While in the monastery, I had a brief assignment to a missionary monastery in Uganda – yup, those exist. 

I had a habit of daily vigorous exercise – running, weight lifting, etc. However, it was harder to exercise in Uganda without access to running places or a gym. Part of me wanted to just skip exercise. But I knew that everything in my life – relationships, sleep, work, mood, etc – was better when I exercised regularly. 

So I had to improvise. 

In the Christian tradition, Lent is a period of letting go of idols that hold us back from becoming whom we yearn to be. 

Stripping off the idols that entangle us like bandages on a corpse, we begin to unravel our most true identity rooted in God. 

The 40 days of Lent mirror the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert praying and fasting in preparation for his public ministry. It’s a sacred time to prepare for rebirth in the joy of our own resurrection. 

When I was in the monastery, we often did a silent retreat to start Lent. During this time, I’d use the ancient Lenten spiritual framework of “prayer, fasting, and almsgiving” to set specific goals for how I wanted to be transformed during Lent. Here are some real examples from my monastic Lenten practices: 

The “desert fathers” who lived in the Egyptian desert in the 4th - 6th centuries sought a union with God through an intensely ascetic and prayerful lifestyle. 

Here, Evagrius, one of the most well-known of the desert fathers, describes the “noonday devil”, a popular metaphor in desert spirituality. 

Imagine the heat and torpor of being outside in the Egyptian desert after a hard morning of work. This is what Evagrius would experience most days. Naturally your mind and body would want an escape – to seek some other pleasure than to be present to your duties or life. Because of this natural reality, one becomes vulnerable to spiritual temptation. 

And we all have our own noonday devils don’t we?

In the monastery, we had dinner together every night. This was a privileged time for nurturing community and relationships. Of course, doing the same thing with the same people every day sometimes felt boring or mundane.

It can often be hardest to love those closest to us – members of our family, classmates and friends that we see all the time, people who no longer hold novelty or intrigue for us. But consistently finding little ways to serve and love those in our midst actually becomes the fabric of true heroism.

When I was in the monastery, every night before going to bed, I’d kneel on the cold tile floor and lean against my simple bed made from an old wooden door. 

I’d perform a meditative exercise called an “examination of conscience” in which you reflect meditatively on the day in order to improve the next day, and each day thereafter. 

Athletes watch the “game tape” of their own games to learn where they performed well, made mistakes, and how they can improve. If athletes do this for a game, why can’t we do it for real life?

People often ask me what the hardest thing to give up in the monastery was. I think they assume it's sex, and they want to hear me say that. 

Shortly after I entered, I remember a wise older brother telling me, “People think the hardest vow to keep is chastity. Actually, it's obedience.” 

I live in Washington, D.C., and the first question many ask upon meeting me is, “What do you do?”  Of course what we do matters, but ultimately, it’s secondary to the more fundamental questions: Why do I work? How do I work? 

Have you ever made a decision motivated by fear?

I have. Plenty of times. 

Whether its a fear of failure; fear of disappointing someone; fear rooted in a childhood wound… 

Have you ever made a decision motivated by fear?

I have. Plenty of times. 

Whether its a fear of failure; fear of disappointing someone; fear rooted in a childhood wound… 

I’ve had periods of my life in which I acted like what I did with my body – whether partying too hard or staying up way too late – had no bearing on my spiritual health. 

But that’s a lie. 

In my early days in the monastery, we had classes on spirituality, during which we’d learn from the older brothers who'd been in the monastery for a while. I remember Fr. Robert, an energetic, younger friar sharing with us: 

“We all have this candle burning within us. It’s the light of hope, life, God’s presence within us. If you run around while carrying a candle, it will go out. 

There’s a tendency to think that prayer or meditation is hard. That it's inaccessible or won’t really make a difference in our lives. We kinda feel like we should do it and we’d be better for it. But in the midst of our crazy days, it sometimes feels just too distant. 

St. Therese, a French nun who lived in the closed walls of a hidden convent in a small town and died in her early 20s, reminds us here that, to the contrary, prayer is primarily just a simple movement of the heart. 

After six years in the monastery and after the passing of my father, I suddenly and strongly felt called to be more active in how I was serving God and living my life. It was jarring, and I remember literally feeling like I was being ripped apart internally. I loved being in the monastery - the routine of life, all the time for prayer, being with the brothers. But I was feeling called into something different. 

Mother Teresa did not start out as Mother Teresa. 

For 20 years, “Sister Teresa” was a teacher and school administrator in a middle class school in Calcutta with a religious community called the Sisters of Loretto. 

Daily she walked by people dying in the streets and starving for food – and love. One day, she went on her day off to bring them comfort. Then she did this for a few hours every week. She couldn’t help the millions of suffering people in Calcutta. But she could help a few each week.

In the 5th century Egyptian desert, Abba Lot came to Abba Joseph and said: 

“Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and, according as I am able, I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: now what more should I do?”

The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven and said: “Why not become fire?”

As he said this, Abba Joseph’s fingers became like ten lamps of fire shooting flames.

In my day job, I work with hundreds of founders to help them grow in business and life. One of the most important factors of growth – at work and in the heart – is great mentorship. 

This is especially true in one’s spiritual journey. We have such a limited and incomplete view of ourselves. We need others with more experience to reflect us to ourselves and guide us. 

I’ve often chased success, achievement, and pleasure in my life. These were my go-to means for filling the void within. 

But this never really satisfied me. At some point, I realized I would never be the smartest or the best. It was a game I could win for a while but ultimately always lost.

Thomas Aquinas, one the greatest philosophers and theologians of all time suggests here that love is fundamentally rooted in the will. OK, what does this mean?

As a Carmelite nun in the 1500s, St. Teresa of Avila lived an extremely disciplined and penitential life. But she also recognized there was a time for “partridge” – a feasting delicacy of the time. 

Hard work, especially work with one's body and hands is core to monastic life. Working with diligence, focus, and attention to excellence helps our soul to flourish. The motto of the Benedictines is...