The Modern Malang
Meditation Benefits - The Modern Malang | Shanze Sumreen Faiz | Ali Rehman
We as human need physical food and spiritual food. Meditation is a life skill. Our mental and physical health depends a lot on our emotional health. Mental trauma and mental dissatisfaction (disorder) starts converting into physical imbalance.
Meditation is an art. It is disconnecting self from outer world, connecting self with our inner and then reconnecting back to the world. Prayer is meditation. We isolate from the world, connect to our inner self. Forehead is commanding center, we ground it. We align our focus. We see a lot of signs along the road but we don't register them. We note any unusual sign though. Concept of Modern Malang by Shanze Sumreen Faiz.
meeting the people, understand their emotions, watch their sufferings and how they overcome their situations. It's human self who can overcome his feelings. This helps you to evolve. Its highly rewarding, sometimes challenging. You don't know the potential we have. We have to move in water then can know the depth of water. Jumping in water needs some life saving tools. Find some safe space, open up yourself and then thrive in life. Intact privacy is base.
[Mehfil-e-Sammat - The Modern Malang
Mehfil e Samat is the transformational, venting, listening and fearlessly pouring your heart out in a safe environment amongst like-minded or similarly challenged people in an exclusive group of 10-15 people being there for each other morally, compassionately, selflessly, and empathetically in weekly gatherings. Learn More دا ماڈرن ملنگ ]
This is support group, it's knowledge hearing. [دا ماڈرن ملنگ
[What Problems Can We Solve Better?
Whether you’re seeking support for caregiving, addiction, depression, anxiety, or another mental health issue, overcoming your unease and attending a venting session can be a valuable step toward healing.
The session is a customized gathering of 10-15 people facing common issues to share what’s troubling them. Through the sharing of experiences, they’re able to offer support, encouragement, and comfort to the other group members, and receive the same in return.
When you’re going through a challenging or traumatic time, family members and friends may sympathize, but they don’t always know what to say or the best ways to help. Doctors and health professionals may sometimes offer minor emotional support, but their primary focus is always medical.
These venting sessions are developed to join people together who are dealing with similar difficult circumstances. That may be coping with a specific emotional mental or physical health issue like depression, anxiety, bereavement, or addiction, going through divorce or breakup, cooping up with the loss of dear ones to death, business challenges, or annoying boss at work undergoing medical treatments for cancer or insomnia for example, or caring for a family member or friend facing such a problem. Whatever issues you or a loved one are facing, though, the best medicine can often be the voice of people who will hear to help you out without being judgmental and opinionated.
This is a safe place where you can get information that’s practical, constructive, and helpful. You’ll have the benefit of encouragement, and you’ll learn more about coping with your problems through shared experiences.
Hearing from others facing similar challenges can also make you feel less alone in your troubles. While it’s perfectly normal to feel reticent, anxious, or apprehensive about joining such activity, where you are vulnerable and completely open about your challenge, we at the Modern Malang safeguard your interest with complete privacy by undertaking the oath from the participants on signed NDA. What is discussed in the session stays in the session and only participants takes away the knowledge and techniques with them not gossip material to discuss outside the circle.]
Maraqba - مراقبہ observation, divine contemplation, meditation, mediety, meditated, meditance; you can practice when walking.
Some techniques are useful for some personalities (lifestyles). 5 min to 40 min a day. 20 minutes morning 20 min evening. 5 times prayers.
Does a stimulus (music, sound, zikr) helps or blank mind works for meditation? Mind never stays blank. In prayers, we get some thoughts. But we don't quit prayers due to thoughts.
In meditation, breaths are right stimulus. Focus on breathing. Zikr, tasbeeh, blue lights, moonlight, green light, sound etc. Zikr is on the top.
About future plans, present moment is the best strategy. Then things start moving as per your will. [Al-Insan (Man) 76:30 وَمَا تَشَاؤُونَ إِلَّا أَن يَشَاء اللَّهُ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ عَلِيمًا حَكِيمًا But you cannot will it unless God wills [to show you that way]: for, behold, God is indeed all-seeing, wise.]
Life coaching became the base of understanding people's mindsets, approaches. It led me to start 'Modern Malang'. Mostly we people are stuck in thanklessness. Meditation is thankfulness, what we have. Then our focus automatically transforms from 'what we don't have' to 'what we have'. It's a journey from thanklessness to thankfulness.
World is a magic toy. When you run behind it, it runs fast. But when you ignore, it follows you.
Modern Malang coaching: we do in groups and individual level.
[10 Work-Life Balance Tips: Your Complete Guide for 2022
5 positive effects of balancing work and personal life
Why does managing your work-life balance even matter? Here are five positive effects a balanced lifestyle can have:
1. Less stress
When you’re more intentional about your work and your personal time and find yourself achieving better harmony, you may feel less stressed overall. Creating more balance allows you to deal with your day-to-day stresses in a healthy way.
2. Lower risk of burnout
Feeling overworked can lead you to being emotionally exhausted and becoming detached from your work. Better balance between work and personal priorities lowers the risk of burnout caused by work-related stresses and pressures.
