After years of a successful, stressful career in real estate, Adam Weber was stunned to receive a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. In his quest to recover his health so he could continue to remain an active figure in the lives of his young sons, Adam discovered meditation. He now teaches his simple system to other business people ready to find balance in their stressful lives. In January 2021, his new book, Meditation Not Medicine, will be released, sharing his message of peace of mind through a practical approach to meditation.  

In this episode, he joins Susi Vine to discuss:  

• The impact of stress, from the personal to the economic levels,  
• A non-spiritual, no BS approach to mindfulness,  
• The myth of ‘not enough time to meditate,’ 
• The value of the Beginner’s Mind,  
• The journey from being highly reactive to becoming a peaceful observer,  
• Managing (unreasonable) expectations of excellence,  
• How helping yourself truly helps others, and 
• E+R=O (for the Jack Canfield fans in the house)  

Connect with Adam to learn more about his course and find his books through his website, www.MeditationNotMedicine.com 

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Watch the episode here:

The Power Of Making Meditation Easy

Adam Weber, a former New York City corporate warrior, would like you to know that it’s easy to meditate. Following a surprising diagnosis, Adam discovered meditation and transformed his relationship with stress and his family, and found a new purpose.

I am here with Adam Weber. I’m happy to have him join me. He’s a fellow advocate in living with less stress. Adam Weber is the no BS, common sense speaker, author, product creation specialist, and Owner of the highly successful companies Weber Real Estate Advisors and Weber Advisory Group. Adam also helps people learn to reduce their stress through his highly–celebrated meditation technique called Easy to Meditate. Adam has dedicated his life to helping others learn to meditate so they can reduce their stress without medications. Easy to Meditate is proud to include some of the most accomplished individuals and organizations as clients. He is a former corporate warrior who helps others learn to deal with their stress through either in person or online training.  

Adam, a New York native has lived in New York and in the Midwest and now lives in New York, North of Manhattan. Adam and his wife, Haley, have two sons, Andrew and Daniel. When not in his home office, you can find him with his best bud, Churchill, his Golden Retriever–English–Setter mix, or working out. Two great ways to relieve stress in addition to meditation. Adam, thank you so much. I’m happy to have you with me. 

Thank you, Susi, for having me. 

In your career, you’ve experienced a good level of success and then felt called to do even more than that. I’m interested in learning how your own experience led you to this discovery of the power of meditation. 

While spending 25 years in the corporate real estate market in New York City, which is a highly stressful environment, I was diagnosed with a progressive form of multiple sclerosis. On top of the stress that comes with a corporate job or corporate career and raising two children, being married and doing all that, being diagnosed with a progressive disease that doesn’t end well. It doesn’t kill you but it will hurt you. It will debilitate you. As somebody diagnosed having had it for more than ten years, the effects that I had only read about started to come to fruition and you say, “I get it now.”  

You realize why you’re frustrated, angry, upset, why you’re walking the way you do, why you trip over air and things like that. The reality of it sets in and it’s not a fun reality, it’s a very stressful reality. As you mentioned, I live North of Manhattan, a very active area, with two young children and I’m married. Having challenges that most others wouldn’t have, it gets very stressful and very hard on you, and simultaneously having dealt with my wife having had cancer twice, my youngest son being born premature, and having had eight surgeries. It’s not about me but about them. It’s a very stressful time when you’re trying to juggle it all. 

That list of experiences that you have been through is unfortunately not unusual. One thing happens and then another and, in your case too, to live with the experience of not having an explanation for these moods or physical experiences that you were having to go undiagnosed for a period of time until they finally were able to give you, not a great diagnosis, but at least an answer. 

They only found it while doing surgery on a back injury I had from playing sports in the past. They accidentally found it after years of going undiagnosed. It showed up under the microscope but never showed up on anything else. 

With that diagnosis, you must have been very young and it must have been unexpected for them to be looking for symptoms of this disease. 

Given my history as far as health and the way I take care of myself, I’m not drinking, eating well, I ate primarily and have for years a plant-based diet, not doing anything crazy with my body, they were maybe more surprised than I was. Also because I’m the son of a doctor and a nurse, I was raised in a very healthy environment, at least according to them. That becomes subjective that every time you burp or cough, they give you a pill, but at the same time I’ve always been in front of my parents, a doctor and a nurse, there was always somebody who was able to see what was going on and somebody you could always call and say, “I feel this, I feel that. Any idea what’s going on?” Especially being in New York and having had the availability to medical means that I’ve had, it was surprising to everybody that it got by anybody. 

