GOT MINDFULNESS?

Got mindfulness?

Bess Gallanis
Presented at Ignite Chicago
February 6, 2012

PRESENCE IS MY PRACTICE

Let’s dial down the energy a little and get our
technology distractions out of the way.

Send that text.

Refresh your email.

Update your Facebook page.

Good. Now, close your eyes and take a nice,
deep inhale and let it go.

The great opportunity of our time is to
harness our inner technology … to learn to
fully optimize nature’s most powerful
operating system: the human mind.

Photo by Justin Barbin

Bess Gallanis. All rights reserved. 2012 2

PRESENCE IS HIS PRACTICE
One of my personal heroes, Chicago’s favorite
son NBA basketball coach Phil Jackson, says “.
. . to have your best performance, you have to
be relaxed.”

I’m not going to argue with a man
who ran out of fingers to wear his
championship rings.1

Coach Jackson is famous for two
revolutionary coaching techniques: the
triangle offense and mindfulness training.

The parallel here is this: in our
interdependent world of work, family, life
and love, technical skill will get you only so
far.

There is another half to the performance
equation and that’s what we’re here to
explore.

1Basketball coach Phil Jackson, the NBA
championship record holder with 11 wins.


ATTENTION INTERRUPTUS

Our greatest challenge as knowledge workers
isn’t time management, but attention
management.

We know that a clear and focused mind is
essential to peak performance, yet you – all
of us here tonight -- live in a state of
continual partial attention.2

When you multi task, you’re attention is a
mile wide and a millimeter deep.

Attention interruptus is a variation on the
theme. If you are not interrupted by yet
another incoming email, instant message or
Tweet, you will interrupt yourself.

Whatever you want to call it, multi –tasking
equals lost productivity, leading to anxiety,
leading to stress.

2 Linda Stone


CRASH AND BURN
Stress is the result of too much distress from
your environment. Everyone has their
unique stress threshold and when you’ve
reached your limit, the input overwhelms
your physical, mental and emotional capacity.

Your blood rushes from your brain and into
your limbs to fuel the fight or flight response.
Your adrenal glands release hormones of
mass brain destruction. Ergo, stress.

The Medieval origin of the word stress is to
draw asunder and tear apart. Your brain on
stress is in a frenzy.

Under stress, your capacity for self control
plummets. Mistakes are more likely and poor
communication is a given. Your problem
solving ability flies out the window – because
it’s been torn asunder.

Spend too much time in metabolic over drive
and you get ... crash and burn.


GOT MINDFULNESS?
It was my own crash and burn that led me
from my yoga mat and meditation cushion
into an executive leadership program at an
elite business school.

Our first assignment: meditate for 20 minutes

While most leadership programs focus on
tactical skills, this program focused on
developing personal awareness and mastery
of one’s inner life.

I quickly learned that leadership is an insight
job. From grade schools to elite graduate
schools, from the US military to members of
Congress, people are practicing mindfulness
to enhance their self-awareness, to learn
how to quickly transition their focus, to
detect and rescript negative thinking, to
develop resilience and to recover more
quickly from stress and emotional events.


THE POWER OF PRESENCE
a way of paying attention

How you manage your attention today
influences your life tomorrow.

At any given moment look at where you mind
is at. It’s either fretting over the past or
fantasizing about the future.

Mindfulness is the skill of keeping your
attention focused in the present and on your
experience of the present moment.

It is the mental discipline of systematic self
observation and self-awarenes.


CHANGE YOUR VIEW
self observation
Mindfulness won’t change the world, but it
can change your world.

Numerous studies have documented the
benefits of mindfulness practice to
reduce stress, increase self control and
promote more perceptive body/mind
awareness.

Mindfulness turns your gaze inward, toward
your self. From this insight, you can act with
intention to your thoughts and emotions
rather than react without thinking.

Through this systematic process, it’s possible
to improve your well being and your
performance.


DEVELOP RESILIENCE
response (ability)
A day filled with stress, ambiguity and change
sounds like white water to me.

You start the day headed in one direction, it
takes a turn and before you know it, events
are moving in the opposite direction – and
fast. Your body churns with stress and your
mind struggles to focus.

This is your fork in the river: do you resist,
react or respond with intention?

Mindfulness equips you with the tools to
navigate the changes and challenges of your
day – in real time.

The more you work at it, the more you
expand your capacity for stress, change and
ambiguity.