3. Increased productivity and creativity
Stress and burnout can start to have an impact on the quality of your work. A balanced approach to work, where you regularly switch off, can leave you feeling more refreshed and, ultimately, being more productive. Removing constant stress also creates space for new ideas and may lead to clear, more creative thinking.
4. Greater sense of well-being
Ultimately, a balanced life is often a healthier life. A better balance between work and life priorities can lead to greater life satisfaction and overall well-being. If and when you feel like you’re making time for all the things that matter to you, you may feel like you’re truly being more successful.
5. Higher retention rate
Finally, for any managers and employers reading this, note that balanced workers are happier workers. Research by Oxford University also found that happy workers are more productive.
10 tips for improving your work-life balance
So now that you know why creating work-life balance is essential, let’s take a look at how you can work to achieve this. Below are some work-life balance techniques and tips to incorporate into your own life.
Doing everything on this list is a Herculean task. Don’t let any overachiever tendencies put even more pressure on you to seek perfection in work-life balance. Instead, work on incremental improvements. Every step you make toward better balance is a step in the right direction.
Pro tip: Don’t expect to be able to do all this at once!
1. Accept that it won’t be perfect
First things first—and this one is important, so pay attention—accept that your work-life balance won’t always be perfect.
We have some excellent advice for you below. But remember, creating the perfect balance for your personal needs may not happen overnight. In fact, pursuing this complex goal is a work in progress for most people. Give yourself grace as you figure out what balance looks like for you and how you can get closer to achieving it in your personal and work life.
And, of course, even when you think you have everything figured out, there will always be days that are a little out of balance. Remind yourself that it’s OK. There is no one perfect schedule. Tomorrow is a brand new day, with another opportunity to attempt work-life balance again.
With that said, let’s jump right in to discuss how you can start managing your work-life balance.
2. Set your priorities
“The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
– Stephen Covey
Start by making a list of your daily priorities—apart from work, of course. This also doesn’t mean making a list of chores you have to do at home. Often we prioritize our work and household chores, and then find ourselves with precious little time to do any of the things we actually enjoy doing.
Stop and think about what is important for you or what you would like to include in each day. This could include family time, exercise, hobbies, good sleep, and anything else that matters to you. It’s time to start making time for these things.
This way, you can make sure your work (and chores) gets done, but you also won’t lose sight of other aspects that make you feel balanced. In this article about a day in the life of a freelancer, we discuss setting priorities and how to use them to build your “Ideal Day” routine.
Being mindful of your priorities each day helps you set reasonable boundaries for yourself. You may have to change the way you do things and learn to let go (or reset) your own standards of perfection. Consider hiring help if it’s in your budget. You could try to spread chores across family members instead of trying to do it all yourself.
Sometimes it’s a matter of becoming more organized and learning to manage your time better. Set up systems and processes at home (and work) that empower you to accomplish all your to-dos while still leaving time for other activities in your day.
Incorporating a good balance of work and personal activities each day will definitely make you happier, and also help keep burnout at bay.
3. Play to your strengths and delegate other work
You don’t have to do it all. Really! Whether you’re a solopreneur or a manager, learn to do what you’re good at and delegate where you can.
Focus your attention on your strengths. For example, as an independent professional, your strength may lie in designing websites for clients. But you also need to take care of your business books. Hire a bookkeeper and delegate that work to an expert.
This also applies to your personal life. If you’re a parent working from home with your kids around, you don’t have to try to be the perfect worker and parent at the same time. Ask for help. Delegate the tasks you can.
4. Learn to say “no”
If you’re a people pleaser—like many of us are—you may find setting boundaries and saying no to something challenging, even uncomfortable. Declining a request for help can be especially hard if you feel like you may be letting your boss, colleague, or even a family member down.
However, if you genuinely want to create a more balanced lifestyle, you have to start making the most of the power of “no.” Every time you say yes to extra work, you’re likely saying no to family time. Conversely, every time you’re saying yes to a family member dropping in during work hours, you’re saying no to the most productive workday.
Set your boundaries and empower yourself to stick to them. Learn to say no with confidence. Don’t spend any time regretting your decision.
5. Focus on achieving results
People are action-oriented creatures. We complete one task and move on to the next one, easily getting caught up in always trying to do more.
You may get a false productivity high just because you’ve done a billion different things today. But how much of that work actually matters?
Instead of focusing your energy on doing as much as you can every day, shift to focusing on valuable results. It’s not about working harder; it’s about doing work that creates maximum impact. This ties back to setting priorities. Work on the most important things on your task list.
This may mean doing only two things in one day, but if you successfully finish those two things, you’ll end your day with a feeling of achievement and confidence. This will also help you feel “at peace,” making switching off at the end of the workday easier so you can enjoy your personal time guilt-free.
6. Set your working hours and stick to them
Setting boundaries also means setting and communicating fixed work hours. This is especially important when you’re working remotely from home or if you’re a freelancer. It’s so easy just to work every waking hour when your computer is literally an arm’s length away.
Set your specific work hours. Having set hours will help you switch off at the end of the day. You don’t have to feel tethered to your work 24/7.
When you stick to those hours, any time outside of that is your personal time. If you have the flexibility to choose your work hours, let managers or clients know about your availability. Many calendars and communication tools let you set office hours, so others receive notifications that messages will be held until you’re back at work.
