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This essay is an installment of The Long Game, a Big Think Business column focused on the philosophy and practice of long-term thinking by Eric Markowitz, a partner at Nightview Capital. Subscribe to his weekly newsletter, The Nightcrawler, in the form above. Follow him on X: @EricMarkowitz.

There is often a thin line between drive and self-destruction. Scott Britton’s new book argues that true success is built on self-awareness, presence, and the courage to slow down.

The other morning, I was on a Zoom call with a CEO, trying to sound composed, when my four-year-old burst into the room demanding to know where her princess dress was. I glanced down at my to-do list — which never seems to get shorter — and noticed I still needed to book a trip to San Francisco.

In that moment, surrounded by chaos, I thought: I write a column called The Long Game. I’m supposed to be the guy who thinks in decades. In all candor, I’m usually just trying to make it to lunchtime.

And maybe that’s why my conversation with Scott Britton hit home.

A former tech founder turned spiritual adventurer, Scott hit a familiar wall: after years of chasing success, he realized that achievement alone wasn’t enough. His new book, Conscious Accomplishment, maps a middle path for people who pursue excellence, without losing awareness in the process.

The book challenges a cultural assumption — that ambition and inner life must run on separate tracks. You can’t have both, we’re told: become a monk or build a company. Scott’s view is more integrated. He argues that your work, family, and even your frustrations can all become part of a daily practice.

In our Long Game conversation, we talked about that integration — how to fold consciousness into the everyday. It’s an honest discussion about attention, ambition, and what it means to stay grounded and present while still pursuing an audacious goal.

Eric Markowitz: Scott, your new book, Conscious Accomplishment, just came out. Why did you write this book? What did you feel was missing that you wanted to address?

Scott Britton: I wrote it for people like me who spent years chasing happiness from the outside in, believing, If I get the things, I’ll feel good. Eventually that model stops working, and spirituality shows up. I hit that wall around age 30. The question became: How do I pursue inner development while still being ambitious and making things happen in the world? There weren’t many relatable archetypes for that. Most models were renunciates — people who left everything, found a guru, and came back to teach.

My aim is to show ambitious, high-performing people that there’s a way to integrate spiritual development with the lives they’ve spent decades building. And counterintuitively, when you do that — when you prioritize awareness and authenticity — your performance often improves. That narrative is different from what our culture typically celebrates, and it was confusing for me to figure out without a map.

Eric Markowitz: One of the things I appreciate in your framing is that it’s not either/or. In a lot of corporate or entrepreneurial circles, spirituality and the “success path” seem like divergent tracks: become a monk or build a company. Your argument is that the dichotomy is false.

Scott Britton: Exactly. The idea that you need to choose is just that. An idea. It’s not an inherent truth. In the old teachings, there’s an archetype called the “householder”: someone earnestly pursuing spiritual evolution while having a job, a home, a family. That model never translated well to the West. So we inherited a binary: renounce or accumulate. I don’t think that’s reality.

Eric Markowitz: For someone who’s curious but unsure where to start, what are the first steps?

Scott Britton: The obvious things — meditation, breath work, yoga, chanting — help, but they can reinforce separation: this is my spiritual practice, that is my life. My teacher impressed on me that your natural state is loving, open, and trusting of reality as it is. Every disturbance — annoyance, rumination, compulsion — is feedback that some part of your consciousness is patterned to react that way.

Many spiritual books say, “Just surrender.” Okay — how, when you have payroll and a toddler?

So you can use all of life — family conflicts, work stress, traffic — as cues to turn inward and ask, Why am I reacting like this? Most of us are running on unconscious patterns laid down in childhood — old software we never chose. The core practice is to notice reactions in real time and then “re-pattern” them: go inward, see the belief or sensation driving the reaction, and rewrite what no longer serves.

Eric Markowitz: Do you get pushback from people who say, “Real spirituality requires renunciation”?

Scott Britton: Sure. But that’s not where I am, and it’s not where most people are. And the “renounce everything” path is incompatible with 99% of modern lives. There’s a saying: a good Buddha lives in the woods; a great Buddha lives in the world. It’s easy to be equanimous when there’s no friction. Go spend a week with your family after an ashram retreat and see how enlightened you feel. For many of us, modern life — work, kids, complexity — is incredibly fertile ground for growth.

Eric Markowitz: It also avoids the gatekeeping problem. So much of the mainstream spiritual narrative — *quit your job, travel the world, eat-pray-love *— is inaccessible for most people. What you’re describing doesn’t demand displacement.

