Tag Archive Success

If you are not reaping the benefits of mindfulness already, ask yourself this: Why ignore a scientifically proven practice which is simple and free, used by most of the worlds leading companies and their best employees, and something which also benefits your health and personal life? I’ve been practicing mindfulness for 5 years, and I have yet to encounter a valid reason why this x-factor item is not on every career check list. Most people say they are too busy. That’s like saying your toothache is too bad to go see a dentist.

If pushed to offer a definition of mindfulness, I’d say it is a simple meditation technique which greatly enhances focus and awareness, allowing your best innate qualities to shine through as peak performance. So why are companies investing so much time and money in encouraging workers to avail of the benefits of mindfulness? Well, here are five benefits of mindfulness which are well worth considering.

1: Nothing Handles Stress Like Mindfulness

Ask any HR manager or health care professional what the cost of stress is to business and you will be in for a shock. 75% of all health care costs incurred by business are stress-related. It is by far the biggest risk to a company’s bottom line and to their best employees. Nothing prevents and controls stress like mindfulness….and it’s FREE! Most people are unaware that they are affected by stress, but this silent killer contributes to a whole raft of medical problems and has a huge impact on performance. Practicing mindfulness removes flight of fight instinct, replacing it with a natural state of relaxed calm.

2: Mindfulness Greatly Enhances Focus

This is where it gets a bit like The Matrix or Bruce Lee. And trust me, thats a good thing. Mindfulness greatly enhances awareness and focus. It is a huge benefit of mindfulness to be able to give our full attention to one task at a time. The most successful careers are forged by those who see that multi-tasking is a myth, often leading to procrastination because attention is too divided to see any individual task through to quality completion. Those who forge successful careers realize that a focused mind is a productive mind. The one and only way to get there is by practicing mindfulness.

3: Creativity Soars With Mindfulness

Business in an open market economy relies on creativity to produce quality products and services, while also continuing to innovate through changing times. Consider the rapid rise, and even more rapid fall of Nokia for example. Creativity is entirely dependent upon mental state, and to perceive and respond to change. Mindfulness guides the creative process by quietening negative thoughts and self-consciousness. While creating mindfully, positivity dominates the process.

4: Mindfulness Builds Emotional Intelligence

Let’s face it – we could work sixty hour weeks for years on end, and still miss a promotion or pay bump because of that hidden intangible chemistry that some have and some don’t. Faking it is a complete disaster by the way. It’s better to work smarter. EQ is the secret something which sets the winners apart from the hamsters on the wheel, and is fueled by regularly practicing mindful meditation. There are no bionic men or office politics gurus; there are only people who approach their careers mindfully and the many others who don’t.

5: Mindfulness Makes You a Consistently Better Person

Following on from EQ, is perhaps the benefit of mindfulness which has the biggest impact on professional and personal lives, is that staying in the moment makes you a better person. It makes you a better person when working with a team, on your own initiative, and a better person when you go home to the family after a hard day. Mindfulness enables us to work better, sleep better, enjoy time off better, and come back to work refreshed and ready to go again. When negativity and cluttered thought is eliminated, you and the world around you become calmer, happier and the type of person people want to spend more time with.

If you would like to nurture a mindful culture in your workplace, check out in8Motivation services page.

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”  ~  Albert Schweitzer

French-German philosopher Albert Schweitzer won the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his philosophical work entitled ‘Reverence of Life’. It was in this work that the now famous quote about success and happiness became his greatest legacy. It is so simple, yet almost all of us find it so hard to live by.

It is somehow engrained in our psyche that to be happy we first need to have achieved great success. But it is simply not true. In fact it is completely untrue – because the inverse is the truth. Happiness, as Schweitzer came to realize, is the key to success.

Since I came to New York City, I have met many different types of people. The pursuit of happiness is everywhere; they even advertise it for sale on subway billboards. Despite the economy not being as vibrant as it once was, there are still a great number of rich people in the Big Apple, and they are all chasing happiness.

But here is the thing: many of the rich people I meet are stressed and unhappy. Working so hard in the pursuit of a successful career has come for many at the cost of tranquility and happiness. Life is a succession of missed moments of awareness.

Earlier in the spring, I spent a day in the company of a man who was in foul mood because the lawnmower he needed to use to cut the grass at one of his houses had a flat tire. In his world on that day, everything was wrong and he was stressed and cranky. He was absolutely not enjoying life despite his undoubted real estate success. Happiness was in short supply.

I pointed out that if he looked at it from a slightly different perspective, he would realize that it was a minor problem, and the fact that he had several valuable properties was the positive to take from it. He couldn’t understand what I meant. The lawnmower had a flat and that was it. Everything may as well have been broken.

Many people with successful careers have more things to take care of. For a ‘successful’ couple in New York City, having a vacation bolt-hole, or a second car or an extra vacation seems like the type of lifestyle that leads to happiness. But it also brings extra chores. Additional properties require additional maintenance and additional expenses. Extra vacations mean less free time, and in some ways are counter-productive.

This is not to say that the trimmings of an affluent lifestyle are a bad thing. If the career and monetary success are built using happiness, then the happiness will grow exponentially as a result. But if the lavishness is built out of something else and in the pursuit of happiness, then the goal will always be slightly out of reach due to the additional workload and responsibility. All of the hard work will be for nothing is the end game is more stress.

Some of the happiest people I have met in New York City are in the service industry. There is no demanding expectation to have a house in the Hamptons or six skiing trips to Vermont. There is no stress to find parking or have properties cleaned. On the flip side, I have seen mili-millionaires and even billionaires, getting really upset because they have waited maybe a minute longer than they would like for their meal to be served.

So how do we build the happiness that will lead to success? Meditation. It really is that simple. People who meditate regularly live in the now. They are capable of experiencing happiness right now. Not when the credit card bill is lowered. Not when the mortgage has been cleared. Not when they board the cruise to the Caribbean or not when they unwrap the Louis Vuitton. They are able to identify and enjoy happiness right now.

It is such a simple concept that we almost always complicate it. But the essence of living this way is that we are living in the moment, without the shackles and headaches of past or future stresses. In general terms, there is no stress right in this very moment. Living here, although it is not always easy, is the secret to nurturing happiness which is the true key to long-term bona-fida success. Try it and see!