Similarly, if you work from home, also let family members or anyone else you share your space with know when your work hours are. By holding their non-emergency concerns until the workday is done, they’re likely to get more focused attention from you.
Of course, there will be times when your workday will bleed into your personal day because of an important project. That’s OK! As long as you strive for balance on most days, occasionally working outside of your set hours won’t destroy your work-life balance attempts.
7. Schedule personal time in your calendar
Most of us have good intentions when it comes to our personal lives. We want to take more breaks, spend more time with our families, and maybe even pursue a hobby. But the reality is, we get caught up in work, and all those good intentions go out the window.
One way to prevent this is by firmly planning and scheduling personal time into your calendar. Take a look at the priorities we discussed at the start of this article. What are your daily “must-dos”? Think about how you’re going to fit these into your day.
For example, if you want to play a sport once a week, add it to your calendar. It now becomes a concrete plan versus just a vague wish. You can also do this for time with family and friends. Making a calendar entry not only helps you stick to your good intention, but it keeps others from scheduling something into an apparently open slot.
You may have a hectic schedule, but ultimately managing your time is within your control. Making use of your calendar for personal time will help you intentionally create the balance you’re craving in your life.
8. Prioritize your physical and mental health
Too often, people burn out. They hit a wall, with physical and mental health breakdowns, only then realizing that it’s time to deal with the lack of balance in their lives.
Make your health a priority. Start with something as simple as a daily walk or making the time to meditate. Set a timer to remind yourself to get up from your desk for a few minutes every hour.
Do whatever you need to do to suit your individual health needs, but actually do it. Don’t just think about it for the future. Eat healthy meals. Get enough sleep. Take a mental health day every once in a while. Don’t be afraid to call in sick on days you’re feeling rough. (The pandemic has taught us that going to a shared workspace while toughing through a cough, cold, or fever is exactly the wrong thing to do to support your co-workers.)
When you’re busy, it’s easy to deprioritize your own self-care and health. But if you find yourself going too many days without taking care of your health, stop and make self-care a priority again. Being healthy will help you show up better at work and in your personal life.
9. Take vacations
The pandemic put many of our holiday plans on hold for a few years. This led to many of us constantly working. For lots of folks, the idea of a vacation didn’t even cross our minds!
But the truth is vacations are important. They help us to refresh our minds, recharge our batteries, and come back with renewed energy and focus. A vacation doesn’t have to mean an expensive trip away. You can take a short staycation at home—as long as you promise to switch off!
If you’re an employee, use all your vacation days. Go on that holiday and decompress. If you’re self-employed, plan ahead so you can take a vacation with minimal impact to your business.
Taking a vacation will help you decompress and come back to work feeling mentally and physically recharged.
10. Don’t be afraid to unplug
With email and Slack on our phones and a round-the-clock work culture, unplugging from technology can be very hard. But finding yourself becoming increasingly obsessed with staying connected may be a sign to unplug, for a little while at least.
Unplugging yourself every once in a while can help you reset. This important break allows your mind to stop being in a constant “doing” mode. Switch off from the daily stress and the constant barrage of notifications to allow space for creativity and ideas.
So when work pressure all seems like too much, making you feel like you have to work more—don’t. Next time, take a break. Don’t be afraid to unplug. You may come back feeling more refreshed and empowered to tackle your challenges.
Bonus tip: Take it slow
As we said before, you don’t have to try to achieve everything in one day. Don’t let your work-life balance improvement attempts become a failed-by-February New Year’s resolution.
Start with one of the techniques from above. Try to change one aspect of your life. If you don’t exercise at all, start by exercising once a week. Once that starts to feel normal, work your way up and increase it to two or three days. Then, incorporate something new.
Take things slow, and you’ll be much more likely to succeed.
Only you can find the lifestyle balance that suits you
There’s no magic formula to finding balance; yours may look very different from that of your co-workers or friends. It’s up to you to set your priorities and create a lifestyle balance that works best for your needs. Remember that your work-life balance is a result of your own choices.
If the work you do is making it impossible to find balance, perhaps it’s time to make a change. Sometimes, achieving work-life balance can involve making a tough decision, like quitting your job for one that allows for better balance.
In fact, this is often why so many professionals worldwide choose to become freelancers and become their own bosses. Upwork’s Freelance Forward report found that freelancing is growing, with flexibility and freedom being the key motivators for both new and existing freelancers.
The pandemic put many aspects of life into perspective, including career satisfaction. The increase in freelancing, specifically among highly skilled and educated workers, tells us that many professionals elected to reprioritize some aspects of their professional lives. Freelancing allows you to create flexibility in your life and prioritize the people and things that matter most to you. ]
Emotional intelligence is most often defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. People with high emotional intelligence can recognize their own emotions and those of others, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, and adjust emotions to adapt to environments.
]
4 ways to identify your core (identity) self
An impactful leader builds genuine connections with people. The challenge is that not every leader has a natural talent in building these meaningful connections. The great news is that you can get really good at it with intention. The trick lies in the ability to first really connect with yourself. Sounds cheesy, we know, but it’s undeniably true.
While it seems simple, connecting with oneself requires a great deal of reflection and self-awareness. It is about looking inward and consistently paying attention to your own internal cues.
