Three Reflections in Leadership After a Silent Retreat

I recently returned from a 30-day silent retreat at a monastery in the foothills of Colorado. I was there to undertake what the Jesuits call The Spiritual Exercises. The “exercises,” which have been refined over centuries, are meant to help people find guidance at key decision points in their lives. For me, it means taking time away to very intentionally shape the last big chapter of my career.

Now I realize that not everyone wants to or can take on 30 days of silence, away from work and home, but I am a big advocate of regular, focused reflection. I’ve been back a week, and I’ve already put many valuable lessons to use. And, I know I’ll harvest even more over the next several months. As my very wise 75-year-old retreat director Father Ed reminded me as I was preparing to leave, “The best life lessons don’t all come at once.” 

Below I share some of my early learnings. They’re not “new” per se, but little in life is. That said, how I understand them has now deepened in powerful ways.

1) Optimism and cynicism are contagious – we get to choose which we pass on. This lesson comes from one of my favorite Father Ed stories. He told me about how as a young priest he often visited elderly people who weren’t physically able to get to mass. Often these visits resulted in people telling him stories from their lives. “One day as I was driving home, I realized that all the stories had ups and downs. But, despite the fact that the stories were pretty much the same, some people were telling stories of woe and others of gratitude and I could usually tell within minutes of walking in a home which version I’d get.” Which story do you want to tell?

2) Joy comes from focusing on what’s in front of you. Even if there’s something important that needs changing in your life, you can’t usually fix it in a day. So, if you want to find joy today, you need to focus on the here and now -- not imagining yourself owning one more thing, moving somewhere else or disappearing into the Internet.  Note that this advice isn’t about being more “present,” but about becoming someone who is truly joyful. It may be appreciating the view from your window, the rustle of the wind through the trees, the taste of fresh fruit, the sound of laughter... That simple act of noticing and appreciating is the way to find joy. Every day on retreat I made it a goal to get outside in time to see the sun rise over the eastern foothills. Each one was so different; I never knew whether that day would be spectacularly beautiful, a cloudy dull grey, or something in between. What I learned from that experience was that whatever my favorite simple things are, I need to dwell on them. True joy lies in appreciating things already present in your life.

3) Real wisdom takes time. There is some irony in writing this sentence in a 750-word blog, but the retreat reinforced for me that there are no quick fixes to gaining wisdom. The Jesuit exercises entail praying on what seem like really simple topics each day; e.g., peace, joy, birth, with the help of some short readings. You pray on each topic four times over the course of a day for roughly an hour each time. Day after day, I saw that the insight I got in my first hours was dwarfed by the insights I gained just eight hours later. Now true contemplation takes discipline and time. But if one commits to a regular practice, “simple” assignments can generate new insights that feed your soul. The key is to honor the process and remember that nobody on social media who claims to have figured it out in 140 key strokes has actually found it!

Coda. Since coming back, I’ve found myself walking, talking and reading more slowly. I am very conscious that if I really want to think, learn, enjoy nature or be in conversation with another person, I can’t be in a hurry. It’s amazing how much more time I have for those things when I leave my iPhone face down and my computer closed for minutes, if not hours, on end. As Father Ed’s voice keeps reminding me, “You get to choose.”

Sally Blount is Professor of Strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.