I Skipped a 300,000-Person Waitlist. I Was Trying to Hide.

The hustle got me into the room. Surrender got me the appointment.

I had just flown from Boston to Heathrow. I landed at 10 AM with zero sleep. Taking the red eye was my only option.

When I arrived, my face was puffy, I had creases across it, and my hair mirrored a bird’s nest. I put on a baseball cap, the one from the conference I had just left, with neon letters across the front that said THE NEW GUARD. The reason I wore it was that I was hiding. I didn’t want to be seen. I wasn’t expecting the hat to become a conversation starter, because frankly all I wanted to do was get to my friend’s house and nap.

A woman stopped me near the entrance to the Heathrow Express. She was carrying her luggage. “Hey, I was at that summit too.” I had forgotten I was even wearing the hat. I wasn’t annoyed, but I was self-conscious, because I had been trying to disappear all morning.

The Heathrow Express is a fifteen-minute ride from the airport to Paddington Station. By the time we arrived I had learned she worked with Neko Health, one of the hottest preventative health tech companies in the world, and she was already texting someone to get me off the 300,000-person waitlist for the one day I happened to be in London.

Within an hour I received a notification that I had an appointment in Spitalfields the next day.

I hadn’t asked for help. I hadn’t even said out loud that I wanted to go, but of course I’d been thinking the whole time, how cool would it be to go?

I’m the general manager of a wellness company. I spend most of my days mired in this world, whether sitting in a sauna or reading competitors’ 10-Ks. Even with that devotion, I still hadn’t pulled the trigger on a comprehensive body scan in the US. At some point you have to make the calculation. Do I want to pay for this scan, or four weeks of summer camp? The thought of getting a similar scan in London at a fraction of the cost was enticing.

Her thumb was still moving across her phone screen, and I remember just staring at it, too tired to fully believe what was unfolding next to me.

I have spent twenty years learning how to get into the right rooms. I’ve built and sold a company. I’ve been in rooms most people can’t get into. But something is different for me lately. The word that comes to mind is magnetism. I somewhat despise the term because the influencer world has ruined it. But on the surface what has been happening is that lots of greatness has been coming to me, unprompted. There is less forcing. This hat is an example; it became my magnet. It got me into the room in fifteen minutes.

A critic might say that the hat was a credential. He would be right. I was stopped because we had both been at the same summit, which means I was already an “insider” before the train doors closed. In full transparency, the appointment was a perk offered to all attendees of the New Guard Summit. The credential is real, and I earned it. What it doesn’t explain is why she spent her own Heathrow Express ride moving mountains to get me in during the twenty-four hours I was in London.

The credential has never worked like this before. At one conference I had a chance meeting with Dwyane Wade, and it eventually ended with him and Gabrielle Union speaking at an event I was hosting. What that actually took was an ungodly amount of follow-up. To get an outcome like that one, I had to hustle. That doesn’t explain why someone I had just met would go through hoops for me.

I was neither networking nor pitching, and not even fully awake. I had been wearing the same clothes for nineteen hours. This was the version of myself that had surrendered out of exhaustion.

That’s when the door opened.

Pre-nap photo in my lucky hat.

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I read The Surrender Experiment during my sabbatical, something I refer to as my lost year. When I read it the first time I was like, wow, is this for real? Michael Singer was a spiritual practitioner living in the woods in Florida, and he decided to let the universe take the wheel. He said yes to whatever opportunities came along, and if nothing came along, he’d be fine with that too. He ended up running a medical software company that sold for billions that he never set out to build.

As a newbie to surrender, I couldn’t understand how he was at peace with relinquishing control.

But his strategy kept working, and eventually I had to concede that he was legit. Thinking back to that book, I realized this is what had been happening to me. I was surrendering, albeit unconsciously.

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My visit to Neko Health

The next afternoon I walked into Neko Health. It was a comprehensive health exam with the service of a Four Seasons for the cost of a teeth cleaning. I took an embarrassing number of pictures. The staff asked how long I’d been on the waitlist. Most people wait a year, they said. I said two hours. The scan came back clean, no concerns, come back in a year. What I actually remember is standing in that lobby thinking, things are really working out for me. My reality is finally catching up to my vision board.

I didn’t earn this the way I usually earn things: the hard work, the persistent follow-ups, so much effort. That morning in Heathrow, my goal was not to look impressive. It was to take a nap. Yet despite being in this state, a stranger found me and had me off a 300,000-person waitlist before lunch.

Here is my hot take. Many of the people who live squarely in this spreadsheet world will tell you that you need the hustle to get ahead. I listen to a lot of podcasts from people I admire who talk about waking up at 5 AM, shooting their shot daily, forcing open every door they can find. Lately I’m finding those people are no longer the role models I want for myself.

For the earlier part of my career I needed the hustle. The key that got me through doors was being able to hustle my way into any decision-maker’s inbox, with no hesitation, and taking no personal offense when someone said no five times. It just meant not yet. It took me less than thirty days from first pitch to term sheet to raise $4.2 million in venture capital; I’m the queen of hustle.

But different stages need different keys. There is a place you reach where the hustle got you into the room, and continuing to hustle is no longer the key.

And then on the other end there are the shamans, the Michael Singers, who drop everything and let the world come to them. I don’t think that’s exactly it either.

I was able to surrender because the hustling spreadsheet version of me had already gotten herself into that room. By the time I was invited to that conference, I had earned the right to surrender. I don’t need the podcasts of the people who are only hustling, and I’m also not sure I’d get the results from the other extreme, the people who have fully surrendered. What I want is a model that knows which key to use when.

Because there comes a certain point where the magnetism isn’t the hustle. It is the surrender.

I’d spent twenty years becoming this person, and apparently the last step was getting too tired to perform her.

The part I haven’t worked out is whether I can do this without the red eye.

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The Practice. This week, before one high-stakes thing, go in without the plan. Don’t set a number for how many people you need to talk to. Don’t bring the talking points. Whatever your version of the baseball hat is, wear it.

The Shelf. The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. I would tell a friend to read this because there is power in understanding that something bigger than all of us is at work. I can’t tell you what it is. Truly, I have no idea, but I have seen it in my own life. The key, from my vantage point, is knowing when to surrender. A great read.

And an untraditional second recommendation: if you find yourself in London, Stockholm, or New York, sign up for a visit to Neko Health. I love good design and this was thoughtful all the way down, the matching robes, the slippers, every room in a bright buttery yellow. It reminded me of an Ian Schrager hotel circa 1995, not a medical clinic.

The Invitation. What is your version of the red eye? What’s the version of you that makes you want to put on a baseball hat and hide? How could you introduce elements of an experience that strips you down to your most authentic self? And how could you bring that self to something important, whether it’s a business meeting, a networking event, or back-to-school night?

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Nathalie