Back in April, I relocated to Greece. I didn’t just move to this country because of the beauty of the Aegean sea, the relaxed nature of its culture, the amazing food, or the hospitality of the people. However, these things were certainly part of the equation.
I packed up my life in Los Angeles and came to the land known by its people as Ellada (Ελλάδα) as a digital nomad to follow a soul calling. I have visited this country a handful of times in the past, usually following retreats that I attended or other trips I was taking to Europe.
And each time, I felt the same here.
I felt like I was home.
So, when I started feeling the nudge within myself, in prayer and contemplation, to relocate, I listened.
While I didn’t know exactly why I was being called here, I understood at some level that this chapter was about reconnecting me with my Being in some way. I’ve been here just shy of two months now, and I am already seeing how this place is changing me.
Greece is breathing life into me in a totally different way.
In Greece, you are reminded nearly constantly of the many people that have come before you. This place is steeped in history. So many of the structures―the old villages, the ancient settlements, the olive trees themselves―are a near-constant reminder of many soul journeys that have been lived before my presence here. The ruins are proof that a lot of life has happened here. You can practically feel history as the breeze carries the echoes of the past dancing across your skin.
For a culture and place that is ancient, it is not surprising that life here operates very differently from life in the United States. I want to share the biggest observations I’ve made to date.
1. Time is different.
In the U.S., time is considered a resource to be optimized. If you have fifteen “extra minutes,” you could (and probably should) be doing something productive. Because of this orientation, the days feel rushed and time seems to disappear in the blink of an eye. It seems no matter how hard you run on the hamster wheel, the days vanish.
In Greece, time is experienced differently. People orient themselves to time almost as a space that you inhabit. Long conversations at the taverna over cups of coffee and wine. People are deeply present with one another. They stop to connect with complete strangers. They spend time with friends and family. They do not rush. For the Greeks, it seems time has value because they are being in it, not because it is producing something. For me, I notice that my days feel longer and my work feels more spacious than ever before.
2. Table as sacred space.
In Greece, there is a daily ritual of collective Being, which occurs around the table. Hours spent in the afternoon over lunch and conversation with friends, dinners that go well past midnight. Dishes are shared. People are connecting with each other. (I observed that they aren’t on their phones nearly as much as Americans at restaurants). A meal is not just about eating and hurrying to leave a tip so others can have your table. In America, many people leave a dinner table when the meal is complete. In Greece, people don’t leave the table until the relational field is complete.
3. Ancient and modern co-exist.
Humans have lived on this land for thousands of years. You can feel it not just in the ruins or the museums, but in the air, in the pace, in the way people carry themselves. Life here is literally happening on top of other civilizations: layers of lived experience that remain.
Greeks know hardship intimately. Throughout much of their history they have been occupied by other world powers. In modern times, the economic crisis that began in 2010 still affects daily life in quiet ways. While I sense there is bitterness and resentment about their economic situation still in the collective, what I sense more is a kind of earned wisdom about what a human being can and cannot control.
The Stoics recognized that there are things within your power and things that are not, and wisdom begins in knowing the difference. That philosophy lives in the culture. You see it in the shrug that accompanies “έτσι είναι η ζωή” (“that’s life”). You see it in the mati, the evil eye talisman in nearly every doorway and gift shop that serves as a quiet acknowledgment that unseen forces are real, that not everything yields to human will, and that some protection requires something other than strategy.
This ‘ancient-meets-modern’ experience is jarring if you come from a culture organized around fixing and optimizing everything. The American reflex is to solve, to control, to will outcomes into existence, often without disregard to greater forces. By comparison, the U.S. feels like an adolescent that hasn’t yet earned a strong sense of collective wisdom.
It seems Greece has simply lived long enough to know better.
4. Argument as intimacy.
The Greeks communicate loudly, passionately, and constantly. As an outsider, watching conversations happening in tavernas or on Greek television, it seems they are eager to argue with one another. In the U.S., when people argue with one another, it signals some form of a relationship breakdown. From my conditioning, I learned it was preferable to keep your mouth shut to preserve peace rather than to fight. In business, in personal life, and especially in public.
In Greece, the tradition of discourse stretches back to the agora, the public square where citizens debated philosophy, politics, and the nature of the good life. That tradition lives on. Here, argument signals engagement with your ideas. If someone is willing to argue with you, it is actually a sign of respect and connectedness. It means they take you seriously enough to push back. Argument then allows for a sense of relational fullness and depth that avoiding it altogether prevents.
I admit, this one has been more challenging for me to simply witness, without judging it. But, there is a part of me that wants to push my internal boundaries and try it out.
5. Construction of self.
In America, the individual stands apart from the collective. We may have families, friends, and social connections, but they serve almost as a mirror and starting point for our individuation. We are expected to create lives for ourselves, often at the hidden cost of connection and intimacy with others.
In Greek culture, your family, your lineage, and your village are all part of an identity that is held within a web of belonging and obligation. Here, the self is relationally constituted. A Greek friend that I made shared with me that she would love to go to Los Angeles to see what life is like exercising her own agency without the influence of her family. To her, the whole idea was very novel because her life is heavily influenced by the decisions, opinions, and desires of her family members. She said that’s what it’s like to be Greek.
These two patterns of familial and social connection are in stark contrast to one another and, for me, is inviting a deeper exploration of my own social connections and a questioning of the identities I have created for myself earlier in life. Time will tell how much will be revealed to me about myself through a different social orientation here in Greece.
What can this teach us about leadership?
I am being changed by a place, a culture, and a people that is different from my conditioning in many ways. And in that friction, I am reconnecting with parts of myself I didn’t know I had set aside.
Something shifts when you allow yourself to be genuinely touched by a field that runs counter to your conditioning. You don’t need to move to a foreign country for this to happen. It happens when we choose to engage with life.
For many of us, some form of these interior changes has been happening over the past few years. We don’t feel the same anymore. We don’t want the same things anymore. Something inside is changing. We’re wanting something different in our lives…something more true to who we are. If you’re moving through such an experience, you must be willing to notice, to observe what is changing in your own interior experience, and to take it seriously as information. Engagement when the ground of your being is shifting underneath you will lead to a deeper connection with your true self.
This is what leading from Being actually looks like in practice. It’s about engaging with ourselves when an interior rearrangement changes how we show up. From that place, we lead from who we truly are, not from performance or achievement.
The Greeks have a word for this quality of presence: meraki. To do something with your whole soul, leaving a piece of yourself in it.
And Greece, it turns out, has been living it for a very long time.