My mother was a nurse and I remember as a child, if it wasn’t definable or a diagnosable symptom, you were going to school. 

Taking out the garbage and taking out the door. You were doing everything. 

If there was something to treat, you went through the treatment, you follow the protocol, but those don’t always address the root of the situation. How did you become aware of the impact of stress on yourself or on the bigger picture in the way that it’s affecting our society? 

It changed my sleeping habits, eating habits, generally what would annoy me or not annoy me, and the ability to be around certain circumstances. After a while, I started hiding out because things were unexplainable to me. That is stressful in itself because I’ve always been a very active and social person. Friends and family started saying, “Why isn’t he coming to Thanksgiving? Why isn’t he coming to a party?” or just a general event. At times, it becomes an overload of stress wondering, “Was I going to fall down? Was I going to hurt myself?” That had not just happened privately but it happened in public where one time, somebody even called the police thinking that maybe I was drunk, not knowing I didn’t even drink. You’re having to explain yourself to people often, explain yourself to family members and just others in general why somebody who is younger and was supposed to be very active was unable to do things that others could. 

I imagine as much as having community and having that support can relieve stress when you feel like you don’t have answers to give or that there are many questions, that ratchets up the stress. I can respect that. It’s easier to hide out and isolate yourself unfortunately, rather than try to go through the extra effort and the work of bringing everyone up to speed and taking their acknowledgment as well. 

When you socially isolate yourself, people want to know where you’ve been, how come you haven’t been there. People, family and friends want to know what’s wrong but you don’t have any answers, so that becomes even more stressful for you that you can’t give any answers but most of all you don’t have the answer for yourself. Which is something that I’m at peace with now because at least I have an answer. 

In the industry that you’re working in, real estate, how do you see people responding to stress? I tend to feel like people still like to wear it as a badge of honor. How much multitasking they’ve done, how many hours they’ve clocked in or eating lunch at the desk.

I’m glad you mentioned that because that was always when I worked in New York City or on the outskirts of the city, that was something that the majority of us felt. How much did you have on your plate? How much did you have on your desk? You could count the days on one hand over the more than twenty years that I was in that industry where I was able to sit, that wasn’t a holiday party, that I was able to sit down and have a meal or sit down and relax. You were always running in one direction or another. It added to the stress. As you said, wearing stress is a badge of honor. When you work for a high-profile real estate company as I did, Cushman & Wakefield in New York City, that stress was worn by most as a badge of honor, not by just a few.  

You felt you had to keep up with the Joneses and with the other people that you worked with. Because of that, the expectations were there. Expectations are not just from the people you work with, but from your family or friends to bring home a certain amount of money, to drive a certain type of car, to live in a certain size and type of house. To be with the Joneses, you want to keep up with them. More than that, it becomes very stressful when you don’t have answers and you’re trying to formulate everything at once. 

People are unaware that this picture and image that they feel driven to create is boxing them into this lifestyle that demands more than they can healthfully give to sustain that. We get caught up in this cycle of our own making. 

I have friends and family who work in that world and it’s expected of them to be in the mix constantly. Not taking days off was a badge of honor. Cutting your vacation short or saying, “I know it’s New Year’s Day but I’m going to work for a few hours before I watch the game,” or working weekends, nights and traveling. You need to get on a plane to go to a conference. You need to get on a call with a confrontational client that you knew would not treat you well, or at times run into a boss or supervisor that wouldn’t be as understanding as to what you’re going through. Even if they understood, they didn’t care because it was your problem to deal with. It’s something that a lot of corporate warriors, small business owners and people who are employees, that is something that we as a people, human beings, face every day. I still face it and I work for myself. 

I was able to take a peek at Meditation Not Medicine, the book that you have and I think it’s so important. It’s going to be such a valuable read to many people to open their eyes because the numbers that you’ve included in this book are things that people need to be aware of. We tend to pull a cover over the effects of stress in the workplace and at the human level. Some of the numbers that you quote are an impact of perhaps $180 billion on companies or the personal effects of stress on our workforce. There are people and faces behind numbers like that. 

