Mindfulness for Managers; the business case for creating your own mindfulness practice

Be here now – Midnight Gospel meats Seneca meets Sen no Rikyū
“The Midnight Gospel”; written under the influence of LSD,  drawing deeply from the well of emotional life experience said

“Be. Here. Now…Put the past aside and the future aside and get sense into your bodies.”

Meanwhile in 16th century Japan, tea master Sen no Rikyū  was not only perfecting his “Matcha Whisk” but for some historians originating “Ichigo Ichie”. 

1600 years before they were making tea in the Tokugawa shogunate, Seneca put down his iPhone to say

“The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in the fortunes control and abandoning what lies in yours….True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.”

Software development morphs into mindfulness

I’ve spent 25 years in software development, a world of absolutes, digital velocity, veracity and volume… Then one day I went to yoga and the teacher said “arrive on the mat, breathe into your side back, just become aware of… Be mindful of…”
Mindfulness – WTF?.  Downward facing dog is hard enough (never mind the battered sav)

The real question – Why bother with mindfulness for performance?

If you are career focused, mindfulness is going to improve whatever it is you doing. Why? Because it enables us to “be here now” – that’s where we get things done, right? The more we give our full potential to a moment, the better we can be in a moment.
Which part of conserving energy, sleeping better, reducing stress hormones and lifting your mental game doesn’t appeal to you?

My big learnings on mindfulness

Be here now. Be 100% present. Anything else reduces our mental horsepower.
So I began trying things, I began seeing the benefits of it everywhere. The mindfulness muscle fatigues when we first start, is clumsy at first but gets better with time.

I’d use it before meetings to remind myself of what I needed to do, of the humanity of the other person and meetings became more productive.
In tournament fighting, winning fights came from winning short moments.  Fast reactions, instinctive attacks, a deep connection to my training and preparation unleashed, unfiltered.  It didn’t happen if I worried about the fight, the tournament or the outcomes 

If I was getting that wrong as soon after I would get punched in the nose. Happened more than once.
When I’m coaching we work to build big dreams in the future. Then we go through the process of bringing them right back to what they need to do in this moment.

“Doing this thing now” takes you toward where you want to be in the future.

Tasks transition kills productivity, mindfulness saves the day

When we move from one activity to the next, we are susceptible to “mushin” or “no mind”. Sometimes it’s as simple as finishing a job, going to the bathroom and starting the next one.
Being mindful? Know that if you walk past your mobile phone and pick it up you will lose five minutes and be distracted for the next job. Be mindful of the dopamine temptation and walk past the phone.
If we have alerts on email, mobile phones pinging in the background or encourage constant interruption, we will lose days. Be mindful of the environment we work in.

Where science meets action – my top five tips for mindfulness
The science says it works, and I say it works so stop your arguing! Here are my mindfulness tips in action for a productive working day

1 - Box breathing before the meeting

I Box breathe every morning as part of my mental fitness practice. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold, all for four seconds over ten cycles. It takes under two minutes and helps to engage the parasympathetic nervous system, lowering cortisol, and enhancing the prefrontal cortex's functionality for better focus and decision-making.

2 – Grounding

Whether it's the sensation of sand under my toes, grass under my feet, or leaves beneath my fingers, connecting with nature grounds me. It brings me into the present, simplifying my tasks and conserving energy.

3 – Gratitude for Insomnia

For midnight awakenings, instead of starting work, I focus on the sensations in my toes and ankles and any tension in my body. I notice the sheets' movement, blend in gratitude for my bed, and before I know it, I drift back to sleep.

4 - Empathy for the reality check

Bringing myself back to my body as reminding myself exactly where it is. Late in 2022 everything in my professional life sucked. Mounting bills, dropping savings, a tree branch just fell on the car. Very “woe is me”
One particularly grumpy morning whilst telling of my daughter (there was too much butter on her toast) I heard my wife exclaim in the background
“Oh no”
The daughter of our close friend, Ella,  had just been diagnosed with leukaemia.  It brought me back to the moment and my own situation. My healthy daughter was opposite me.
We turned it into a fundraiser and Ella shaved my head. You can watch it here.

5 - her hand in mine (or pat the dog)

She is nearly 16 so it doesn’t happen as often as it used to. But when it does now it changes the complexion of my entire day. Walking around the park with the dogs, feeling her little hand slide into mine, breaking open all those thought processes as I glanced down to see the most perfect, smiling and beautiful face in the world right there looking up at me expectantly.

Right there. Right here. Right in that now.
Everything that that moments in that time would fade away and I’d be right there.
The happiest I can ever be.