Some do, and a few have described their practice in detail. Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, has practiced Transcendental Meditation since 1969 and once called it "the single most important reason for whatever success I've had"[2]. Bill Gates has said he meditates two to three times a week for about 10 minutes[3]. Stories like these show that meditation can fit into a demanding life. They cannot show that meditation caused anyone's success. The research on meditation at work points to a more modest benefit: less stress and anxiety, with too little data so far to say whether it improves job performance[6][7].
Meditation is no longer unusual. In the 2022 US National Health Interview Survey, 18.3% of adults said they had meditated in the past 12 months, roughly 60 million people[1]. Below is what three public figures have said about their own practice, what the trials found, and a routine you can start today.
Which successful people meditate?
Several well-known business leaders have described a regular practice in interviews or in their own writing, and what they do varies a lot. Dalio told CNBC Make It in 2021 that he meditates twice a day for 20 minutes at a time, silently repeating a mantra, and that he took up the practice six years before founding Bridgewater. He said he comes out of meditation better able to make hard decisions: "I'll see things clearer"[2].
Gates wrote on his blog in 2018 that he and his then wife, Melinda, meditate two to three times a week for 10 minutes each time. He doubted it would have helped him in the early Microsoft years, when he was "monomaniacally focused without it", but said that with a family and wider interests "it's a great tool for improving my focus"[3].
Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter, went much further. In 2018 he spent 10 days at a silent vipassana center in Myanmar, rising at 4 a.m. and meditating until 9 p.m. with breaks for meals and walking, after a similar retreat the year before. He described it as "extremely painful and demanding physical and mental work" and said the time away "gives so much back to me and my work"[4].
Lists of famous meditators circulate widely online, and many repeat claims with no interview or first-person account behind them. When you read one, look for the person's own words in a named outlet before treating it as fact.
Does meditation make people successful?
There is no good evidence that it does, and stories from successful people cannot settle the question. We hear from the meditators who became billionaires, not from the ones whose companies failed, and not from the many successful people who have never meditated. People who already have spare time, money and self-discipline are also more likely to take up a daily practice and stick with it, so meditation may follow success as much as lead to it.
Personal testimony has a further limit. Dalio and Gates are reporting how meditation feels to them, which is worth hearing, but nobody compared them with a version of themselves who did not meditate. That comparison is what a randomized trial provides, and it is why the more useful question is a narrower one: what does meditation do for ordinary people under pressure at work?
What does research show meditation does at work?
It reliably lowers stress and anxiety by a small to moderate amount, while its effect on performance is still largely untested. The broadest review, from Johns Hopkins researchers in JAMA Internal Medicine, pooled 47 randomized trials with 3,515 adults, each compared with an active control rather than a waiting list. Mindfulness programs had moderate evidence of reducing anxiety (an effect size of 0.38 at eight weeks), depression (0.30) and pain (0.33). The same review found low or insufficient evidence of any effect on attention, positive mood or sleep, and no evidence that meditation beat other active treatments such as exercise, medication or behavioral therapy[5].
Two meta-analyses looked at programs run in workplaces. One pooled 23 randomized trials and found reductions in stress (g = 0.56), anxiety (0.62) and psychological distress (0.69), with better well-being and sleep. Its authors could draw no conclusions about burnout or depression, and there was too little data to judge work performance[6]. A larger review of 56 randomized trials, with 2,689 participants and 2,472 controls, found that mindfulness programs reduced stress, burnout and distress and improved well-being and job satisfaction, with effect sizes from 0.32 to 0.77 that held at follow-ups of up to 12 weeks. Results on productivity and work engagement were too sparse to call[7].
A smaller field experiment shows what this looks like in practice. Sixty-four employees were randomly assigned to a self-guided mindfulness program or to a control group, and those who practiced reported less emotional exhaustion and more job satisfaction afterwards. In a separate diary study of 219 employees by the same team, people felt less exhausted on days they were more mindful[8]. Read together, the studies suggest meditation makes demanding work feel more manageable. Whether that leads to better results or a bigger career has barely been measured.