Those internal cues aren’t loud and alarming, though. You need to be able to identify your core self so you can build strong relationships and achieve your vision. Keep reading for four tips on identifying your core self!
#1: Know your strengths
One of the biggest mistakes we make is overlooking our strengths and the strengths of others. Our strengths are our key differentiators – the things that make us great and give us energy. The things that make us unforgettable. The things that make us FEEL awesome!
If you are trying to figure out what your strengths are, you can start out by asking yourself the following questions:
Once you are able to easily connect with your own strengths you are able to more easily reflect on the strengths of others. This, our friend, is where the magic lies. When you are able to recognize, celebrate, and honor the true strengths of others, you are able to make them feel GREAT! They connect with their own positive energy source, make contributions that make them feel proud, and feel recognized for the amazing person they are. Who WOULDN’T connect with you positively if you made them feel great about themselves?
#2: Clarify your purpose
Purpose drives performance, and performance drives results. Figure out what fuels your soul and the impact you intend to have. Make sure you are designing your life, your work, and your relationships to align with your purpose. Communicate to others about what your intentions are so they can see how they fit in and work together with them to get there. Keep your purpose front and center always so it acts as your North Star. It will provide clarity on direction, ease decision making, guide strategy, and ultimately navigate your relationships.
It is also important to seek to understand the purpose of others. Since purpose drives behavior, it will help you to understand what is driving them, which can then be useful as you try to connect and work effectively together. If they are not clear on their purpose, this is a great opportunity for you to help them get clarity and use the discussion as an opportunity to build a strong relationship!
#3: Explore your values
Knowing your values is an extension of understanding your needs. Think of your values like bumper lanes in a bowling alley. They are helpful in guiding others in how to work well with you. When you are sure about what you stand for (and against), you are able to truly understand what you need out of life and relationships. When you are able to reflect on what your values are, you can more easily help others understand how to work with you effectively. Our values don’t always match the values of others, and this is okay. When you keep your values front and center and speak to them frequently, others have clarity on how to connect with you in ways that work for you. You also then have a natural lens for seeking clarity on others’ values and how you can work with them in effective and meaningful ways to mutually strengthen the relationship.
#4: Define your style
In the words of Ralph Lauren:
“Personal style is about having a sense of yourself and what you believe in everyday.”
Knowing your style isn’t just about knowing your taste in music, clothes or books. It is about knowing yourself well enough to know what you like, want and need out of life. Style is a reflection of who you are, and knowing who you are allows for self-awareness and confidence. When you engage with others and are self-aware and confident, you allow them to know who you are and they naturally understand how to connect with you, read you, and work with you to achieve results.
We work with leaders like you every day and would love to help you strengthen your connection with yourself and others so you have what you need to live your best life from this point forward. If you want to set a direction for yourself that ensures you achieve the impact you are meant to have, feel free to contact us regarding our leadership coaching programs.
**P.S. be on the lookout for the next article about How You Show Up – Actions that Build Relationships for more tips and tricks on nurturing the relationships that matter in your life.]
[WHAT IS MINDFUL LEADERSHIP? WHY IS IT ESSENTIAL FOR SUCCESS?
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could make a simple inner shift that improved every aspect of your leadership, while also increasing your happiness? You can. This simple shift is the art and science of mindful leadership.
What is mindful leadership? Mindful leadership is a leadership practice focused on cultivating very high levels of self-awareness, wisdom, and self-mastery, allowing a leader to bring his or her best self to all aspects of leadership and daily life, and to inspire greatness in others. Mindful leadership significantly improves both the “soft” and “hard” skills of emotional intelligence and business acumen.
In this article, we’ll explore why mindful leadership is a must-have for leaders and offer you an introduction to the practice of mindful leadership that will help you to be a more effective, mindful leader without having to add anything to your schedule.
Mindul leadership is the essential skill for leadership effectiveness.
An Overview of Mindful Leadership
The practice of mindful leadership involves integrating mindfulness into every aspect of leadership and daily life, the intentional cultivation of highly-ethical behavior, and the cultivation of highly-refined self-knowledge (wisdom).
At its core, the practice of mindful leadership is a systematic way of developing very high levels of self-awareness.
As nearly all leaders agree, self-awareness is the most important leadership skill for leaders to develop.
Self-awareness is a meta skill that positively affects every other leadership skill.
As a leader’s self-awareness becomes increasingly refined, she or he cultivates a level of self-knowledge (wisdom) that allows her or him to realize high levels of self-mastery.
In addition to the countless personal stories of people developing very refined levels of self-awareness, there is also a growing body of research in neuroscience suggesting that the practice of mindfulness reshapes the brain in ways that allow you to be more self-aware and have more refined self-awareness.
One of the first studies to suggest this was carried out by Harvard neuroscientist Sara Lazar and her colleagues in 2005.
Their research showed that areas of the brain related to self-awareness are measurably thicker in the brains of experienced mindfulness practitioners when compared to controls.
Other studies have shown that experienced practitioners have very refined levels of self-awareness, like this one from neuroscientist Boris Bonermann.
The researchers found that after only 6-9 months of training, mindfulness practitioners performed measurably better in their ability to notice and accurately report their own heartbeat rate than controls who were not trained in mindfulness.