Every dollar that you read about, I believe those numbers are even bigger now. Given the current conditions now that we’re finding our way through COVID-19 where people are not able to go back to work, people have been laid off or let go permanently, the stress is there. I originally wrote the book with the intention of it being something to serve, to give back after the decades I’ve spent doing what I do. It turned out to be, as my editor said, “This is more of an owner’s manual, a guide to help you deal with the practicality of your stress.”  

In fact, I went back. I was ready to turn it into the editor and we’re doing proofreading when COVID hit. I was buying a new car on a Wednesday and locked down on a Sunday. That Monday, because work quieted down substantially, I went back to rewriting sections of the book to address the current times because frankly, the financial crisis was going to be a blip on the radar compared to COVID-19. As we’re finding out later in 2020, that it may just be that, a blip. 

I’m happy that you have this, I love that owner’s manual available and ready to share with people. I‘d love to hear about what brought meditation to your awareness because I love that you’ve got the no BS approach and that you make it very clear. We’ll talk about the elephant in the room. A lot of people think meditation is woo–woo and they don’t have time for it. They’re not going to buy into the concept and the history, “You have to do this. Hold your hands just so,” and none of that is necessary. You just need to cut through the trappings, the noise and the marketing about it. How did you discover the power of meditation? 

I discovered the power of meditation because once I was diagnosed with the progressive form of multiple sclerosis, I knew I needed a better way to deal with my stress. I needed it before that but it got brought to my attention. I talked to some doctors, I did your typical internet search, read some books and talked to people. I actually went out and talked to people and did my research. On top of it, I went out and signed up for some classes. At the time, you could go to those classes and a couple of online courses as well to help me. What I found in a lot of cases was, there was a lot of woo–woo behind it. In my talks to corporate people and some others, they did not feel that the woo–woo approach was something that was going to work for them. Sometimes when we’re not familiar with something, it’s not easy to adapt because meditation has its roots in the far east in Tibetan culture and Taoism, not in the New York City real estate world. You want to find out what’s going to work for people and you need to ask them what’s going to work.  

It was asking the questions and talking to people that allowed me to come up with Easy to Meditate. It’s named Easy to Meditate for a reason, so that people know it’s easy and it’s not a woo–woo approach. There’s nothing wacky about it or special from the standpoint of you need to have a particular type of cushion or burn incense. That was something the editor of the book brought up. He says, “There’s no discussion of cushions or incense.” In an email back to him I said, “That’s because with this type, you don’t need it. All you need to do is take a seat anywhere, whether it be in your office chair, on your couch or even if you’re at Central Park out on lunch.” I wanted to take that out of it and make it less complicated for people and easier for them to adapt it as a habit. 

Establishing the habit. You point out the essential. It’s essential to create a habit and to set reminders. I love that encouraging that habit. Have a reminder set, take it off of your mental to–do list, the responsibility to remember every day and get into a routine. It takes 66 days to instill a habit, so take that off of your bandwidth. Set yourself up for success. 

A good or great meditation habit does not need to be on your to–do list. What I do first thing in the morning when I first meditate is while the coffee is being made, I’ll get up, drink some water, start the coffee and go sit down and meditate. When I’m done, I can have my coffee and start my day. I want to address it sooner than later and go into the day with an even keel approach versus stressed out saying, “I’ve got twenty things to do today. I’ve got to drop the kids here and there,” but center myself and ground myself early in the day. I also personally repeat it for a shorter period of time later in the afternoon.  

A meditation practice should be something that you create that fits your schedule, your travel and place needs, and you can do it your way. It’s easy to meditate, not hard to meditate. It’s a matter of making the choice to meditate and to address your stress versus, growing up the son of a doctor and a nurse, the one size fits all approach of taking a pill. It’s an older approach that is not as comfortable for most people. It wasn’t for me and it’s not for a lot of others. I prefer to use a more holistic type of approach. In nutrition, for example, I’m a plant-based eater and yes, I still eat meat, don’t get me wrong, but it’s maybe once or twice a month. I’m primarily plant–based for a reason, but it also is a cleaner way of doing things. That’s why meditation, drinking water and starting the day with meditation is a great way to start your day. 

