LEADERSHIP & <strong>Mindfulness</strong>Zen storyAfter one year in a monastery,a Zen monk complained, “All Ihave learned about is breathing.”After five years in the monastery,the monk complained, “All I havelearned is breathing.” When hereached enlightenment the elderlymonk smiled and said, “Finally, Ihave learned about breathing.”Successful people know abouttraining. In business, knowledgeis power. To maintain their edge,successful people are keen to improvetheir skills via courses,executive coaches, and learningfrom role models. The Dalai Lamaand all spiritual masters realizethat, just like learning to play tennis,golf, or any sport, the quickestway to improve is through training.Training is a key part of allmajor spiritual disciplines.You have all it takesto succeedThe most profound meditators sharea similar skill set to the Super Busy.Ability to focus. One of the crucialskills is harnessing and controllingyour power of focus.Can do two things at once. Thismeans you can have part of your attentionon your heart while doingmundane activities like walkingdown the street, commuting, andtalking with others.Can overcome obstacles. Greatmeditators, like successful businesspeople, have great perseverance tocomplete their tasks regardless ofdistractions.Can master subtlety. Attention tothe small details differentiates mastersfrom apprentices.Know the value of training. Just aswhen learning a sport, finding greatteachers/coaches is important. ■Mark Thornton is the former Chief Operating Officerfor JPMorgan Private Bank in London. Since 2004,Thornton has dedicated his life to creating the world’sfirst management consultancy that does one thing:teach <strong>Leadership</strong> and ethical reflective practicesto elite business schools and corporate leaders.The result is MBA, EMBA and <strong>Executive</strong> Educationgraduates with less stress, increased productivity,improved health and stronger ethical foundation.Thornton’s clients include elite global business schools, among themWharton Business School and the <strong>Leadership</strong> Development Program for1st and 2nd year MBA students, McGill International <strong>Executive</strong> Institutefor <strong>Executive</strong> Education and New York University; as well as corporateorganizations such as JPMorgan, Deloitte Touche, Morgan Stanley, TheNew York Times; and thought leaders from TIAA-CREF, Rio Tinto Alcan.Thornton has presented keynote speeches to the Hedge Fund TradersConference at the Time Warner center in New York, The American BarAssociation, The Exchange Traded Funds 2nd Global Annual Awards,Global Capital Acquisition Annual Meeting, The Bar Association ofBuenos Aries, The University de Saviour in Argentina, and many others.He has clients from the UK, Australia and Latin America.He has appeared on national TV shows including Fox Business News,ABC TV, CNBC, MTV as well as more than 60 national and regionalradio shows: ABC Radio, Air America, Sirius, XFM, The Joey ReynoldsShow, Martha Stewart Living Radio, The Good Life show with JesseDylan, WBZ 1030 AM, The Ed Walsh Show on WOR 710AM, KOW 850AM “After Midnight with Rick Barker,” ABC affiliate KBUR 1490AM, CBSaffiliate KSMA 1240AM, The Jordon Rich Show WBZ 1030AM, The FoxFM 99.7, WQCD 101.9FM and more than 50 other regional stations. Hisarticles have appeared in CEO Magazine, The Chicago Daily Herald, TheNew York Times, Yoga Journal, Body & Soul Magazine, Diet & NutritionMagazine and Perfil, Argentina’s equivalent of The Economist.While we were putting the finishing touches on the <strong>Mindfulness</strong> section of thisnewsletter the New York Times ran an article on a closely related topic.Check it out as you can:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/jobs/teaching-meditation-techniques-toorganizations.html?_r=1&20 <strong>Mobius</strong> <strong>Executive</strong> <strong>Leadership</strong> | www.mobiusleadership.com