Because the practice of mindful leadership significantly improves self-awareness, the practice also improves every leadership skill affected by self-awareness.
Below is a list of some of the most important results of improved by mindful leadership training, which we’ll expand on later:
Higher levels of emotional intelligence
More inspiring, effective leadership presence
Better decision-making skills
Better business acumen
Being more innovative
Improved strategic thinking
Better team-building skills
Freedom from the ego
Integrity that inspires true greatness in others
Why Mindful Leadership Is A Must-Have Practice for Leaders
Higher Levels of Emotional Intelligence
It is now widely understood that emotional intelligence skills are essentially, by definition, leadership skills.
Different from management skills, leadership skills are about inspiring high levels of performance in team members. And, every competency related to inspiring performance in others falls somewhere under the umbrella of emotional intelligence.
The core competency of emotional intelligence is self-awareness.
Because mindfulness training is essentially synonymous with self-awareness training, mindfulness training is a systematic way of developing emotional intelligence.
Following this logic, it should be clear that mindfulness training is perhaps the best tool there is for developing higher levels of emotional intelligence. And, as you would expect, there is a growing body of research suggesting that this is indeed the case.
The picture below shows some of those studies as listed in the “notes and resources” section of the mindful leadership book, The Mindfulness Edge.
Other than the core competency of self-awareness, I believe that the two most critical emotional intelligence competencies are self-regulation and empathy.
Self-regulation is what allows you to be free from the grip of unpleasant emotions that would otherwise undermine our productivity and your ability to effectively lead team members.
Empathy is, in my opinion, the very essence of the most effective leadership.
When you truly understand the legitimate needs of team members and do whatever you can to help team members meet those needs, you build the influence that is the hallmark of highly-effective, inspiring leadership.
As you might have guessed, self-regulation and empathy are two well-known benefits of mindfulness training with a large body of supporting research suggesting that mindfulness improves both skills.
More Inspiring, Effective Leadership Presence
Another benefit of self-regulation is that it is a key component having a leadership presence that attracts others to you and inspires greatness and those around you.
I think we can all agree that given the choice, we would much rather follow somebody who is calm and collected during a crisis than somebody who is frantic and has completely lost control of his or her emotions.
In addition to helping you develop the self-regulation that improves your leadership presence, mindful leadership training also helps you to be more present with people when you are interacting with them.
In fact, the foundational practice of mindfulness is learning to recognize when you have become distracted by thinking and allow your awareness to open to include what else is happening right now.
Although being present with people may seem like a very minor detail, I believe that such presence is perhaps the most powerful way to demonstrate that you truly care about a person.
You’ve almost certainly had conversations with people, probably very recently, in which the person you were speaking with seems distracted and is either lost in thought, looking around, or, even worse, interacting with a device like a computer or a smart phone.
You know how that feels. It feels as though the person you are speaking with does not care about you. They may want to care about you, but they are clearly not demonstrating care in that moment.
Conversely, hopefully you have had an experience in which you were interacting with someone who you hold in high regard, and when that person was interacting with you she or he made you feel as though you were the most important person that she was going to interact with all day.
You know how that feels, too. It feels incredible. You feel truly cared for, and you’re very likely to do your best to help that person, not because you have to, but because you want to.
Better Decision-Making Skills
Another benefit of self-regulation is that it helps to improve decision-making skills.
It is now widely understood that being caught in an unpleasant emotion – often referred to by emotional intelligence experts like Daniel Goleman as an “amygdala hijack” – has a significant, negative impact on your ability to make good decisions.
The more powerful the emotion, and the more caught you are in that emotion, the worse your decisions will be.
Because mindfulness is so effective at helping you to regulate emotion and develop the ability to become free from the grip of unpleasant emotions, mindful leadership training can help you to significantly improve your ability to make sound decisions, even during demanding situations.
Better Business Acumen
Business acumen is generally defined as the ability to handle a business situation in a way that leads to a positive outcome.
From a purely financial perspective, business acumen is your ability to have a positive impact and the profit and loss statement (P&L).
Over the long term, it has become crystal clear to me that the leadership skills (people skills / emotional intelligence skills) have the greatest impact on the P&L.
Senior leaders can develop an incredible strategy, but if team members are cared for by their leaders, even the best strategy will never be executed properly, if it all.
That being said, leaders are often put under tremendous pressure to have a positive impact on the P&L in the short term.
The practice of mindful leadership, and the self-awareness that it develops, is the surprising bridge between the leadership skills of inspiring greatness in others, and making an immediate and direct impact on the P&L.
Nearly every leader knows what they need to do to have a positive impact on the P&L, but very few actually have a consistent, positive impact on the bottom line.
Extensive research conducted by the prestigious Perth Leadership Institute has made it clear that the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it is created by a common psychological phenomenon called a cognitive bias.
A cognitive bias causes a person to take a sub optimal, often irrational, course of action.
There are various cognitive biases that result in courses of action that have a direct impact on the P&L.
The research conducted by the Perth leadership Institute has identified five cognitive biases that correlated very strongly with gross margins, and five cognitive biases that are correlated very strongly with expenses.
