 Nike, 50 Cent and the Marine Corps all embrace the benefits of
mindfulness meditation, he says.
"The benefits of mindfulness meditation do not exist in a vacuum;
mindfulness meditation not only lowers your blood pressure, it also
offers a host of other positives, including increasing business
acumen," says Josephs, who has coached executives for more than 30
years and recently authored the book
"Dragons at Work."
"It sharpens your intuitive business sense. By relaxing your
body, breathing evenly and paying attention to the present moment,
you notice things you might otherwise miss. Paying exquisite
attention is the key to staying real, and daily meditation builds
that capacity."
The benefits of a calm and focused mind are ubiquitous. Josephs
offers these tips for business leaders:
Sit there. Breathe quietly and let the fear and
greed subside. The easiest way to fool yourself in a deal,
negotiation or transaction is to let your thinking stray from
what's happening and get seduced by a dream. It could be the
dream your counterpart is spinning for you or simply the dream
of results, good or bad. Like most people, you have probably
experienced moments when you knew something — a business
relationship, an investment — was going south, but you hesitated
to act because you didn't have facts to support your intuition.
Sometimes, your intuition knows something that your logical mind
does not.
Pay attention to what your body is
telling you; you may be expressing signals that your logical
mind is slow to notice. In a psychological study called "the
Iowa gambling task," researchers gave subjects the task of
making the most money possible by choosing cards from four
decks. Unbeknown to the subjects, the decks were stacked. Some
were "good decks," producing winners more of the time, and some
were "bad decks," producing losers. After about 40 to 50 picks,
most subjects caught on which decks produced winners and losers.
Their bodies knew something that their rational minds had
missed. After about 10 picks, they began to produce
physiological symptoms of stress when their hands reached for
the bad decks. If you're not paying attention to those subtle
signals, your innate wisdom is inaccessible.
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- Meditation develops emotional balance and a better business
mind.
If you've never meditated, try it. Start small by
simply sitting still and keeping your eyes closed for five
minutes. Feel the weight of your body in its sitting position.
Try to simplify your thoughts to basic things, down to the
subtle sounds of the room, your breathing. Mindfulness
meditation does not require extensive study in ancient
traditions. Notice the difference after only five minutes; you
will feel more relaxed. Later, try it for 10 minutes, and then
longer. Do your due diligence in that state of mind. The
equanimity that will sharpen your acumen is also the source of
your happiness in life. Don't trade it for anything.
___
With more than 30 years experience as an executive coach and
consultant, Stephen Josephs, Ed. D, helps leaders build vitality and
focus to make their companies profitable — and great places to work.
His doctorate at the University of Massachusetts focused on
aesthetics in education: how to teach anything through art, music,
drama and movement. Josephs is particularly interested in the
intersection of business performance, psychology and mind-body
disciplines. His new novel, "Dragons at Work," tells the story of a
tightly wound executive — a fictionalized case study of coaching
that produces fundamental changes in a leader. Josephs has also
co-authored "Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery in
Anticipating and Initiating Change" (Jossey-Bass, 2006) with Bill
Joiner, which shows how certain stages of psychological development
affect leadership.
[Text from file received from
News and Experts]
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