What Happens If I Don’t Bolt?

Janice Marturano on mindfulness's debut at the World Economic Forum in Davos—and how one conference goer thought twice about bolting from the session.

Illustration by Lucia Fabiani

Although I have worked with leaders from all sectors of society who work to keep the big picture in mind even as they set their organization’s immediate goals, nowhere is the desire to see the big picture and to influence it in a positive way more apparent than at the World Economic Forum. For one week each year the picturesque mountain town of Davos in southwestern Switzerland becomes a meeting place like no other as it welcomes the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. Influential people from every sector of the world community make the trip by plane, train, and bus to gather in the snowy Alps in January for several days of conversation and connection. It’s a dialogue about how to change the world.

The participants include prime ministers, kings, princesses, industry leaders, artists, social entrepreneurs, non-profit leaders, academics, and scientists. They also include a group of selected young leaders whose alumni include Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, and Angela Merkel. For the 2013 meeting, I was honored to be invited to this gathering to share my work in one of the forum’s workshops, and to guide a morning meditation session, the first such session ever offered at the…