There is nothing mystical, religious or difficult about learning to practice mindfulness meditation. It does not require any special equipment. Meditation is a simple way to train the innate capacities of your brain to pay attention, to see things more clearly and to act with greater compassion. Just as you know you can strengthen innate capacities of your body through physical training, you can also strengthen innate capacities of your brain through mindfulness meditation training.

Without training, you can find yourself living your life on autopilot, constantly feeling distracted and overwhelmed. And when that is your reality, you begin to burn out, react instead of respond, and generally feel disengaged. Meditation is one of the fundamental building blocks of mindful leadership training. It develops focus, and helps leaders begin to see their own conditioning and reactivity more clearly.

Very early on in my life I learned that it was best to find a “win, win” solution. At first that meant sharing the last cookie with my little sister so that there would be none of the fighting that would lead to tears, or worse yet, lead to Mom’s solution that “if you can’t get along, no one will have any.”

Over the years, the training involved more complex issues, and wasn’t always a matter of compromise. Rather, I learned that understanding another’s perspective, their wants or needs, made it much easier to find the “win, win” than if you remained fixated on what you wanted or needed. Acquiring this understanding took time up front, and it took the willingness to connect with the other person or group on a level that was broader and deeper than seeing them only as the other party. But, without exception, in the many years that I would ultimately negotiate multi-million dollar deals, agreements and settlements, if I could make this connection and speak in terms that addressed the other’s objectives, it led to a more creative and ultimately satisfying resolution for my client, and for the other party.

Today, in a world that measures time in Internet seconds, and that fills every moment with potential distractions, the discipline needed to take the time to do a truly great job and to make these deeper connections takes specialized mental training, the training of mindful leadership. Just as an athlete needs specialized training to excel, those in positions of influence need access to the mental training needed to allow them to bring all of their capabilities to bear.

Our frequently chaotic days entice us to live in an autopilot mode just to get through the day. We react quickly so we can try to find the light at the end of the tunnel. And yet, these are the times when I have found it is most necessary to stop, when I need to see clearly what is around me and how I am meeting what is here, and when I often most need to skillfully choose to respond with focus and compassion, rather than mindless reactivity. When we meet opportunities and challenges with skillful choices, we lead with excellence, rather than simply get things done.

This mental training is about more than making good deals. The women and men who make daily choices that affect others and that affect our world are also an underleveraged resource for addressing many of society’s issues. Not only do these people have the capacity to find the “win-win,” these people have the potential to find the “win-win-win,” the solution that is good for their organization, good for the other organization, AND good for the community.

It isn’t an impossible dream; in fact it may be our best hope. In the decades of working with influencers from government, for-profit, NGOs and non-profit organizations, most of the leaders I met were people with warm hearts and bright, analytical minds. And the ideal solution for all of them often included creating something that would benefit the organization they worked for and address the community issues in their neighborhoods, or in the world. But the ideal too easily can get hijacked by overloaded schedules and too many distractions, and it takes more than great analysis and a warm heart to change what has been decades in the making.

We need greater awareness from everyone, including those who already have a large ripple effect on society by the very nature of their current roles.

Mindful leadership training develops each person’s capacity to be fully aware of what is all around us and equally aware of what is deep inside. As we bring together the training of mindfulness and its specific applications to leadership challenges, we begin to develop the potential to lead with excellence-to lead with focus, clarity, creativity and compassion. We notice when we are on autopilot and when we are not really listening. We learn to stop, to ask what is called for in this situation rather than react by giving an answer from the “old playbook.”

In the stopping, we are able to listen deeply to our sense of right and wrong, our sense of equity, our caring hearts and the creativity of our minds. We can begin to ask the question, ‘Is there a ‘win-win-win’ here?” We can ask if it is possible today to make a choice that will have a positive ripple effect for our organizations, for our clients, customers and patients, and for our communities.

If you care to try a small taste of mindful leadership training, begin by taking a few moments right now to stop, allowing the body and mind to rest in the stillness and to touch the values at the core of who you are, and then ask yourself if an issue before you right now might have a “win-win… win” solution?

What does your runaway mind look like? Is it the worrying mind that shows up at 3am? Or the ‘to-do’ list that never stops growing? Perhaps it is the mind filled with anxious thoughts about your work or your family or your very survival in the midst of today’s unprecedented financial, political and wellbeing challenges.

