Simply recognizing a gap between how you are living, working, and leading and how you aspire to live, work, and lead can be profound and transformative. Equally inspiring is acting to narrow these gaps in effective, practical ways. Mindfulness helps us in both efforts. It helps us identify and bridge these gaps.
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I’m still often asked: Why do executives and companies work with you? What motivates them to explore mindfulness?
I usually answer this question with two words: pain and possibility. It can be painful to step outside of our role and to be more in touch with our vulnerability, with the tenderness of our heart. Additionally, we usually sense when our values, aspirations, and work are not in alignment or when we are not living up to our full potential.
Leadership is about problem solving and inspiring and empowering others — all qualities that are directly supported by mindfulness practice.
That is, meditation and mindfulness are not sought for our personal benefit alone, and they aren’t achieved solely through individual effort. The same is true of leadership.
TRY THIS: Evaluate the meetings where you work. Whatever your role, how might you incorporate mindfulness and help meetings function better? Ask yourself the following questions.
Is the purpose of each meeting clear? If not, how might you help clarify the purpose?
Are all meetings the same type? How might you vary the types of meetings so each aligns with its purpose?
Do you and your team look forward to meetings? If not, what steps can you take to improve expectations and the experience of meetings?
What are the cultural and behavioral norms in your workplace and in your meetings? What is the level of trust, vulnerability, and joy? What stands in the way of these?
How might you use and integrate mindfulness practices with your meetings to improve any and all of these aspects?
Work gives us the means to create the physical safety upon which our lives depend. Work feeds and shelters us and those we love. Work can give us meaning. But work can also be a means of our suffering. By understanding what’s truly happening all around us, the ways our core belief systems influence our everyday experience, we can extract meaning from the suffering, coax the lotus from the mud, as the Buddhists teach. But this will happen only if we use those challenges that the calls to leadership make on us, not only to grow up but also help us discover our why.