Scott Britton: Right. You don’t have to give anything up. You shift attention. Do your job — send the emails, have the hard conversation — but include an added component: notice your reactions while you do those things. Feel what your body does during a tough Zoom or a tense negotiation. Then, later, use that disturbance as an entry point to inquiry. I call that re-patterning. That’s the bridge between life and practice.

Early on I read a line — *life itself is the meditation *— and I thought it was a cliché. Then I started relating to my reactions as the practice. A simple way to begin is to shift from thinking to feeling: keep part of your attention on your body sensations while you talk, write, or lead a meeting. It’ll feel awkward at first, then natural, and eventually it’s your default way of moving through the world.

**Eric Markowitz: **We live in an attention economy. Billions of dollars are spent every year trying to capture and monetize our focus. Given that, are we simply outgunned by the tools of modernity?

Scott Britton: In some ways, yes — we’re in new territory. But compulsions usually trace back to consciousness patterns. In New York, any idle moment — elevator, restaurant — I’d grab my phone. When I examined it, I found fears under the surface: fear of feeling awkward; a belief that being unproductive was dangerous. Those concepts — not the phone — drove the behavior. You can set good tech hygiene — no TV in the bedroom, phone in a drawer — but the real leverage is inside: the beliefs shaping your perception and choices.

Eric Markowitz: Your personal arc gives this credibility. You were the quintessential startup guy — VC-backed, Manhattan, “killing it.” What changed?

Scott Britton: Externally, it was great. Internally, I was a ball of intensity — controlling everything, not joyous. A psychedelic experience gave me a glimpse of an aspect of myself that felt eternal, loving, and fundamentally okay. After that, it made sense to go directly for *that *— to prioritize consciousness. But I didn’t want to bail on the company: we’d raised $20 million and had ~50 people. I tried morning meditation, night classes, more books. It still felt compartmentalized.

Meeting life with an open heart — that’s the game.

Meeting my teacher was the unlock. He was clear: You’re not meant to peace out. Use all of your life for your growth. Start with your reactions to everything. That integrated approach changed everything.

Eric Markowitz: Who’s the audience for the book, and what’s the very first step you recommend?

Scott Britton: Ambitious people who sense there’s more — founders, executives, high performers — plus anyone curious about marrying inner work with outer action. First step: create a simple note on your phone. Every time you get triggered, jot down two words. For example: “Mom called,” “Client delayed,” “Line slow.” Then ask: Is there anything inherent about this scenario that must cause suffering? Or is my reaction about “me”? Can someone wait in a slow coffee line and feel fine? If yes, then there’s an opportunity inside you — not in the circumstance.

Eric Markowitz: I like that the first step isn’t “meditate for 20 minutes” or “delete every app.” It’s noticing.

Scott Britton: Exactly. It’s basic honesty. Many of us think we’re captains of our fate, but we’re being jerked around by inconsequential events. The normalized response is, “It’s the world’s fault; it’s my circumstances.” The practice invites, “What part of me is creating this?” That shift is the doorway.

Eric Markowitz: How does this change your parenting and your marriage?

Scott Britton: Personal responsibility comes first. When there’s friction with my wife or daughter, I look inward before I try to fix the outside. And I’m acutely aware that I’m installing software in my child’s consciousness with how I relate. So we emphasize freedom and expression. Less “do it the proper way” and more loving containment with room to be. Parenting is the ultimate mirror of your patterns.

Eric Markowitz: What was the hardest part of writing the book?

Scott Britton: Time — and the mirror. Sharing work with friends and getting crickets is humbling. It surfaced my own patterns around self-worth and needing to be “special.” Also: making the ideas both comprehensive and practical. Many spiritual books say, “Just surrender.” Okay — how, when you have payroll and a toddler? I wanted tools that hold up in real life, even if it meant including technical detail. Thoroughness matters when the aim is integration.

Eric Markowitz: If your daughter could take one lesson from the book — beyond noticing — what is it?

Scott Britton: Your relationship with everything — your reactions — is the signpost of growth and the pointer to the next opportunity. And tied to that: awareness is the capacity to see truth — about yourself, the world, and the unseen layers we move within. The more truth you can see, the more you can align your life to it.

Eric Markowitz: How do you evaluate progress over time?

Scott Britton: I try to watch myself every minute of every day. Over seven years, that’s become more natural. My benchmark is simple: Can I be around the person or situation that used to bother me… and feel great — without trying? When the background layer that used to filter the experience is gone, that’s a sign the pattern shifted. Meeting life with an open heart — that’s the game.

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A weekly collection of thought-provoking articles on tech, innovation, and long-term investing from Nightview Capital’s Eric Markowitz.