What do you have to say when people have this concept you have to meditate for 30 or 45 minutes? They say, “I don’t have time to meditate.” How do you answer that? 

You don’t. In a few minutes a day, you can get started. It doesn’t take very long. There’s nothing involved other than taking a seat and meditating and not worrying about what’s going on outside and what’s going on in the other room. That’s another reason I like to get up earlier and others I speak to. They customize their meditation habit around everything from when the kids get up, you’ve got to go to work, or even when the dog needs to go out. When I’m meditating, there are times my dog or cat is sitting there right next to me on the couch. They are not getting in the way from the standpoint of barking, trying to get me to get the leash to take them outside although we let them out in the backyard or anything like that. It’s just a matter of creating something workable for you. 

I love that you point that out in the book. You can start out with 1 or 2 minutes a day and then build up to 5 and then 10. Let that habit build that muscle of the discipline of committing to your meditation practice. 

I’m glad you said it that way when you said building your muscle because as somebody that still goes to the gym, and even when I don’t, I’m usually doing yoga from home or something else. It’s a matter of getting started. For example, do yoga for twenty minutes in the morning. There’s a good chance you’ll likely do it more later because you sit in a chair a lot during the day. It’s a matter of customizing it around your schedule. You can start with 5 or 10. You can increase or decrease it. I’ve meditated on planes before. You can meditate anywhere you can find a place where you can go undisturbed. 

That’s the beauty of taking those trappings away from it. Although you suggest it in the book, and I do think it’s helpful to have a place where you cultivate that attitude of calm, a little meditation space in your home, maybe a seat that you tend to use, but you can do it anywhere. Even better, it serves you to be able to use that tool anytime you need it. 

It’s portable and it’s something you can take with you whether you’re on vacation. I had the benefit of being able to meditate out in the Hamptons or on the Jersey Shore because of my proximity, but I’ve also meditated on a plane on my way to a business trip in San Antonio. Both on the way down and on the way back. If there are people who are afraid of flying, if you can relax and ease the stress, traveling will be a lot easier. I definitely wouldn’t suggest meditating while you’re driving your car. In fact, I would say don’t do it, but if you are in a plane, likely you’re not the driver or the pilot, so yes, meditate. 

The more than better. In the book you also mentioned you encourage people to release their quest for perfection, and I love that you encourage people to keep a beginner’s mind. I feel like those two things go together. How does that help people to put themselves in that mindset? 

One thing as a society, we are eager to do especially in the time we’re in and with the tools we have to be more perfect than imperfect. The thing about that is there’s no need to, it’s a matter of slowing down. It’s a matter of realizing who we are as people and as individuals, and that not everything is based around being perfect. It’s based around being us, based around being quiet, calm and not getting excited at everything. Not turning on the television and letting every piece of news or every world going function get us start–up. Going to a family member’s house or having people over for Thanksgiving or for winter holidays such as Christmas or Hanukkah or any other holiday where people just want to be able to slow down and relax. I’ve done that, I‘ve gotten up from the table or before sitting down to eat and meditated for a few minutes in another room knowing I could bring that with me to the table. Everybody can do that themselves. 

That’s a great illustration. How many situations can benefit from at least one person getting centered and bringing down their participation? If the stress starts ratcheting up, we have to recognize it. We don’t have to buy into it. We can be the ones to start turning that energy around and bringing it back down. 

As a New Yorker, and I’m sure there are others too, one thing that was always in my house growing up and with two younger children now, is drama. What you can do is step away from the drama. Sometimes my wife will say, “Aren’t you going to say anything? Aren’t you going to react?” I say, “No, I’m not.” My wife knows because we’ve been married for more than twenty years, she says to me, “Adam, I remember when everything would get you worked up.” Still, certain football games get me worked up but I don’t let everything that goes on with the kids do. It’s almost as if people turn to me looking for my reaction and I have no reaction or somebody else handled it. Let somebody else deal with it. Don’t get worked up, it’s not a big deal. That’s one thing that a practice of meditation brings to you because you don’t fan your inner flames so that everything gets worse than it really is. 

You mentioned earlier in our conversation about your diagnosis. You indicated that genetically, you might have been predisposed to have multiple sclerosis. It’s so important now as we recognize our epigenetics and the way that we can set the stage for how things play out. You talk in the book too about how stress is the silent killer. How can we change our health outcomes by recognizing the impact of stress? How is it affecting people? What kind of diseases do we see? 