Almost everyone is affected adversely to varying degrees by most, if not all, of the 10 cognitive biases that impact gross margins and expenses. Theses cognitive biases have been programmed into you based on your genetics and your life experiences up to the present moment.
The good news is that you do not have to be controlled by your cognitive biases.
The more refined your self-awareness is the greater freedom you have from the control of those cognitive biases.
By systematically training self-awareness, you can systematically train yourself to be less constrained by cognitive biases, and thereby have a significantly better impact on the P&L.
Because the cognitive biases that negatively affect the P&L are usually completely unconscious for most people, even a slight improvement in self-awareness can make an immediate impact on financial performance.
For instance, in the business acumen training that we offer to leaders, we always begin by having participants complete the assessment created by the Perth leadership Institute that measures the degree to which they are affected by the 10 cognitive biases that have the most direct impact on the P&L.
After completing the assessment, we help participants see which cognitive biases are affecting them most.
As soon as they become aware of these subtle aspects of their personality, they often make a significant, positive impact on the P&L within days or weeks of taking the assessment.
Soon after taking the assessment and being made aware of their cognitive biases, we have had leaders report back that they made a decision that they would not have made prior to taking the assessment that saved their organization tens of thousands of dollars.
Although the training and development of self-awareness will likely be a lifelong endeavor for most of us, mindful leadership training can help you to significantly increase your freedom from the control of cognitive biases almost immediately, thereby allowing you to have a significantly better impact on the P&L with the next decision we make.
For example, Andrew Hafenbrack, a neuroscientist at the prestigious European business school INSEAD, along with his colleagues, conducted a study in which two groups of people were asked to make a decision that was likely to be adversely affected by a well-known cognitive bias called the sunk-cost bias.
The sunk-cost bias refers to the tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made even if it is not wise to do so.
One group was guided through 15 minutes of mindfulness practice prior to being faced with the decision. The other group was not.
In the group did no mindfulness training, 50% of the participants fell prey to get the sunk cost bias.
Incredibly, though, only 22% of the participants who practiced mindfulness prior to making the decision fell prey to the cognitive bias.
If just 15 minutes of mindfulness training can have such an incredible impact on one’s ability to be free from cognitive biases, imagine what consistent daily training would do for you.
Being More Innovative
The practice of mindful leadership helps boost a leader’s ability to innovate, as well as the team’s ability to innovate, in several key ways.
Mindful leadership can help you to be freer from the cognitive bias that most inhibits innovation, to be more open to failure, and to reduce the fear of failure in team members.
Freedom from the Status Quo Bias
According to the extensive research conducted by the prestigious Perth Leadership Institute, mentioned above, there is a cognitive bias that kills innovation. It’s called the status quo bias.
As its name implies, this bias results in people avoiding doing things that challenge the status quo.
The research shows that roughly 90% of leaders are naturally wired to be affected adversely by the status quo bias. It seems that most people are wired to value fitting in with the group over doing things that challenge the majority view of the group.
As you would likely guess, the status quo bias kills innovation because innovation is, essentially, a solution that disrupts the status quo.
People who are affected very little by the status quo bias, or not all, are the exact opposite. They tend to thrive on challenging the status quo.
This, of course, is great for innovation. However, it’s not so good for getting along with others.
People who are affected very little by the status quo bias, or not all, often need to work hard to cultivate the people skills necessary for effective leadership.
Thus, mindful leadership is helpful for both types of people.
For people who are not affected by the status quo bias, the practice helps to develop the essential emotional intelligence skills required to lead well.
For people who are affected by the status quo bias, mindfulness helps develop greater freedom from the effects of the bias, which can dramatically improve a leader’s ability to innovate.
Openness to Failure
Many people tend to think of innovation is something that happens in a vacuum.
They envision a person who sits around thinking of the next great idea, and then “bam” it just comes to them.
While this does happen from time to time (Steve Jobs at Apple is a perfect example) this is by far the exception and not the rule.
Generally speaking, innovation is something that happens as the result of building a minimum viable solution and testing that solution with people who will actually use it.
This is followed by getting feedback from actual users on the solution and then going back and making changes as necessary to ensure that the solution is adding the most value possible for the end user.
This is why one of the key principles for innovation at Google, arguably one of the most innovative companies in the world, is to “Launch early and iterate often”
This iterative approach requires an openness, and even a willingness to fail.
In fact, another common attribute of innovative teams is that they are not only are tolerant of failure, they actually expect it and even demand it.
The faster you can fail, the more quickly you can get to the solution that’s going to add significant value for the user.
The practice of mindfulness can help improve your tolerance for failure in a couple ways.
First, a benefit of the practice is greater freedom from fear. The practice of mindfulness allows you to have less fear in general, and to recover from fear more quickly when it does arise.
By having greater freedom from fear in general, you are less likely to be adversely affected by the fear of failure.
When you are not adversely affected by the fear of failure, you are much more likely to try things that could end up iterating into an innovative solution that adds tremendous value for the end user of the solution.
Second, the practice of mindfulness is, by nature of its difficulty, the practice of failure.
If you’ve been practicing for more than 5 minutes, you already know that the ability to remain mindfully self-aware is incredibly elusive.
You habitually revert back to identifying with your thoughts, often to the point of being distracted by them, over and over and over again.
