Living life on his own terms
Levi Pells attended his first Vipassana retreat in 2023, after quitting his lucrative job as a corporate recruiter in Tokyo. For 10 days, he and the other participants rose at 4:30 a.m. and meditated for 11 hours, abstaining from all outside stimuli. In his former role, Pells had been on the phone constantly, cold calling employees at top financial institutions. Now, he didn’t have a phone, and he wasn’t allowed to speak at all. Even eye contact was prohibited.
“It’s very intense, very deep introspection,” the 2016 graduate recalled recently. “The idea is to center your mind and begin to clear away the psychological knots that you bind yourself into.”
The experience turned out to be life-changing for Pells, who majored in theology at Boston College and has always been interested in religious and spiritual traditions. When he could speak again, he found a life coach and began piecing together a new career path. At the time, “I was at this transition point in my life,” he recalled, “where I had no idea what I wanted to do.”
Pells traded his Tokyo high-rise for a two-bedroom apartment on the coast, where he could surf whenever he wanted. He started volunteering at a nearby farm, peeling peanuts and digging up sweet potatoes alongside locals. After a few months, he embarked on a backpacking trip around the world, attending life coaching seminars along the way. When he returned in 2024, he launched his own coaching practice, Sumeba, geared toward high-achieving professionals seeking a change of pace. Instead of convincing people to take higher-paying jobs, he decided, he would help them find what they really wanted: presence, purpose, and connection.
Surfing in Chiba, a quiet beach town an hour from Tokyo.
“We all need to slow down sometimes,” he wrote in his LinkedIn bio. “Space is the difference between an anxious, scattered mind and a calm, focused one. Here’s how I can help.”
Pells grew up in Maui and studied Spanish in high school, but when he got to Boston College, he wanted to challenge himself linguistically, so he enrolled in Japanese classes (Chinese classes met too early in the morning for his taste) and later, eastern philosophy courses that inspired a minor in Asian Studies. After studying abroad in Tokyo his junior year, he decided to return to the country after graduation through JET Program USA, which sends Americans into Japanese communities to work as English teachers. Pells requested a rural placement so that he’d be fully immersed in the language and culture, and spent the next two years in a remote mountain village with a population of just over 600.
“The village taught me patience and humility,” Pells later said in an interview with Business Insider. “Every interaction required effort; even buying shampoo was a small victory in broken Japanese. My classes were small, and I joined a local volleyball team composed mostly of people in their 70s. It was the most connected I'd ever felt to a community.”
Pells’ decision to move back to Tokyo and pursue success in the corporate world was partly to prove to himself that his language skills were up to the challenge. The salary was also a perk (in his best year, Pells earned more than $300,000) but the sense of connection and satisfaction he’d felt in the village was missing. When he looked around, instead of role models, he saw overworked employees worried about making their annual sales targets. Not surprisingly, when he launched his coaching practice, many of his early clients were recruiters looking for ways to improve their job performance.
“At first that was my niche,” said Pells. “When you’re so stressed out and busy you can’t think about what your clients actually want. A lot of it is teaching people how to be empathetic humans again, which actually turns out to be good for business.”
Pells (far right) is passionate about natural farming. In a few years, when he takes over the farm where he began volunteering, he plans to eliminate machines and fertilizer in favor of regenerative practices.
A few months into his coaching career, Pells had an idea to expand his young business. Spending hours outside harvesting his own food had done wonders for his mental health, as had limiting time spent scrolling social media, so he started offering digital detox retreats where participants could escape the frenetic energy of the city, get their hands dirty, and spend time connecting with one another without screens to distract them. As the host, Pells facilitated guided meditation and fireside chats, as well as activities he’d learned on a Kairos retreat at BC, like eyegazing circles where participants made silent eye contact for several minutes, breaking down barriers and regaining their sense of connection to others as humans.
“Sometimes people will cry or sometimes they’ll open up about something they’ve been holding on to,” he said. “It’s just a place to be, with no to-do lists or expectations or responsibilities. People can really benefit from that.”
Pells has since expanded his retreat offerings to include overnight and three-day experiences for people craving a mental reset, as well as one-day farm visits for families and tourists looking for an authentic taste of rural Japan. In the latter, participants roll up their sleeves to harvest strawberries, make miso from local soybeans, dig bamboo shoots, or peel peanuts, before cooking and enjoying a traditional Japanese meal with a local family.
Last month, Pells returned to the Vipassana retreat as a volunteer, cooking meals for participants for 10 days. When he returned, he switched on his phone and was met with a flood of notifications: LinkedIn comments, breaking news alerts, calendar reminders. He could feel his mind beginning to race, so he put his phone down and went outside, something he’s gotten better at doing in this new chapter of life. Another day or two offline wouldn’t hurt anyone.