What kind of meditation do successful people practice?
The three leaders above use quite different methods, and the evidence behind each is uneven. The most heavily studied option is the one with no celebrity attached.
| Practice | Who has described it | What it involves | What studies show |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transcendental Meditation | Ray Dalio[2] | A silent mantra for 20 minutes, twice a day, learned in a paid four-day course | Few trials met the Johns Hopkins review's standards, and they gave low or insufficient evidence of benefit[5] |
| Short mindfulness practice, often app-guided | Bill Gates, about 10 minutes a few times a week[3] | Attention on the breath or body, returning when the mind wanders | 34 app trials with 7,566 people: small reductions in stress, anxiety and depression, at uncertain risk of bias[9] |
| Vipassana retreat | Jack Dorsey[4] | Ten days in silence, meditating most of the day | One non-randomized study of 122 participants: less stress afterwards, with some of the gain fading by six months[10] |
| Workplace mindfulness program | No famous name | A structured group course, often run by an employer | Strongest: dozens of randomized trials showing less stress and anxiety[6][7] |
The vipassana study compared 122 people taking a standard 10-day course with 50 people who had enrolled early and were still waiting to start. Course participants reported less stress and more well-being and self-kindness, and their scores six months later were still better than before the course, though stress had crept back up[10]. Because people chose to attend, it cannot rule out that the most motivated people simply improved anyway.
How can a busy person start meditating?
Start with 10 minutes a few times a week, roughly the dose Gates describes, and tie it to something you already do every day.
- Pick a fixed slot, such as after your first coffee or before you open email, and write it as an if-then plan: "If I have poured my coffee, then I sit for 10 minutes." Our post on why willpower fails covers why plans like this beat good intentions.
- Sit upright on a chair with your feet on the floor and set a timer, so you are not checking the clock.
- Choose one anchor: the feeling of breath at your nose or belly, or a single word repeated silently if a mantra suits you better.
- When your mind jumps to the inbox, notice it, label it "planning", and come back to the anchor. Coming back is the exercise, however many times it happens.
- In the last minute, ask what matters most today and decide on one thing you will do differently.
- Keep a short log of the date, the minutes and a stress rating from 1 to 10. After four weeks, read it back and decide whether to keep going.
If sitting in silence is hard, a guided voice can help. Whitespace is a self-guided meditation app that speaks: you bring the intention, and it writes and voices a meditation for exactly that.
Can meditation have downsides?
Yes, for a minority of people, and it is worth knowing before trying anything intensive. A 2020 systematic review of 83 studies with 6,703 participants found adverse events in 8.3% of people overall: 3.7% in experimental studies and 33.2% in observational ones. Anxiety and depression were the most common, and they sometimes appeared in people with no previous history of mental health problems[11].
That is a good reason to start with short practice rather than a 10-day silent retreat. If meditating leaves you more on edge, shorten it, keep your eyes open and stop if it keeps getting worse. If you have a history of trauma or serious mental illness, talk with a clinician before an intensive retreat.
Questions people ask
Do CEOs meditate?
Some have said so publicly. Ray Dalio, who founded Bridgewater Associates, practices Transcendental Meditation twice a day, and Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter, has attended 10-day silent retreats. There is no reliable survey of how many executives meditate.
How long do successful people meditate for?
It varies widely. Bill Gates has described about 10 minutes, two to three times a week. Ray Dalio meditates for 20 minutes twice a day. Jack Dorsey has spent 10 days at a time on silent retreats.
Does meditation improve work performance?
That has not been shown yet. Trials of workplace mindfulness programs found less stress and anxiety and more job satisfaction, but a 2019 meta-analysis found too little data to draw conclusions about work performance.
Is Transcendental Meditation better than mindfulness?
There is no good evidence that it is. A 2014 review in JAMA Internal Medicine found moderate evidence that mindfulness programs reduce anxiety, and low or insufficient evidence for mantra programs, partly because few of their trials met its standards.