Mindful Performance: Answering the Question of HOW

MINDFULNESS. Business leaders like Marc Benioff from Salesforce use it. Elite athletes like LeBron use it. Top-tier performers like Jerry Seinfeld, Lady Gaga, and, of course The Big O (Oprah!) use it. Combat veterans use it to address symptoms of PTSD. Even kids are using it to address behavioral issues in school. Mindfulness is the hottest buzzword that organizations and individuals are clamoring for. No longer are people wondering IF they need to adopt a more mindful approach to their professional and personal lives; they now KNOW they need it. The real question on all of their minds is HOW?

In my experience, most books about mindfulness spend far too much time talking about the subject and include tons of scientific research that proves how the practice lowers stress levels, improves concentration, and enhances executive level functioning. All of that is great and true, but very rarely do books include specific actions that readers can actually take to incorporate the information into their daily lives other than to encourage them to “meditate more”.

When I set out to write my latest book, Mindful Performance: How to Powerfully Impact Profitability, Productivity, and Purpose, I had but one single goal: create a how-to book on mindfulness that gives the reader dozens of real-world, easy-to-remember, practical nuggets of awesome they can do on day one to implement a more mindful approach at work, at home, and all day long. By training oneself to be fully aware of the present moment – what is happening right now – we are able to make more intentional choices with focus and power.

Mindful Performance is a blend mindfulness and mental mastery techniques with proven high-performance strategies that I’ve gathered over the years as a leader, sales professional, project manager, leadership coach, and business owner. I merged these two critical aspects of success – mindfulness and high performance – in order to create a powerful framework called the Mindful Performance Model that people can use as a roadmap to realize their true potentiality.

By implementing the strategies included in Mindful Performance on a regular basis, readers are able to:

1) increase their focus and reduce distraction so they can show up more powerfully and persuasively,

2) cultivate rock-solid, long-term relationships with their customers, teams, key influencers, and loved ones,

3) create mindful cultures at work, at home, and in their communities, and

4) make better decisions so they create greater levels of balance and personal satisfaction.

By doing those four things – improving focus and reducing distractions, creating better relationships, improving cultures, and making better decisions – the natural result is greater profitability, productivity, and purpose. They are inevitable when we unleash our fullest potentials.

Businesses succeed when their people are happy, healthy, focused, and collaborative. When employees and leaders intentionally master their thoughts, control their stress levels, concentrate on the most important tasks, and successfully collaborate with others, they WILL come up with better ideas. They will bring products to market faster. They will close more deals. And they will attract other talented people who want to be included in meaningful work.

As a keynote speaker, author, and coach, I have seen first-hand the critical need for organizations and their teams to answer the question of HOW. Leaders can’t afford to simply tell their people to “be more mindful” without instructing them on what that actually means from a practical application perspective. Mindful Performance is not some airy-fairy, cosmic-muffiny, woo-woo fluff. It’s real-world, cold-steel, next generation management best practices that result in more money to the bottom line. Bonus: It makes for a more enjoyable place to work! I don’t know about you, but I believe that life is too darned short to hate going to work every day.

When people start to deliberately pay attention to their thoughts and actions and the consequences that result from them, we will see a major shift in personal accountability, collaboration, and innovation that the world so desperately needs right now.

Theresa Rose is an award-winning author, performance coach, management consultant, standup comedian, former marketing senior manager for a Fortune 100 company, and sought-after keynote speaker on leadership, sales, change, and communication. For more information on Theresa’s work, visit TheresaRose.com.

This post was submitted by Theresa Rose a C-Suite Book Club Author
Make sure to check out her latest book, Mindful Performance