Chip Conley

I’ll admit it. I’m a “karmic capitalist.” I believe what goes around, typically, comes around in life and business. The only question is how long it takes. This concept is now in vogue. “Conscious capitalism” has emerged.

“I think as one grows older, one is appallingly exposed to wearing life instead of living it. Habit, physical deterioration and a slower digestion of our experiences, all tend to make one look on one’s dear life as a garment, a dressing gown, a raincoat, a uniform, buttoned on with recurrent daily (tasks)...

In Australian Aboriginal society, a “walkabout” is a rite of passage during which male adolescents undergo life in the wilderness for a period as long as six months. The journey marks the spiritual and traditional transition into manhood. Nowadays, Australians have co-opted the word to describe their journeys around the globe.

Once upon a time, there were three sisters: Serendipity, Synchronicity, and Epiphany. They lived in a small fishing and farming village in southern Baja, a tranquil place some called Yet. From far and wide, midlife pilgrims flew into the bustling Los Cabos airport seeking the sisters. But they would immediately realize this was “Not Yet.”

Saul, our local shaman (another way of saying “wiseman”) reminds us that the Earth is about 70-75% water, as is the human body (especially the brain and heart). According to our shaman, water and wisdom have much in common.

Once is chance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is a pattern. In that spirit, I’ve recently been asked three times about my morning routine. So, for better or worse, here it is: As I outlined in this earlier post, I wake up with monks and farmers.

“We all have an identifiable, though largely unconscious and unexamined, relationship with money that shapes our experience of life and our deepest feelings of ourselves and others. Whether you count your change in dollars, yen, rupees, or drachmas, money is one of the central, linchpin issues in all of our lives...

Bald and bewildered, I was not in my natural habitat when I joined Airbnb in early 2013. I’d never worked in a tech company. I’d never heard of the “sharing economy.” I didn’t know what it meant to “ship a feature.”

Oprah once suggested we “turn our wounds into wisdom.” But one person’s wound may distill fresh insight while another’s might lead to hardened judgment.

Socrates wrote, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Well, that may be taking it a little far, but there’s no doubt the older I get, the less I seem to know...and it’s not due to failing memory.