Building these capacities is called resilience.


IMPROVE YOUR FOCUS
mindful flow
If you stopped to think about, you would
realize how much of your mindspace is
occupied by a spontaneous stream of
thoughts. We make a countless number of
choices and decisions from autopilot mode.

Practicing mindfulness helps you build up
the resources and self control to resist
distractions, to better sort the signal from the
noise in your daily interactions and to
manage your emotions and responses to the
daily flow of stuff.

Focus becomes less a struggle and more
about getting into the flow.


EASY BUT NOT SIMPLE
nothing to lose
The only thing standing between chaos and
calm in your life are a few tools, including
how to relate to yourself, your experiences
and other people through mindfulness.

You have every reason to give mindfulness a
try.

You won’t have to eat, drink or smoke
anything.

You won’t give up carbs or meat.

You won’t even work up a sweat.

You have nothing to lose but a few
distractions … and a lot of stress.

As Einstein said, “. . . everything should be as
simple as possible, but not simpler.”

So here I offer you a simple, but not easy,
introduction to mindfulness.


BREATHE DEEPLY
Everyone take a deep breath.

Again.

Inhale deeply. . . let it go.

I bet you feel better already.

Breathing is the killer app of personal and
professional performance.

Your breath is the tool you can use to make
sure you have a secure connection to your
inner technologies – your body, your
emotions, your thought and your actions.

Do this for five minutes every day:
Concentrate fully on your breathing and
nothing else.

Your blood pressure will drop. Your arousal
threshold will drop. You will be more calm.

When you are calmer, you make better
decisions.


MIND AND BODY CONNECTION
We think of our mind and body as separate.

Your head is up here, and it carries around
your brain and your thoughts and your eyes
that see the world from on high. Your body is
located below and it just all seems
disconnected.

The reality: mind and body are an integrated
system. Your body holds information and
when you listen it will reveal its intelligence.
It’s language is physical sensation.

Most of us are familiar with the downside of
this integrated circuitry. Stress pools in
places like lower backs, necks and shoulders.

There are upsides, however. Your gut
contains an extensive network of nerves that
communicate with the brain. Scientists call is
the second brain. Performers call is stage
fright. Others call it gut instinct.


EMOTIONS HAVE FEELINGS TOO
Think about this: when you are in the grip of
an intense emotional experience – love,
anger, frustration – what do you feel?

That’s right! We experience emotions as
bodily feelings. Remember, the mind and
body are an integrated system.

The truth is this: when you give your full,
mindful attention to the emotion, when you
yield to the feeling of the emotion, look at it,
observe it, let it roll over you – it loses its
hold on you.

This pause creates the space you need to
consider a response rather than a reaction to
your emotion.


A MIND OF ITS OWN
“Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the
worst is your mind and its fears.”

Thank you Rudyard Kipling for pointing out
that our minds have a mind of their own.

Pay attention to your thought stream for a
few minutes and you will notice how much of
your thinking is automatic. Your intellectual
mind applies labels and assumptions to your
experience without challenge – or even a
second thought.

Mindfulness keeps you focused on the
experience – without labeling things, judging
the experience as good or bad, or judging
yourself. This is what Buddhists call
‘beginner’s mind.’

When you let go of all your intellectual
thinking, ideas are no longer good or bad.
They’re just ideas. Absent judgmental
thoughts, you may see how much novelty
surrounds you.


CONTROL YOUR CHOICES
The more you practice paying mindful
attention, the more control you have over
your choices.

And who in this room wouldn’t choose more:

Calm and creativity.

Passion and productivity.

Love and laughs.

More mindfulness.

Namaste, metta, peace!


BESS GALLANIS INC.
WWW.BESSGALLANISINC.COM
312.659.7572
Got mindfulness?
Bess Gallanis is the founder of Speaking with
Power and Persuasion, an award‐winning
corporate communication and executive
communications coaching firm.

She prepares senior executives, crisis teams,
professionals, business owners and start-up
founders for high visibility, high impact
communication events – investor
presentations, media interviews, keynote
speeches, sensitive conversations, employee
engagement, personal branding, thought
leadership and ideas-driven conference
presentations.

Recognizing that wellness is a leadership
issue, Bess challenges business executives to
think differently about the role that mental,
physical, emotional and spiritual resources
play in their communication skills and
professional performance.

GOT MINDFULNESS?

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