It’s not often you see Harvard Business School and a Carmelite monastery under "education and experience" on the same resume, but for John Cannon, founder of SENT Ventures and Monk Mindset, this isn't just part of his past life, but his future as well.
Cannon feels “fortunate to have had a lot of doors open” in his life, including his education, work in politics, and investment banking, and his family — both human and religious. It has been these relational experiences, with his dad in particular, that have been key to unlocking the life purpose and the future he is now pursuing.
Through his mid-20s John says he was trapped by the “work hard, play hard” lifestyle, chasing career and financial success, enjoying as much pleasure and success as possible along the way. But, as he shared with Aleteia, it “eventually caught up with me, and shortly after graduating from Harvard Business School, I was in a rough place emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.”
Describing this time of “existential dissatisfaction,” Cannon found himself empty inside. In God’s mysterious providence and wisdom, tragedy would become the path to a flourishing life.
Dr. Nass Cannon, John’s dad, was in a gruesome and life-altering car accident – airlifted from the scene, a rod surgically placed to stabilize his broken back, and then requiring months of hospital care and rehabilitation. Dr. Cannon was a devout Catholic, daily Mass-goer and Thomas Merton scholar. His engagement with contemplative prayer flowed into his medicine practice and his work as hospital Chief of Staff.
Father and son had always been “really close,” but neither could know the healing that John would experience through his father’s injuries -- that one of this doctor’s greatest influences would come from becoming a patient.
Spiritual and emotional bandwidth
Every time John visited his dad through his months-long recovery, he was struck by his dad’s smile, and his care and concern for his own caregivers. “It made a big impression on me because,” the son shared, “any movement for him would have been incredibly painful. But in the midst of all that, he was focused on other people.” John admitted. “I would not have had my dad’s spiritual or emotional bandwidth to focus on other people.”
That example prompted the younger Cannon to reflect on where, and from whom, that inner strength came. Finally opening up to his dad about his questions, a new stage of mentorship began. This fatherly guidance, alongside a renewed sacramental life, spiritual direction, and the inspiration and instruction of great spiritual masters and mystics, led John to desire to give God everything.
John decided to become a Carmelite monk.
The day before John left for the Monastery, Dr. Cannon gave his son a “big bear hug” and one more gift of wisdom. He told John he thought what he was doing “is the best thing anyone can do with their life.” Then he added, “Penance and mortifications are important, but for me, Jesus’ words ‘Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God' has been central.”
For the next seven years John was immersed in what he describes as four pillars of monastic life: prayer, focused work, community life, and personal wellness practices.
But eventually, John felt God calling him elsewhere. He realized that the Monastery wasn't where he was to spend the rest of his life. Still, though he discerned that he was to leave his Carmelite community, he felt urged to share the monastic wisdom he had found there, specifically to share it with business leaders.
Contemplatives in the world
The ideas for SENT Ventures, working with Catholic entrepreneurs, and Monk Mindset, a media platform offering principles of monastic living and tech tools for a personal schedule and habit tracking, both came after John’s father passed in 2018.
He shared that his dad once told him, “There are few true contemplatives” but that was what Dr. Cannon had strived to be in the midst of his demanding medical career.
The challenge of integrating the contemplative and active life has been “a through line” -- interwoven in John’s time with the Carmelites, to working with busy business founders through SENT, and with Monk Mindset.
“First, at the core there has to be a contemplative disposition rooted in mental prayer and the sacraments so that Jesus can flow through our lives and work.” Mental prayer, John says, is “the core of the day for Carmelites.”
He understands the stark differences in daily “horarium” (or schedule) for monks vs. laypeople, but his father’s example of living a contemplative life while juggling his medical practice, hospital leadership role, and raising a family leads John to believe “it is possible, though it looks different than it would in a monastery.”
For example, the pillar of community life.
In the monastery, meals together are “a sacred time for being together.” For a layperson, this communion requires different intentionality, finding and maintaining balance between all four pillars -- but John sees the value in making the effort to learn how it can look and be lived.
The popularity of both his ventures has proven that other people do, too.
Human flourishing ... in love
Cannon commented that what is needed to hold it all together, is charity.
“This sort of operating system for life is all helpful, but it ultimately fails if you're not loving others around you. Love is the greatest commandment and the whole point of the Christian life.These principles can help you to love well and consistently, which is really the whole point of doing them anyway.”
He added that these pillars foster human flourishing but reiterated the importance of love.
“You can have the most perfect schedule and still not be happy.” From the four monastic pillar principles, Monk Mindset suggests three principles of transformation for living the faith in the context of daily life. To choose love, to be detached, and to discern decisions and commitments.
Drawing from the Church's symphony
Having studied multiple monastic orders, John designed Monk Mindset to partner with multiple charisms. He’s found they all have “basically the same shape and building blocks. Different charisms, yes, but the basic structure” is consistent, something he says points to solid Christian human anthropology, i.e. the way that the Church is an expert in understanding who and what the human person actually is.
“This basic structure and flow is helpful for all humans to flourish, regardless of where you live or what you’re doing.”
“We want people to learn from monastic communities and those deeply influenced by monastic spirituality.” He added, “The formation that religious men and women get is so integrated and robust that we want to help lay people access this wisdom in a relatable and practical way.”
John values the “beautiful symbiosis” between religious and lay life: How these different vocations mutually inspire to radical gift of self and surrender integrated with sacrificial work for the good of others. Each vocation challenges the others to learn, love, grow, stretch, serve, and support each other in many ways. John believes Monk Mindset is one way to give people an encounter with monastic wisdom through their content and life experience.
He also sees the post-pandemic need for community and spiritual grounding have created deep hungers that Monk Mindset has effectively satisfied. He sees definite interest and trends swinging back from the isolation resulting from tech advancements to face-to-face personal connections. This is something Monk Mindset hopes to incorporate in the future, as well as potentially drawing new vocations to monastic communities.
“When you remove that human connection, there’s an unnatural gap. We humans have always been rooted in community,” he said. “We’re incarnate beings, we exist in three dimensions,” as Jesus led by example drawing his apostles together and remaining with us across millennia in the Eucharist.
