Opening
You can move through a whole day of meetings, messages and family logistics without tasting any of it. The coffee goes cold while your attention is somewhere else entirely. Presence feels rare, and yet it is the one ingredient every good relationship quietly depends on.
The good news is that presence is a practice, not a personality trait.
The idea
Billy Lahr is a mindfulness and meditation teacher who splits his time between the United States and Seoul, where a community he found there has changed the course of his life.
His work now centres on life’s second half, a stage he reached after 21 years in education, much of it as a dean of students delivering difficult news.
He left that career after his dog died, travelled for a year, and arrived in Seoul carrying the weight of a job that had made him the person who always delivered bad news. What I love in Billy’s teaching is how concrete it is.
He walked me through his coffee practice live on the episode. Take three to five minutes. Feel the heat of the steam coming off the cup. Smell the aroma and notice its different notes. Look at the colour and the swirls.
Notice how you are holding the cup, without judgment, because you have probably held it the same way your entire life. Then savour the first few sips. In that small window you have practised being present, and presence is portable. Billy credits the practice with more than calm.
“mindfulness not only changed my life, but it most likely saved it as well”.
He began meditating ten years ago to work with anxiety, and it reshaped how he responds instead of reacts. It also reshaped how he connects.
When he arrived in Seoul he met a crew whose company opened opportunities he could never have engineered alone, and he now helps people navigate midlife with that same blend of awareness and community. His own story of saying yes is the best illustration.
Stranded after a yoga class was cancelled, with no lift home, he asked a passing stranger if she was driving his way. She was not, and she offered anyway.
She turned out to be a realtor who invited him to a 100 women that care event at a golf club, and he invited her to something in return. Nothing about that chain of connection could be planned. It required only presence and one small question.
That is Billy’s whole argument in a single anecdote. Mindfulness is not a retreat from life. It is what makes you available to it.
What I took from it
I recognised myself in Billy’s mid-career reinvention, because I returned to university in mid-career myself, and I know the strange grief and excitement of leaving an identity behind. I also know how easy it is to sit at a table with my family while my attention is still in the inbox.
Raising children far from extended family taught me that presence is a gift you give on purpose, because there is no spare relative in the kitchen who will hold the moment for you. My morning tea has become a small practice, so that I arrive with people rather than near them.
Billy’s story about the stranger with the car stayed with me even more than the coffee. Some of the best connections in my life began as small, slightly inconvenient asks. I want to keep living close enough to the edge of my day to notice when one of them rolls past.
Three things to try this week
- Take three to five minutes with your morning drink and give it all five senses, one at a time. Notice the heat, the aroma, the colour, the weight of the cup and the taste, without judging any of it.
- Once a day, catch yourself reacting and pause for one breath before you respond. Practise on something small, like a slow email, so the habit is ready when something bigger arrives.
- Say yes to one invitation or small social risk this week. Ask a neighbour a real question, join an event alone, or message someone you have been meaning to meet. The worst anyone can say is no.
Watch and go deeper
Billy’s warmth and humour are easier to watch than to describe. The full conversation is waiting in the player below, so press play and meet him properly.
You can explore Billy’s Mindful Midlife Crisis podcast at Billy Lahr.
New conversations land on the Rediscovering Connection channel most weeks
Close
Community and awareness feed each other, and our certification work helps leaders build the rhythms that let both grow. Explore the certification, then ask where five mindful minutes could change one relationship for you this week.