A leader argues that one minute of daily mindfulness can transform decision-making and team performance, yet fewer than 20% of CEOs actually do it. She walks through simple practices like raisin meditation and mindful eating, then explains how leaders who model presence encourage their teams to do the same.
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Hello and welcome back. In this virtue, we are up to virtue number 5, and in this virtue we're talking about a mindfulness or meditation practice. So this is such an interesting world we live in, right? So they polled hundreds of CIOs and CEOs, C-level executives, and said, you know, here's all the benefits of doing a mindfulness exercise, and we're gonna ask you to take 1% of your entire day, 1% of your entire day, and in order to achieve these results, you have to spend 1% of your day in meditation or in mindfulness. Here's the very sad thing. Knowing, like seeing the data, seeing the proof that this stuff is amazing and it works. Less than 20% of those CEOs were able to do that, right? Less than 20% could find 1% of their day to dedicate to something that could create huge improvements for their team, for their organization, or for their company. I'm just very saddened by this. So one of the reasons why I created this class, because I want you to know that that 1% has exponential value. Exponential. You're gonna only spend, let's just make it super simple, 1 minute in mindful thought, right, where you're focused on your breath or focused on a mantra or focused on some singular thing, right? So you're going to spend time, 1 minute of every day, and in 30 days, I guarantee you, you will have more clarity of thought because consistent effort, especially in the area of mindfulness or meditation, changes your brain. And the benefits of it changing your brain is that your decision-making capabilities will also evolve and will also get better. So create a meditation practice. I set an alarm for mine. It happens to go off while I'm in transit on my way to work, and so I just open up the app close my eyes, focus on my breath, and do a meditation or mindfulness exercise. Doesn't really matter. Some other exercises you might think about are like the, the Craisin or raisin meditation, right, where you put a raisin in your mouth and you literally like just kind of suck on it and like feel the texture. And because it's going to be very hard to disintegrate, but you maybe bite it a little bit, but in You're concentrating completely and solely on this raisin or kraisin in your mouth. It's a very interesting exercise, but it really, what it's doing is creating those neural pathways that say, I'm focused on this, right? And then our mind wanders, and then we bring it back and go, I'm focused on, on this raisin. One that I particularly like is the M&M meditation, right? So you take an M&M, you can also do it with Tic Tacs. You take an M&M and you don't bite it, you don't chew it, right? You don't take the Tic Tac and like chomp it up. You suck on it, right? And you let all the layers of that M&M— you stay perfectly present with this M&M in your mouth and you go through like the color. You can feel kind of the color disappear off of the M&M, then the candy shell disintegrates, then the chocolate disintegrates, and then it's done. It takes about a minute maybe, but that act of mindfulness again improves your brain. It changes you physiologically. It's incredible. And it allows you, by creating that sense of awareness, of that sense of presence, allows you to translate that into your team. And again, being that example of that presence allows your team to feel comfortable enough to do that for themselves. And then everyone benefits from more— a team that's able to perform even better than before. The last thing I want to share with you about mindfulness is that it doesn't have to be like, you know, sitting on a hill, Om, you know, or sitting by yourself or going to a quiet room. But you might have quiet rooms. In my building, we do have rooms that are dedicated to this meditation. Or mindfulness concept. So you might have these as well, but you can do a walking meditation. I often will take the kayak and go out on the water during my workday because we have one right near the office, and I just find it's exactly the kind of thing that I need because I paddle out for, you know, 5-10 minutes and then I'm out there with nobody, just on the water, completely at peace. It's incredible, incredible feeling. So I find ways to be at peace, to focus my mind, and to quiet the chatter. Oh, if I could do one thing for you, it's to give you a few moments where that chatter dies down, right? And eventually for it to disappear completely. And that's what mindfulness allows us to do. And by quieting that chatter, we're able to more effectively deal with the issues that we're dealing with. 'Cause we have clarity of thought because we're able to control what our mind does and where it wanders. So building up this muscle is really important to the effectiveness, not only of you as a leader, but also you as an example to your staff. So anyway, the virtue of mindfulness and meditation, create a practice today, figure it out, right? Put it on your phone, set an alarm, and just start doing 1 minute every day. If 1 minute is too easy for you, then go to 5, go to 10, go to half hour. Do as much as you can, right? The more time you spend focusing your mind and bringing your attention back, the better performing you can be, the better your mind will be able to make decisions in tough situations and in very volatile situations. And really overall, being a mindful leader Right? It means that you're actually mindful that you do that. So adding this practice will help you be more congruent and be more authentic in your search for, for becoming a better leader. Thanks so much for watching. Hope you enjoyed this conclusion to discussing meditation and mindfulness as part of your leadership development as a mindful leader. Thanks, and I'll see you in the next video.
