Center Yourself and Your Team in 3 Minutes (or Less)

You know how it feels to begin a meeting when all the attendees are wildly distracted. Most leaders are in back-to-back meetings, with barely enough time to go to the bathroom let alone collect themselves and their thoughts to be fully available.

At some point you’ve also probably experienced a guided grounding exercise that helped you and others let go of the stressors and unprocessed emotions of the day. Maybe it was led by a meditation teacher, a yoga instructor or some other wellness guru. Whenever possible, it’s powerful to have this kind of guidance. But you could also lead a centering exercise on your own. You don’t have to be an expert, just bring your intent for clarity and calm and let this 3 minute script below do the rest. Suggestion: read it slowly.

You may have heard the phrase go slow to go fast. Before we get in to the content of today’s meeting, let’s deliberately slow down for a few minutes. For this you can have your eyes open or closed.

Start to notice your breathing. As you breathe, where does it go, where does it flow?

[pause]

Notice the speed. Notice the depth of each breath.

[pause]

Next I invite you to feel your seat on the seat…

Feel your feet on the floor.

Observe all other points of contact – perhaps your arm resting on the chair.

[pause]

Now if your body was divided front and back, how much of your energy and awareness is in front of you? How much energy and awareness do you have behind you?

[pause]

If your body was divided left and right, how evenly distributed are you between the two sides?

[pause]

Now I invite you to scan your entire body, as if you were looking at it on a radar screen. What parts of your body blip on that screen and get your attention? Notice any areas of tension or tightness.

[pause]

Now once again, observe the breath. Noticing its speed, its rhythm.

Notice the depth of each breath.

[pause]

And now we’ll slowly return to the room, no need to hurry.

Note: You might debrief immediately afterwards to help participants digest and internalize this self-awareness process. Just ask for a volunteer or two to share:

• How was that for you?

• What shifted in you as you slowed down to observe your body?

How to Be that Zen Calm Leader - Be Proactive

Image by Evan Sharboneau

I often hear leaders say - how can I be more Zen in my leadership?

One assumption we often make is to assume there’s a magic switch that we can turn on or off. “I’m not centered. Yikes!” Flip a switch…”Now I’m centered.” As lovely as that would be, it’s unrealistic for two reasons. One, it’s never as black and white as that and there are variations in how present or centered we are. And two, if you’re trying to be more Zen - more calm, more clear and more centered - when that challenging moment is upon you, it’s already too late.

A lot of what happens in the moment can be anticipated in advance.

One way to cultivate more Zen in your leadership is to be proactive and strategic – know your self, know your triggers

Being proactive, stepping back and getting perspective - these three things can dramatically reduce spikes in your cortisol levels and help you be less frazzled in the moment.

Most people are not only busy, but they also confuse busy with productive. Habitual busyness often leads to lack of planning, poor choices and poor judgement. Cultivating presence is a conscious, strategic step that increases clarity. If you are always busy, frenetically busy, start saying no to anything that does not align with your key goals. Trim the fat in your calendar. Be ruthless. Polite and kind, yes, but ruthless about your focus and where your energy is to be aimed. Having better boundaries and saying no to things at both at work and at home is essential.  What percentage of time do you spend thinking strategically? How might you increase this by 1-5% each week? If you could get more done in less time it would be worth it, wouldn’t it?

Once you’ve made time for reflection, think back to the situations, events or people that typically cause you to lose your center. Triggers come, seemingly out of the blue, but even these follow patterns. Look for and become aware of your patterns.

It’s easy to become anxious or unbalanced when:
a. We’re in unfamiliar situations, people, places, events (people really underestimate how quickly and easily this happens).
When was the last time you were in a situation you’d never been in before?
What was new about it? How did you respond to this unfamiliar or uncertain condition?
What worked? What didn't?
What would you do differently if it happened again?

b. There’s a lack of trust – relationships that don’t have strong trust or conflicting styles and viewpoints.
When have you had to work closely with someone you didn’t trust or like?
What made it so difficult for you?
How did you find common ground? How did you consciously or unconsciously connect with that person? What worked? What didn’t?
What would you do differently if you were to work with them (or someone like them) in the future?

c. There are threats to your status, beliefs, sense of self
This takes a lot of self-awareness – definitely advanced work. (and it’s also linked to trust above)

When have you worked with someone who had a lot of power over you who was threatening in some way? When have long-held beliefs and your identity been challenged?
What went through your mind? How did you feel?
What was your body’s reaction? What enabled you to stay present?
What would you do differently if faced with the same (or similar) situation in the future?

d. Seasonal or project-based stressors are occurring – holiday season, back to school time, before or after time off, preparing for board meetings, an offsite, end-of-quarter, etc.

For some, back to school season or the holidays create an underlying build-up of stress.
For others it can even be more subtle, like the anniversary of the death of a loved one. Any or all of these can cause you to be off center without fully realizing it.
What seasons and stages in work or life are most stressful for you?
How do you know that you are off? What are the signs and signals that you are stressed?
When have you navigated some of these seasonal stressors with the most grace and ease?
How did you do it? Who or what helped to reduce the pressure and stress?
What could you do differently when faced with a particular seasonal stressor in the future?

e. Daily (“healthy”) routines that get disrupted.
We do our best to sleep well, eat well, exercise, etc…but what happens when we don’t and we can’t and we simply aren’t in control? What happens when even the very rituals that help sustain you are thrown off? I write this on a day that the power went out and I was dropped from a virtual meeting I was facilitating.
For a parent – the baby sleeps or doesn’t sleep. Or an aging parent or family member is needs unexpected care.
What happens when unknown or uncontrollable factors upset our continuum? This is when centering practice is most essential.
When was a time that you handled uncontrollable disruption well?
What were the factors that contributed to this? What might have been helpful that you didn’t do?
How will you know when it’s time to use that helpful thing in the future?

f. Unhealthy routines
Which of your regular routines may be hindering rather than helping your ability to be both awake and relaxed?
Do you check the news the moment you wake up – reading about the latest disaster and then start your entire day on your back foot rather than from center?  What daily habits help you stay present and calm? What daily habits take you away from center? What is one daily habit you might shift? How will you shift it? What could support you in making that shift? What might get in the way?  