Managing Stressby Daniel Goleman Host, <strong>Leadership</strong>: A Master Classfriend told me, “My worst time could take on anything – the left prefrontalarea lights up.A at work was just after a mergerwhen people were disappearing The Davidson group found thatdaily, with lying memos about whathad happened.” She added, “Nobodycould focus on their work.” Thesedays what was just an episode for herhas become a chronic reality in toomany businesses.Ups and downs of the economyaside, organizational life is rife withtoxic moments – impossible directivesfrom headquarters, unreasonablepeople in positions of power, abrasiveworkmates, and on and on. So, howcan we manage such constant stress,or outright distress? One strategy formanaging our reactions to hassles andupsets takes advantage of another dynamicbetween the prefrontal area andthe amygdala circuitry.Richard Davidson, who directs theLaboratory for Affective Neuroscienceat the University of Wisconsin, hasdone seminal research on the left versusright prefrontal areas. His researchgroup has found that when we're inthe grip of a hijack or under the swayof distressing emotions, there are relativelyhigh levels of activity in the rightprefrontal cortex. But when we're feelinggreat – enthused, energized, like weeach of us has a left-to-right ratio ofprefrontal activity (measured whenwe're just resting, not doing anythingin particular) that accurately predictsour typical mood range day to day. Thisleft-to-right ratio gauges our emotionalset point. People who have more activityon the left than right are more likelyto have more positive emotions, andthe more positive their emotions dayto day. Those with more activity on theright are prone to having more negativeemotions.There is a “Bell Curve” for this ratio,like the well-known upside-downU curve for IQ. Most of us are in themiddle – we have good and bad days.Some people are at the extreme right– they may be clinically depressed orchronically anxious. In contrast, thosepeople at the extreme left on the BellCurve bounce back from setbacks withextraordinary rapidity.Davidson has also done researchon what he calls “emotional styles” –which are really brain styles. One brainstyle tracks how readily we becomeupset: where we are on the spectrumfrom a hair-trigger amygdala – peopleLEADERSHIP & <strong>Mindfulness</strong>who easily become upset, frustrated orangered – versus people who are unflappable.A second style looks at how quicklywe recover from our distress. Somepeople recover quickly once they getupset, while others are very slow. Atthe extreme of slowness to recoverare people who continually ruminateor worry about things – in effect,who suffer from ongoing low-gradeamygdala hijacks. Chronic worrykeeps the amygdala primed, so youremain in a distress state as long asyou ruminate.Given the many realistic stresses weface, those first two styles – being unflappableand capable of quick recovery– are the most effective in navigatingthe troubles of the world of work.The third style assesses a person’sdepth of feeling. Some people experiencetheir feelings quite intensely, somepeople quite shallowly. Those who havestronger feelings may be better able toauthentically communicate them morepowerfully – to move people.There's another piece of suggestivedata about the left-right ratio. BarbaraFredrickson at the University ofNorth Carolina finds that people whoflourish in life – who have rich rela-Daniel Goleman lecturesfrequently to businessaudiences, professionalgroups and on collegecampuses. A psychologistwho for many yearsreported on the brainand behavioral sciencesfor The New York Times,Dr. Goleman previously was a visiting faculty member at Harvard.Dr. Goleman’s most recent book <strong>Leadership</strong>: The Power of EmotionalIntelligence – Selected Writings (www.MoreThanSound.net) is acollection of his key work on the topic from his books and his articles inthe Harvard Business Review. His book Emotional Intelligence arguedthat human competencies like self- awareness, self-regulation, andempathy add value to cognitive abilities in many domains of life. Thebook was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half,and has since been translated into nearly 40 languages. He was aco-founder of the Collaborative for Academic, Social and EmotionalLearning at the Yale University Child Studies Center. He’s currently cochairmanof The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence inOrganizations, based in the Graduate School of Applied and ProfessionalPsychology at Rutgers University. He is also a member of the board ofdirectors of the Mind & Life Institute. Dr. Goleman has received manyjournalistic awards for his writing, including two nominations for thePulitzer Prize for his articles in the Times.www.mobiusleadership.com | <strong>Mobius</strong> <strong>Executive</strong> <strong>Leadership</strong> 21
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