Spirituality is Crucial for Entrepreneurial Success

Our latest event took place on the beautiful rooftop of grow.inc Lisbon, in the centre of Intendente. We had a great turnout, with the buzz extending through the modern glass-filled interior and out to the terrace, which boasts breathtaking views of the city. People chatted and ate pastries from the local pastelaria on this cold but sunny morning.

We started as usual with the introduction of our sponsors. This time grow.inc: a great place to co-work, co-create and innovate alongside a community of like-minded creators. Its purpose-built spaces nurture focus work, productive meetings, and community work.

Soon it was time for the main talk. The global monthly theme was ‘truth’ and our speaker was the perfectly-named Truth W. Hawk. An author, filmmaker, and Hollywood creative entrepreneur, Hawk has penned plays, hosted a web series, taught at Stanford and authored the book ‘How to Succeed on Purpose’.

Truth’s talk was on why ‘Spirituality is Crucial for Entrepreneurial Success’. The session started with an exercise in which every attendee had an opportunity to give and receive a compliment, drawing attention to the power of presence. 

The goal of the next exercise was to connect energies without speaking. Truth asked everyone to turn to their neighbour and to look into their eyes, keeping their gaze soft and trying not to look away. For some of the attendees, this felt uncomfortable at first, but in the end it fostered deeper connections. 

Our speaker told us how he’d spent two and a half decades producing movies in Hollywood, developing creative works and deal-making. Despite the glamour, this lifestyle eventually wore him down and Truth yearned for something more meaningful in his life. It was an intuitive call to try something else and so Truth decided to embark on a journey of self-exploration – an investigation into himself. 

He travelled the world, connecting with everyone from the Maasai in Kenya to the residents of Rio. He lived in Amsterdam for three years before moving to Lisbon about a year ago, already considering the city his home… at least for now.

In Truth’s book ‘How to Succeed on Purpose’, he distils his life lessons and professional principles into clear, actionable concepts. 

Just after the talk some of the attendees lined up to chat with Truth, buy a book and get a personal autograph. Others continued to network on the sunny terrace. The talk and exercises had made people feel more relaxed, more grounded, and more present; ready to start the day.

Photos by Eglė Duleckytė

Text by Alexis Somerville