How to Bamboo
I wasn’t searching for it but felt it found me.
What initially caught my attention was Nine Perfect Strangers, the Apple TV series starring Nicole Kidman. The weekend yoga and mindfulness retreat I just finished took place where the show was filmed.
In the show, nine strangers arrive at a luxurious wellness retreat, hand over their phones, and are told they cannot leave. Nicole Kidman plays a new age guru and spiritual healer who comes off as more mysterious than mystical. Eventually, it’s revealed that their morning smoothies are laced with psychedelics. What begins as a utopia wellness experience shifts into a dystopian psychological experiment led by a power-hungry figure.
I rarely watch TV, but something about the series hooked me. Maybe it was the familiarity of having been on countless wellness retreats myself—and the curiosity of how something could appear serene on the surface while something entirely different unfolded beneath it. At the end, the guests figure out what’s going on, team up and escape.
When a friend sent me the website for this retreat centre, I recognized the setting immediately from the show–and thought it would be fun to see it for myself. Thankfully, we were allowed to leave. And no magic smoothies were involved.
The weekend was a nice mix of meditation, yoga, breathwork, and meals prepared according to Ayurvedic principles. The food was light, easy to digest, and yet somehow, despite eating a ridiculous amount, I never felt too full.
But what captivated me the most wasn’t the stillness inside—it was the bamboo outside.
Walking along the trails, I found myself in the middle of a grove, surrounded by towering bamboo stalks—twenty, maybe thirty meters tall. They were impossibly thin. I could wrap my thumb and finger around one, which seemed absurd considering their height. They were strong and dense—I could barely make them budge.
Then the wind picked up.
Suddenly, the stalks started rubbing against each other, emitting deep, eerie creaks. It wasn’t the gentle rustling of trees. It sounded haunted. Like a horror movie where the walls whisper just before something terrible happens.
I stood there, listening, watching, appreciating.
And then it came to me—what makes bamboo special.
It bends, it doesn’t break.
This simple quality makes it stronger than trees. When storms hit, oak trees resist. Sometimes, they snap. Bamboo just moves with the wind and stands back up.
In my fifteen years as the CEO of a tech company, I have been forced to adapt in ways I could have never predicted. Market shifts, customer demands, technological upheavals—every plan I ever made needed to be revised, reworked, or scrapped entirely. I used to think success came from strength, from holding my ground, from standing firm in what I believed. But in reality, the moments that defined my career were the ones where I was able to bend.
I used to think success was about standing firm. But the biggest breakthroughs came when I let go of rigidity.
Negotiating a deal? Bend.
Managing an unexpected crisis? Bend.
Leading a team through uncertainty? Bend.
I’ve come to realize that to survive in a fast-moving world, it’s not about being unshakable. It’s about being adaptable.
Bending isn’t just a business strategy. I see it in my body.
When I first started a yoga practice, I wanted to push myself into perfect poses. But real flexibility isn’t about forcing—it’s about allowing. When I resist, I tighten. When I soften, I expand.
It’s the same in relationships. To bend is to listen, to adapt, to make space for the other person. But there’s a limit. If I bend too much—if I ignore my own needs, overextend, or compromise on what matters—I don’t just bend, I lose myself.
One more thing about bamboo: before shooting up, it spends years growing underground. The explosive growth only happens after the roots have quietly spread deep enough to support it.
I’ve experienced this countless times. The quiet years. The ones where the work felt invisible, where I wondered if anything was happening at all. Like building a meditation practice over a decade of daily work. But just because something isn’t visible doesn’t mean it’s not growing.
The bamboo grove at the retreat centre became the source of inspiration for me as I look back at my time on the set of Nine Perfect Strangers.
Standing there, staring up at the bunches of bamboo stalks towering over me, The wind continued to howl through, the stalks creaking ominously, the whole thing looking as if it might collapse. But it won’t.
Life will throw storms. Some resist and snap. Others uproot and run. But bamboo? It bends and stays standing.
And that’s how I learned to bend, not break.