Whichever runaway mind plagues your day and your night, its effects are detrimental. When your mind is incessantly busy, it can trigger a ‘fight or flight’ reaction to everyday moments. And that reactivity shows up in ways that do not support you or those around you. Rather than bringing your best self to these moments, you react with impatience, poor decision-making, anger, forgetfulness, exhaustion or sadness. And later, perhaps in the middle of the night, you find yourself wondering ‘why did I say that?’ or ‘why didn’t I handle that better?’. Your reactivity is understandable, but you can begin to meet the stresses of the day more skillfully with these 3 mindful leadership practices. I call these practices Purposeful Pauses and they are an integral part of the Mindful Leadership training that I have taught around the world.

1. Start your day from a place of clarity. Rather than beginning your day by reacting to the alarm by jumping out of bed and indulging your runaway brain from the moment you awaken, try being intentional about the start of your day. Check in with how your body is feeling as you head to the shower-are you still tired, well-rested, achy? And check in with your mind-are you already rehearsing for a meeting before you even get to the shower? Instead, bring your attention to the physical sensations of awakening and getting ready for the day. Let your mind and body feel connected and grounded. When you are ready, see if you can form an intention for the day. What is truly important for you to attend to today? This Purposeful Pauses only takes a few minutes but it can set up the entire day.
2. Stop at midday to reassess. It is important to stop at midday to reassess and to reconnect with your body and mind. When you are in fight or flight mode, reacting to the mind’s runaway train of thoughts, and to your body’s continuous busyness, you often begin to slip into living on autopilot. You run around putting out fires but you rarely are really present for these moments of your life. It is important to step off of autopilot and reinhabit your life more fully. So, at lunchtime, even if you have only 10 minutes, stop and reassess. Unplug from all technology and just eat your lunch. Nourish yourself. Then, if possible, sit quietly or go for a short walk. How are you doing with your intention for the day? If needed, make some modifications to reset your course.
3. Transition from work to home by setting boundaries. Leaders often have a hard time setting boundaries and, as a result, it begins to feel as if they are working 24/7. And, in fact, if you don’t learn to set some boundaries, you may actually be working 24/7. This is exhausting, and it is not sustainable. Learning to be very intentional about the transition from work to home can help you set boundaries and cultivate the space you need to be at your best. Whether you work from home or you commute, make the transition from work to personal time clear and routine. Turn off the computer and stay away from the desk if you work from home, or drive home without listening to voicemails or trying to read texts, or take whatever steps make sense for you. Defining a transition helps you to take the needed break between work and home so your body and mind get the signals that it is time to relax and let work go for now. These boundaries are at the heart of maintaining your resilience.

Practice with these 3 Purposeful Pauses each day to train the runaway brain to be more focused, clear and compassionate.

‘What went well?’ is as important to ask as ‘What went wrong?’

Have you ever noticed that your mind fixates on the answer to ‘What went wrong?’ turning the events over and over in your mind, analyzing and creating better alternatives to your reactions in the moment? The inner critic takes center stage and an event that took only a few moments can paint the entire day as ‘bad’. What is happening?

Neuroscientists explain this phenomenon as our brain’s innate negativity bias. The moments that we experience as unpleasant stick like glue. And the moments that are neutral or that we experience as pleasant are like Teflon and simply bounce off, barely noticed. If you consider the reasons for negativity bias from a survival point of view, it makes sense that those moments would be ones we would want to remember. For example, if eating those pretty red berries made our ancestors sick, the brain would want to embed that memory so we avoid those berries next time. It was a matter of survival.

Today, however, that same negativity bias can make a simple unpleasant conversation into the point of fixation for the entire day, or the memory that keeps us up at night. And with our mind so occupied with the recurring unpleasant memory, we can miss moments of joy and happiness, or make choices that we later see as unwise.

Is there anything we can do about this? Thankfully, the answer is yes. In the practices of Mindful Leadership training, we begin with two simple practices to begin to work with the negativity bias:

1. Notice that it is happening. Now that you understand what is likely to happen in your thinking, see if you can catch those times when you exaggerate the significance of a single event or comment. For example, when your friend asks you about your day, and you answer it was ‘horrible’, take a pause to look more clearly at the entirety of the day. Was the entire day horrible or was it just that awkward conversation that happened at 10 am? Was the entire day filled with horrible moments? Can you recall a few pleasant moments in the day?
2. Notice moments of joy. Begin to make a point of identifying pleasant or joyful moments in the day. Look for those simple moments that often go by without us noticing them…a smile from a friend, a delicious piece of fruit, the warmth of the sun. And see if you can take a few moments at the end of the day to ask yourself ‘what went well today?’.

Over time, you are retraining your mind to put difficult moments in the day into perspective, and you are training your mind to give equal notice to those moments that are pleasant, the moments that have the potential to enrich your experience of each day.