Everything from things like autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis or Crohn’s disease, things like that. My wife is a two-time cancer survivor. My younger son has had eight surgeries before he turned six years old. Preparing for things and being ready to adapt. That’s one thing meditation allows you to do is to adapt to the situation because it changes your inner flame and your inner temperature. As a New Yorker, I’m also predisposed to yell at somebody driving a certain way or didn’t look in both ways before they crossed. Some New Yorkers are famous for the words that come out of our mouths. At times, people I’m in a car with or who I’m with, look at me saying, “A few years ago you might have said this. You might have said that.” I said, “I just don’t care.” That’s one thing is you’re able to let things go. You’re able to walk away from the stress and walk away from the drama.  

It’s provided me with some inner peace that I never thought I would have. Growing up in a hard–charged environment in New York City, have worked in the corporate world, was the son of a successful doctor in New York City, who was very well–known and was in the press in all sorts of over. The expectations to be like that, to be like my grandfather, who was very similar to my father and a doctor also. Everybody, including my wife, they’re all Ivy League graduates. There are expectations of excellence in everything they do. No matter who you are, you cannot bring excellence to everything. You cannot keep the stress 100% at bay, but what you can do is work on things to help yourself and when you help yourself, you help others. 

When people see that you cultivate the power over your response and when you’re responding instead of reacting, it’s empowering to yourself, but it’s also a powerful demonstration to other people that they too can step out of that reactive mode and cultivate more peace, balance and perspective. 

As a Jack Canfield Success Principles Trainer, it’s in the book is E plus R equals O. An event happens, it’s about how you respond, not react, to get the outcome that you want to get. For too many years, myself and others that I know, and I’m sure a lot of people can identify with this, they reacted as opposed to choosing to respond a certain way. When you do it that way, it can work out but it doesn’t work out as well as choosing the way to respond. 

I love to point out to people too, awareness is part of it but you have to cultivate these practices outside of the moment of stress. Just because you recognize we need to respond instead of reacting, doesn’t mean in that conversation, you’re going to call that backup unless you’ve been laying the foundation, practicing meditation, practicing awareness, and looking at how you respond to things. You have to build that muscle so that when you need to call it, it’s there. It’s front of mind, it comes back to you. You don’t have to be reaching wildly for a tool that you’re not comfortable with. Is there anything else that we didn’t get to cover yet that you would share with folks in terms of balancing stress or the power of meditation? 

I would tell people who are maybe put off by it or have a preconception about meditation, seeing photos of those wearing robes or sitting somewhere in the forest meditating or has a particular type of cushion or bench. Your meditation habit is customizable to you, to the way you live, where you live, how you do things, whether you have children, pets or none of the above, whether you married or you’re not, it doesn’t matter. It’s a matter of creating a meditation practice that works for you. At the end of the day, as long as it works for you, it will benefit those in your life, whether it be your work life, your personal life or anything else. 

That trickle–down effect is powerful indeed. We can improve our corner of the world even when things are going crazy around us. It is worth the effort to raise our vibration and bring some balance and certainty. Thank you so much, Adam. I appreciate our conversation. This has been so helpful and I hope that resonates with people out there who have been looking past the solution or thinking that it doesn’t fit their situation. I hope that this turned some light on it. 

I hope so. 

It’s been a pleasure. Check out Adam’s website and Easy to Meditate, you can join a group program or you can find out more through the website and stay tuned to his book, Meditation Not Medicine. This is the word that we need to be sharing. Thank you for bringing your voice. 

Thank you. I appreciate it, Susi. 

Important Links: 

• Weber Real Estate Advisors 
• Weber Advisory Group 
• Meditation Not Medicine 

About Adam Weber

Adam Weber is the “NO BS, common sense” speaker, author, product creation specialist and owner of the highly successful companies, “Meditation Not Medicine”, “Weber Real Estate Advisors” and “Weber Advisory Group”.

Adam helps people learn how to reduce their stress through his highly celebrated meditation technique called “Easy to Meditate”.

Adam has dedicated his life to helping others learn to meditate so that they could reduce their stress without medications.

Adam is proud to include some of the most accomplished individuals and organizations as clients.