If you are going to engage in mindfulness training seriously, you have to be open to the fact that you will fail many, many, more times than you will “succeed.”
Thus, the practice of mindfulness can gradually increase your tolerance and even your willingness to seek out failure.
Removal of Fear
Because the practice of mindful leadership develops emotional intelligence competencies as well as the qualities of kindness and compassion and generosity, a mindful leader is much more likely to create a team culture where people are not afraid to take calculated risks and try new things.
By removing fear from the workplace, mindful leaders can increase the team’s capacity for innovation tremendously.
Improved Strategic Thinking
You have likely noticed that when you’re caught up in the day-to-day minutiae it’s very hard to think at the strategic level.
Leaders often intentionally square away time, by taking retreats or carving out moments in the day to step away from day-to-day activities, so that they can gain the highly prized “30,000-foot view,” as it is often called.
Personally, I travel quite frequently to present keynote speeches and training on mindful leadership. I find that, almost comically, I tend to do some of my best strategic thinking when I am literally at 30,000 feet on an airplane just looking out of the window.
I’ve also noticed the same effect after just a few moments of formal mindfulness training.
I am not alone. This effect of being able to think more strategically is commonly reported by leaders who practice mindful leadership.
They often report that mindfulness training allows them to let go of all the thinking tied to the minute details of day-to-day operations and open the mind up to think at more strategic levels.
My friend, Janice Marturano, one of the leaders in the field of mindful leadership, measured this precisely after guiding 80 leaders from 12 organizations through her Cultivating Leadership Presence through Mindfulness© retreat.
Nearly 70% of the participants reported that the training made a positive difference in their ability to think strategically.
Better Team Building Skills
One of the more direct examples of how having high levels of self-awareness helps you to be more effective as a leader is in terms of understanding your own strengths and weaknesses.
This ability to understand your strengths and where you have room for growth is important both in terms of understanding how you can continue to develop as a leader as well as building the most effective teams.
In order to have a highly effective team, you must have a very clear and objective view of where your strengths lie and where you are not as strong.
One of your primary jobs as a leader is to find people who are very strong where you are weak so that the team as a whole has few or no weaknesses.
As we will discuss further below, mindful leadership training is the systematic development of objective self-awareness.
With consistent practice, your ability to see yourself with complete objectivity and clarity grows increasingly stronger.
Freedom from the Ego
Perhaps the most important benefit of practicing mindful leadership is that it gradually increases your freedom from the control of your ego.
Although being free from the ego may not be so easily seen as a having a tangible impact on organizational outcomes as the benefits mentioned above, I believe that this is the most important factor of leadership development.
The freer you become from the control of the ego the easier it is for you to plan an act in ways that benefit the entire team or organization without being biased by your own short-term self-interest. This is absolutely essential for leaders.
A successful leader must be able to put her short-term self-interest aside for the benefit of the team organization.
This is not to say that you don’t take care of your own legitimate needs for well-being.
Rather, you move away from always prioritizing your needs first and more towards having a balanced approach to meeting your needs and the needs of the organization and, when necessary in the short term, putting your own needs aside for a brief time and sacrificing yourself for the benefit of others.
Being free from the ego is also the secret to being free from anxiety and realizing unconditional happiness.
If you really look closely at the source of your suffering, you can see that it is all based and the false sense of “me” that you have called the ego.
The bigger the ego is, and the more identified you are with it, the more you suffer.
This is something you can easily observe and other people. Somebody who is really identified with his ego takes everything personally, even comments that have nothing to do with them.
Conversely, somebody who is not so identified with her ego always appears to be laid back and doesn’t take things so personally.
Although this is a much deeper topic which I will write about in another article soon, for now I think it is important to simply realize that the freer you are from your ego the less anxiety you experience and the happier you are.
And a leader who is free from anxiety and happy, all other things being equal, is going to be much more effective then leader who is constantly caught in anxiety.
Integrity that Inspires True Greatness In Others
Unless you are an incredibly rare, and perhaps perfect human being, you’ve probably noticed that there is often a gap between who you would like to be, and who you actually are.
A simple definition of integrity is having no gap between who you want to be (or who you state you are) and who you actually are.
The less often there is a gap between who you aspire to be and who you actually are, the more others will perceive you as a person of integrity and the more you will see yourself as a person of integrity.
The practice of mindful leadership plays an essential role in allowing you to have such integrity.
Whenever you are mindfully self-aware, you see whatever internal reaction arises within you with third-person objectivity. As a result, there is gap created between stimulus, the internal reaction, and the external reaction or response.
When you see your internal reaction with this type of third-person objectivity, you are completely free from having to act on it.
If the internal reaction is one that is not in alignment with who you aspire to be, i.e. your core values, then you can simply not act on it and instead choose to do something that is in alignment with your core values.
Thus, mindfulness allows you to live with integrity in a given moment and increases the likelihood that you will live with integrity in future moments as well.
Living with high levels of integrity is essential for living a fulfilling life, and it is also a key component of inspiring team members.
Leaders of high character, who live with integrity, can inspire followers much more readily than other leaders.
And living with high levels of integrity is not just good for your team. It’s good for the world.
