routines

Avoid checking emails or social media before bed and first thing in the morning to allow your mind to gently calibrate and prevent immediate overwhelm from the news cycle.

7. Practice Responsive Awareness

Cultivate a slight pause between stimulation and action, allowing awareness to kick in so you can respond thoughtfully rather than reacting impulsively in daily situations.

8. Strengthen Your Mind with Meditation

View meditation as a ‘mental gym’ to build mental strength, improve awareness, and enhance your attention in daily life, effectively upgrading your mental operating system.

9. Cultivate Attention Control

In the 21st century, the ability to consciously decide where, how, and when you put your attention is a highly valuable skill, essential for navigating constant noise and stimulation.

10. Listen to Pain as a Signal

Instead of ignoring or masking pain (mental or physical), lean in and listen to it, recognizing it as an important signal alerting you to an underlying problem that needs attention.

11. Embrace Curiosity for Creativity

Foster curiosity by exploring diverse subjects and connecting disparate ideas, as this mindset is a crucial foundation for entrepreneurial creativity and innovation.

12. Create Unique IP & Storytelling

Develop your own intellectual property and use compelling human-interest stories about struggles, transformations, and impact to generate buzz and connect with an audience.

13. Filter Ideas by Persistence

Only pursue ideas that persistently nag you and wake you up at night, as these indicate strong conviction and potential for deep commitment.

14. Master Business Fundamentals

Don’t be swayed by hype or awards; focus on understanding the core business model and economics, ensuring you can monetize and sell your creation for more than it costs to produce.

15. Build a Supportive Community

Surround yourself with a supportive network of family and friends, especially fellow entrepreneurs, who can provide pep talks and pick you up during times of struggle.

16. Seek Solo Retreats for Clarity

Take solo holidays or retreats to step back from daily pressures, gain perspective, and allow mental fog to clear, which can lead to breakthroughs and new ideas.

17. Practice Active Listening

Apply the ’two ears, one mouth’ principle by listening significantly more than you speak, especially in conversations, to truly understand others’ viewpoints and experiences.

18. Validate Partner’s Perspective

In arguments, pause, listen, and then repeat back what your partner has said to ensure they feel understood, rather than immediately countering their points.

19. Implement Company-Wide Mental Health Breaks

Offer full company-wide mental health weeks or days where everyone can genuinely disconnect and recharge, as this significantly benefits team well-being and productivity.

20. Maintain Calm Leadership

As a leader, strive for stability and avoid getting swept up in the extreme highs and lows of the entrepreneurial journey, as teams are drawn to calm and steady guidance.

21. Invest in Inevitable, Skeptical Ideas

Look for opportunities where there’s high skepticism but an underlying sense of inevitability, as these ’non-obvious’ areas can become multi-billion dollar markets.

22. Embrace Failure as Learning

Recognize that business success often comes after multiple failures, as you only need to succeed once to achieve significant impact and learn valuable lessons.

23. Eliminate User Friction Early

To achieve rapid adoption, remove all barriers and friction points for users to engage with your product, even if it means delaying monetization.

24. Establish a Bedtime Routine

Develop a consistent and engaging evening routine, such as listening to a sleep story, to improve sleep quality and solve bedtime problems.

25. Cultivate Empathy with Meditation

Develop a meditation practice to enhance empathy, allowing you to better understand and see the world from others’ perspectives and improve relationships.