Mindfulness Meets Business
Posted: December 1, 2014 Filed under: Business, Misc. | Tags: 10% Happier, Dan Harris, Dr. Richard J. Davidson, Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn, MBSR, Mindful magazine, mindfulness, Time magazine Leave a comment“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and non judgmentally.” —Jon Kabat-Zinn
Mindfulness has gone mainstream. Once only practiced by new age gurus and yogis, it is sweeping the nation, moving into gyms, homes and healthcare organizations at a rapid pace. Now it’s making the leap into corporate America, with Silicon Valley leading the charge (no surprise). Resources abound. If you’re as intrigued as I am, fire up your favorite search engine and query “mindfulness” or check out this handy list as a starting point.
Perhaps the seminal work on mindfulness is Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn. It has been recently revised and updated 25 years after first release. Kabat-Zinn also developed the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reductions program (MBSR), which has trained over 20,000 people in his techniques.
By Tiffany Vaché and Jason Sullivan
The Mind Full, or Mindful? wiki includes PowerPoint presentations, videos, websites, books and journals to facilitate a deep, varied dive into the subject.
10% Happier by Dan Harris hit #1 on the NYT Bestseller list earlier this year. The author, a noted television journalist, recounts his journey toward meditation and mindfulness following an on-air panic attack.
Colleges are getting on board. NYU’s New Mindfulness in Business Initiative is exploring how mindfulness can transform the next generation of leaders and innovators. One student describes her initial foray into meditation.
Mindful magazine has a circulation of more than 85,000, with steep growth projected. Also in the periodical space, The Mindful Revolution was the cover story in a February 2014 issue of Time.
Otto Schamer, in Davos: Mindfulness, Hotspots, and Sleepwalkers, notes the rapid rise of mindfulness at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this past spring. The drivers of this trend are described as new tech, new challenges and new science.
Dr. Richard J. Davidson at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds is one leading scientific authority who is documenting the positive effects of mediation on the brain (here at UW Madison). A powerful documentary, Free the Mind, features his work with military veterans and school children.
Boxes Old and New
Posted: September 25, 2014 Filed under: Change, Misc. | Tags: Crayola, Dropbox 1 Comment
Photo by Mark Baker
For some strange reason (thanks Mom!) I still possess my grade school Crayola box. Back in the day, Crayolas were cool. What size box did you have? Did it have a sharpener? Another point of childhood pride was the school pencil box. Nestled in a flip-top homeroom desk, your pencil box was carefully labeled with your name and included the right pencils, a small ruler, safety scissors, an eraser and perhaps a protractor (the metal version with needle-sharp ends).
Photo by Mark Baker
Fast forward a bunch of years. As our daughters transitioned to far away places, we found pencil boxes left behind in their rooms (but no Crayola boxes). With all of the accoutrements required to outfit a college dorm or apartment these days, pencil boxes did not make the cut.
Instead, we set up Dropbox accounts with individual and shared folders. We loaded up key documents, synchronized photos across iOS devices, made images of official documents, and stored credit and identification card details. All of these resources can be accessed by any of us anywhere. Dropbox makes it easy and affordable: 1 Terabyte of storage is available for $100 per year under their pro plan. This is roughly twice my aggregated storage, which includes over 15,000 photographs and a decade worth of digital music and other files.
The irony of calling today’s robust, cloud-base resource a “box” is apparent. What a far cry from the humble little pencil box, but in today’s world, fills the same function. I’m not quite sure why this has me feeling a bit nostalgic. I don’t think it’s about the Crayola box per se, but more about the rapid evolution of technology, its ever-increasing role in our lives and how it shapes our interaction and communication. While my head understands that boxes hosted in the cloud hold unlimited capacity and potential, my heart misses the simple pleasure of opening a fresh box of crayons or neatly organizing my pencil box for the new school year.
Journaling
Posted: September 10, 2014 Filed under: Education, Misc. | Tags: journaling, Presencing Institute 3 Comments
Photo by Mark Baker
I’ve always journaled in one form or another. Here is an early version of what I recorded in my daily planner, circa 1978.
Perhaps I am a product of my environment. I remember my Dad always wrote things down. My grandfather was a farmer and he usually had a notebook with a pen or pencil (from a seed corn company or farm equipment company) handy. These were practical things – but learning tools nonetheless.
I process a lot of thoughts on important things either by talking through it with others (sorry for those who have to hear my spewing) or drawing or writing it down (frequently in outline form). This blog is another form of journaling.
Photo by Mark Baker
Recently I went through a continuing education program that had a structured journaling exercise. I had not done anything like it. The theme was “journaling is simple” – pen, paper and start. Don’t try to over think it, make it into a letter or beautiful memoir that will be published in 50 years. Just write. But there was also a structured set of questions in a later section. It was powerful in that it was introspective and got to the core essence of the writing, but also captured feelings, fears and dreams that perhaps had been difficult to articulate.
See the Presencing Institute U Journaling Practice and give it a try it—you’ll like it!
ZMAB15 