Antoine Abou-Samra, A Table For Two and Wine Hour Podcast

Title: Founder/Host

Location: Beirut, Lebanon

Years in the Industry:
I launched A Table For Two mid-2019, right before the crisis in Lebanon and COVID-19. It was a reset in my career and a desire to be involved in something meaningful and purposeful.
 
The idea was to join two areas that I loved the most in the past 30 years. First, there is food. It started in 1990 when I sold Lebanese dishes to students in the dorms of McGill University (in Montreal), where I did my undergraduate degree. Then, in early 2000, I launched a health food catering business in Lebanon. On the media and event side, I was the producer and host of a daily radio show dedicated to jazz (1993), and through the ‘90s, I worked extensively with the media (TV, printed press, radio), and organized small to large scale events (up to 120,000 visitors) while I was promoting action sports in Lebanon.
 
A Table For Two is about sharing experiences and journeys with the audience. It's about using Food and Wine as an excuse for a conversation on the major issues of our times.
 
My Top Three Challenges to Wellness:

1. Keeping motivated
   Not every day is easy. As a former top athlete, I am aware of what the state of flow is. But to achieve it is another matter. Keeping motivated is hard day in and day out. I am lucky to have found a strong purpose, but my mind keeps nagging me.

2. Being Focused
   Focusing on a task or an objective is key to any progress. But that focus is hard to keep as we have an innate resistance that keeps bringing us back to a place of comfort. When I am focused, I can push back the resistance. But it takes a few seconds of doubt or extra thoughts to bring it back. And when the resistance is play, procrastination kicks in, delaying what I have do.

3. Procrastination
   I have had a tendency to procrastinate for many years. It’s about postponing things to a later day, and eventually doing things at the last minute. It’s about not facing the tasks that need to be done. It’s about thinking about an action, and being satisfied with the thought of it. It keeps me in my comfort zone. I’ve dealth better with procrastination through the years, but it still keeps showing up and destabilizing the balance I try to achieve.

 
How I Keep It Together to Stay Well:
Sports
In the first half of my life, sport was an integral part of my professional and personal life. As a former top athlete competing at the international level (Snowboarding and Windsurfing), it was defining me. When I started a more “corporate life” following my MBA at INSEAD, I lost that daily activity. Now, 18 years later, I picked up that routine again, with the goal to complete an Ironman triathlon. Besides the goal, the daily training has brought back a certain balance that I missed. It’s an integral part of being healthy not just physically but also mentally. Sport has that magic effect of merging the two. It also helps being focused and pushing back my tendency to procrastinate.
 
Introspection
If there is one area that has no end, that is the discovery and understanding of the self. Starting A Table For Two was a trigger to understand the reasons of my past failures and why my life took the path it did. By complete chance, I started reading Carl Jung. His writings had a huge impact on me. It showed me that very often we don’t want to face the questions of how and why we are what we are and do what we do. Most of the time, we are on an automatic mode, just cruising through life. Why dig out the dirt when on the surface it’s smooth sailing? But eventually, what is underneath (what Jung calls the Collective and Personal Unconscious) resurfaces and make us do things we were not expecting (and not always in the positive sense). So, introspection has been key to staying well.
 
Disconnection
Being surrounded by negative energy, thoughts or people is draining. Living in a country like Lebanon, which is experiencing a catastrophic financial, economic, and social crisis, I had to use coping mechanism to not be dragged in the general marasmus. I am grateful to have that opportunity. Creating a bubble where positive energy flows is a key aspect of staying well. That may be my introvert part, but it is definitely something I need every day.
 
What Inspires Me:
I am always in awe of nature, be it the sea, mountains, or forests. If there is perfection on this earth, it’s nature. Being in harmony with or surrounded by it is always a wonderful and inspiring experience.
 
People dedicating their lives to a higher purpose are a big inspiration, whether it is to make our societies better, care for others, or simply express their talent. The amount of dedication and sacrifice is very often hard to deal with. But they keep doing what they do because it’s all that matters. And it’s not about the money or prestige. That selflessness is rare.
 
A Quote I Love:
"Every individual needs revolution, inner division, overthrow of the existing order, and renewal, but not by forcing them upon his neighbours under the hypocritical cloak of Christian love or the sense of social responsibility or any of the other beautiful euphemisms for unconscious urges to personal power. Individual self-reflection, return of the individual to the ground of human nature, to his own deepest being with its individual and social destiny—here is the beginning of a cure for that blindness which reigns at the present hour." Carl Jung, in October 1918
 
You can connect with Antoine on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, or on Spotify (The Wine Hour or One on One Podcast), and on his website.