The world is replete with smart, talented people. What the world needs more than ever, especially during times of division, is more wise people of great character who demonstrate that taking the high road is always the more inspiring and effective path.
An Introduction to The Practice of Mindful Leadership
One of the side effects of mindfulness becoming so popular is that it is also become fairly watered down, in some cases almost to the point of being meaningless. People often conflate mindfulness with terms such as “being in the moment.”
While being more present is certainly an effect of mindfulness training, mindfulness goes much deeper than that, and is also much more practical.
When you are being mindful, you experience a subtle inner shift.
Rather than being identified with your thinking as people almost always are, you have an objective, third-person view of your thinking.
It’s almost as though you are observing your thinking on a heads-up display or listening to your thinking as though it were a recording of someone else speaking.
Mindfulness training involves various practices that help you to develop the ability to have this type of objective self-awareness whenever you would like to have it.
Many people think they have high levels of self-awareness and may not think that there is any need to engage in some type of training to improve their self-awareness.
Ironically, however, some research suggests that the more self-aware a person thinks he or she is, the less self-aware she or he actually is.
I believe that the most practical and simple way to begin practicing is to approach mindfulness training with a high-level goal of simply changing your default mode of being.
For most people, whenever they are not engaged in intentionally thinking or planning, or in some activity that demands their full attention, their default mode is being identified with thought and distracted by it.
At a high level, mindfulness training is about changing your default mode of being by finding as many opportunities as you can to let go of your identification with thinking and have objective self-awareness.
You already experience this type of mindful self-awareness numerous times throughout the day quite on accident.
For instance, whenever you thought of something to say, recognized that it was not skillful, and decided not to say it, that is a perfect example of seeing and or hearing your thinking with complete objectivity.
You can experience mindful self-awareness right now with just some simple guidance.
Just silently ask yourself in the mind, “Is there any thinking in the mind right now?”
As soon as you look at your mind, you are already free from identification with thought, and free from your ego.
You see your thinking objectively or hear it objectively. The moment this happens, you will notice that you are also aware of what else is arising in consciousness.
You might notice what it feels like to sit.
You might notice what your body feels like.
You might notice what you are seeing or hearing with greater clarity than you did a moment ago.
You might notice that you’re breathing, which you probably weren’t even aware of a moment ago.
So, once you have become free from identification with thought by asking a simple question like “What’s happening now?” or “What am I noticing right now?” or “s there any thinking in the mind right now?” all you need to do is notice what is arising in consciousness.
Regardless of that thoughts, or feelings, or sensations are rising, you simply notice that they are happening and that you are aware that they are happening.
This is where the practice tends to get difficult for most people.
Most people often find that within seconds of waking up and becoming free from identification with thinking, they get sucked right back in and are once again identified with thinking and/or distracted by it.
Although this may seem very frustrating if you are trying to practice mindfulness, this is actually the very practice itself.
The real trick is to create as many reminders as you can to make the shift from being identified with thinking to having mindful self-awareness.
When you approach the practice in this way you see that everything that you do as a leader, and indeed every activity of the day, can be included as part of your training.
If you would like more detailed guidance on how to practice mindful leadership, complete with many examples of mindful leadership activities and exercises, please check out this article, called Mindful Leadership Exercises & Activities.]
Gratitude Journaling
Personal Growth
Self-Awareness
Societal Community Help
First Step - Be a More Thankful Person (3-5 min); 10 Ways to Be a More Thankful Person
Start your day with the intention that how can be my day useful for anybody around. Some recitation.
Conscious Breathing
While walking spare 2- 5 min. Drink water before replying to any triggered email. Read 2-3 times, take 2-3 deep breathe.
Before responding triggered call, try to comprehend caller's stance / situation. These pauses help us to ground, to be humble.
Modern Malang [Al-Baqara (The Cow) 2:201 وِمِنْهُم مَّن يَقُولُ رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ But there are among them such as pray, "O our Sustainer! Grant us good in this world and good in the life to come, and keep us safe from suffering through the fire":
Traditional Malang is an extreme form.
Freedom from ego, no future plans. A quote: I never plan anything, but I stay in the state of preparedness. Prepared for any situation.
Al-Ikhlas (The Purity) 112:2 اللَّهُ الصَّمَدُ Allâh the Self-Sufficient Master, the Eternal, Whom all creatures need. [He needing none.] Absolute; Allah, the Eternal Refuge. God the immanently indispensable. (Perfect, does not require anything.) Allah the Absolute, on whom all things depend, besought by all! Allah is the Self-Sufficient (independent of all, while all are dependent on Him); Allah is He on Whom all depend. Allah, the eternally Besought of all!
Qasim Ali Shah is true example of Modern Malang. Habitual thankfulness is key to happier life but we make ourselves habitual of thanklessness on gifted blessings.
5 Incredible Blessings God Gives You to Enjoy Every Day
1. The Blessing of His Word
2. The Blessing of His Presence
3. The Blessing of His Grace
4. The Blessing of His Gifts
5. The Blessing of His Compassion
{Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to relieve the physical, mental or emotional pains of others and themselves. Compassion is often regarded as being sensitive to the emotional aspects of the suffering of others. When based on notions such as fairness, justice and interdependence, it may be considered rational in nature.}]
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