Pat Croce’s path from mile-a-minute entrepreneur to mindfulness meditation teacher

This story is from The Pulse, a weekly health and science podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Find our full episode on doing less here. When Pat Croce first tried to meditate, his mind would start wandering or racing. Sometimes, he’d question why he was even sitting on a mat, trying to learn to be mindful. In those moments, he’d picture a red balloon with the word “thinking” printed on it in big, bold, black letters. Taking deep breaths in and out, he’d imagine the balloon floating up and away into the sky. “I m telling you, I used that red balloon for a 10-minute meditation 50 times,” he said. “I know you can t control thoughts, but I could eventually learn to observe them.” If you had met Croce 25 years ago, mindfulness meditation seemed like the last thing the highly driven business owner would ever embrace.  These days, Croce doesn’t dwell much on the past, “because the past has served its purpose perfectly, and I let it go,” as he put