Cultivating Zen in your leadership takes practice. It also entails being proactive, anticipating stressors in advance and maintaining perspective.
We invite you to pause…step back from life for a moment and take a conscious breath. Just doing that, right here, right now, is being more Zen in your leadership.

Why you should get centered (with your team) at the start of a meeting

Have you heard the phrase or perhaps said it yourself - we’ve got to go slow to go fast?

Here’s one of my favorite ways to do just that. When I lead or facilitate a group coaching session, before we dive into the content of our session, we often start with a 3-minute guided self-awareness practice. Are you cringing? I was. Initially, anyway. Risky, right? Particularly with my most senior level sales leaders who had not dabbled in meditation. But when I tested the waters with them I was shocked with both the results and the response.

They became really quiet. And still.

Then they said: “Can we do that at the start of all of our calls?”

It was also surprising how much doing this helped me, even as leader of the call. I may have done my best to be present before getting on a call, but if the group was anxious or stressed, I would start feeling anxious too. I probably underestimated how much performativity was a factor. Whenever we really really want to do a good job - the body revs with stress hormones naturally even if we aren’t aware or attuned to it. Doing an awareness practice together helps everyone slow down, arrive, and let go of all the prior conversations, meetings and tasks.

I deliberately bring my clients attention to their body and their breath because I’ve found this to be the fastest way to help them (and me) settle the nervous system. It’s how we get “back online” out of anxiety or stress patterns. [For more background on how the brain and body react to uncertainty check out this short video]

Clients have not only asked for this, they’ve also emulated it at the start of their own meetings. They report the following results:

• less fear and uncertainty

• team is more engaged, connected

• more intelligent and productive meetings

• more collaboration and participation from everyone

• we feel more relaxed, happier, flexible, fluid, creative

Intrigued and curious about this topic? Here’s a bit more on why presence matters and what one client taught me about the power of being still.

ps…
You don’t have to be a yoga teacher or meditation guru in order to guide the group. I’ve created a 3-minute script you can use. Easy peasy. Contact me if you’d like a copy.

Oprah & Avatar on Leadership: The Gift of Presence

I just watched the movie Avatar again last weekend. It is probably my favorite movie of all time. It speaks to me on so many levels. One of the most powerful phrases used in this movie is “I see you.” It is used in the tribe of the Na'vi to convey unity between two souls.

In sanskrit, the greeting Namaste holds the same essence.

Namasté represents the idea that all are one. It affirms that beneath the outer trappings that make you appear different from others, you are made of the same stuff. You are more the same than you are different. - The Chopra Center

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In 2014 Oprah spoke to graduate students a Stanford sharing her journey and her thoughts on life-path and leadership. Watch this sometime. It’s an hour so perhaps watch as an alternative to the latest binge-worthy TV series, or after you watch Avatar again. There are numerous insights in Oprah’s words, but I’ll focus on one for now. She describes how across the range of everyone she has ever interviewed from movie stars to presidents at the end of the interview when they walk off stage the question they ask is always the same: “How’d it go?” Translation: Did I do okay? Oprah concludes that everyone, no matter how successful, wants to be seen. They want to know that who they are - their being - is enough. The message for all of us as leaders and compassionate human beings is to give that gift of seeing another. It’s the gift you give when you are still, listening without any agenda, fully present. Listening as to put yourself in their shoes, feel their struggle, their strife. Not needing to fix it or solve it, but just being there with them. It’s from that place of stillness and presence that you can honestly say, “I see you.”

Oprah demonstrates this in real time while onstage for this talk. She shows her ability to see others in the way she compliments Amanda, her interviewer. She offers words like, “That is such a great question,” and “You must have been up all night,” referring to the rigor and mental processing Amanda did beforehand. In silicon valley, imposter syndrome runs rampant. Am I good enough? and more specifically, am I smart enough? This question trembles silently and is stored deep under the pressures felt by those drawn to it’s heat, like moths to a flame. Oprah gives Amanda a gift by staying present, by answering the questions that are asked as well as those that aren’t asked (at least not verbally), but heard because she was still enough to hear them.

So what’s the takeaway? What action might we distill from this? (Sigh) Does it always have to be about action? If yes, and you can’t help yourself either, here’s what I’ve got for you:

1. Cultivate your capacity to be still enough to listen. Set aside what you have to say and be open to what someone else needs to share. Listen fully. It’s not just the compassionate thing to do, it’s how trust begins to take root.

2. Name what you see in another. Recognize the contributions they are making, how they impress you. Not in a grandious way, just literally im-press, as if they’ve made an imprint.

3. Remember (over and over again, because it’s easy to forget). It is a gift to be known: to be seen, to be heard. Perhaps the greatest gift of our time.