Julien Smith’s “Breather” Supplies Quiet Rooms in Noisy Cities

By Susan Cain

Hi friends,

I want to introduce you to a friend of mine, Julien Smith, who

(a) wrote a famous and fantastic blogpost called The Complete Guide to Not Giving a Fuck (a must-read if, like Julien, you suffer from “caring far too much about offending people, worrying if [you’re] cool enough for them, or asking [yourself] if they are judging [you]),”

and

(b) launched a company, Breather, that will supply quiet, private, and beautiful rooms to retreat to in noisy cities throughout the world. It’s a fascinating idea. Here’s Julien’s description from his website:

Today is the day I launch the company I conceived of around a year ago. It’s a company called Breather. A company that I have been working on crazy hard for a very long time.

This is so big to me right now that I don’t even know how to begin, so let’s just do it this way, by telling you what I wanted to change.

◆ I was sick of walking around in cities everywhere, trying to find a place to go.
◆ I was no longer willing to have meetings in coffee shops, either.
◆ I was annoyed of having to take phone calls in the street, with sirens passing by me.
◆ I was sick of having to scavenge for electrical outlets when my phone was dying.
◆ More than anything, I wanted a place to rest.
◆ I’m an introvert – but a very specific kind of introvert.
◆ I’m an introvert who needs to talk a lot for work, who needs to meet a lot of people, and who needs to recuperate mid-way through the day.
◆ Starbucks wasn’t cutting it. Hotel lobbies weren’t cutting it.
◆ I’m also medicated for epilepsy, and I need my sleep. So when I was under-slept, there was nowhere for me to go.
◆ I would find myself wandering around in a city, practically ready to rent a hotel room so I could nap for a couple of hours and go to my end-of-day meetings or parties.

This is why I started working on private space, a long time ago.

I wanted space I could go to, anytime.

Not just space, but nice space. Well-designed rooms. Rooms that were quiet. Rooms I didn’t need to ask permission to get into. Rooms I could just go to whenever I wanted.

So that’s what we made. That’s what Breather is.

~ Julien Smith | What is Breather?

Want to join Breather? Click here to visit the site.

(By the way, I don’t receive any affiliate commission or anything like that for posting this message. Julien is a friend, but mostly I’m posting this because I think it’s a very cool concept.)

~

What do you think about Breather? Is Julien onto something here?

*The above post previously appeared on Susan Cain’s former blog, The Power of Introverts.