Marc Lesser's Blog, page 27

How developing your "Way of Being" increases emotional range and the quality of your important relationships

“I keep thinking that what we need is a new language…a language of the heart….a new kind of poetry that tells us where the honey is….And I think that in order to create that language you’re going to have to learn out how to go through a looking glass into another kind of perception where you have that sense of being united to all things…. And suddenly you understand everything.”

– My Dinner With Andre, 1981

During my time as CEO of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute I helped design a “way of being” curriculum. This was part of a teacher training for a mindfulness-based emotional intelligence program that we originally conceived and developed within Google. Way of Being (WOB) refers to the quality of our caring, presence, and connection at work, at home, and in life. (In working with mindfulness teachers, coaches, and speakers I often find that WOB may be THE most important competency in being able to make a difference in the lives we are touching.)

WOB can be difficult to define – what is it composed of, and more importantly, how can it be taught? The following WOB skills were my team’s attempt to answer that question. These are the same skills I want for myself – as an executive coach, speaker, trainer, and most of all as a human being. I find it challenging and humbling to focus on these competencies and to aspire to bring them to all areas of my work, relationships, and all parts of my life. They may appear conflicting and paradoxical, and at the same time I believe they are practical and achievable:

Confidence & Humility – your WOB communicates a blend of presence, groundedness, connectedness, and curiosity. You step forward boldly and sensitively. You can be fierce and vulnerable.
Depth & Lightness – your presence and words communicate depth. You know your pain and the pain and suffering of others. At the same time you find lightness and enjoyment in each moment, in meeting each person, in giving and receiving.
Rigor & Spontaneity – you communicate that your words matter. You are always learning, open to surprise and to new ideas. You show up fully, responding to each new situation – with both precision and spontaneity.
Spark & Stillness – your presence communicates warmth and aliveness. At the same time you are grounded, connected to yourself and your surroundings.
Attainment & Non-attainment – your presence communicates your desire to offer your gifts, to develop yourself, and to develop others. You value success. Your presence communicates that learning, development, and success are often more about undoing than doing.

These practices offer ways to develop and increase your emotional range. They are also ways to cut through the myriad distractions in life so you can discover and act on what is most important.

Imagine being completely confident when it is time for confidence, and completely humble when humility is called for!

One confidence and humility exercise in the teacher training program involved asking participants to introduce themselves from 2 perspectives: first, from the perspective of confidence, and then with humility. Taking things further, we asked participants to introduce themselves with an emphasis on enthusiasm (spark), and once again while embodying stillness. These exercises were designed to stretch and help participants move beyond what felt easy and/or safe.

Try this: If humility comes easy to you, try being more confident next time you have to deliver an idea, concept, or presentation. If you are naturally animated, experiment with stillness.

Way of Being is truly the language of the body. It is what is communicated beyond our words. I think of “John,” an executive I was coaching a few years ago. I learned that his five direct reports didn’t fully trust him. They often experienced him as reactionary and angry; that he was at times unaware of the anger he was communicating. This was very surprising to John. He wanted to be a successful leader and was hurt and embarrassed by the feedback he was receiving from his team. I arranged for a series of meetings with John and his team, where I either facilitated or observed. I was aware that John, through his body language and his presence (his WOB) expressed frustration, annoyance, and anger, even when his words did not, and that he was unaware of how his feelings were being perceived by others. I worked with him over several months on developing his self-awareness and his WOB. We focused on making changes gradually (so they could “stick”), and in small increments (so as not to overwhelm John or his team), and over time we saw a significant improvement in his relationships, both at work and beyond the workplace.

While WOB is connected to your self-awareness, to how you connect to your pain and the pain of others, it’s also connected to something equally fundamental as well – the level and quality of your self-acceptance and love of yourself, and how deeply connected and caring you are about others.

Something to explore: Play with each of these sets of competencies, especially the ones that feel most challenging. For example, if spontaneity comes easily to you, try being more rigorous and precise. If rigor and precision come more easily, experiment with spontaneity. Make a note of your results by journaling about each experiment, then repeat this exercise over time to see how you progress and what you notice. Some possible prompts to begin with are:

I feel most confident when…

I feel most humble when…

I experimented with being more [COMPETENCY NAME] and noticed…

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Getting to the Heart of What’s Most Important

Adapted from Less: Accomplishing More By Doing Less.

Several years ago I was asked to lead a ninety-minute session during the second day of a three-day retreat for an organization’s board of directors. The board was composed of CEOs and executive directors from around the country, and the purpose of the retreat was to develop the organization’s strategic plan for the next two years. As I was about to walk into the conference room, one of the board members took me aside and informed me that the retreat was not going well and that they had just fired the facilitator. People were frustrated and anxious. “We have made little progress toward formulating our strategic plan,” he said. “Welcome, and good luck.”

As I walked into the room the tension was palpable. Stress was obvious just by glancing at everyone’s furrowed brows and body language. I introduced myself to the seventeen board members seated around the table and suggested that we begin with a brief period of meditation. About a third of the board members (mostly women) seemed delighted and made straight away for the front of the room and sat on the floor or in a chair. About a third of the members seemed reasonably willing to comply and began to sit comfortably. Nearly a full third sat in the back of the room, faces tight, with arms or legs crossed. You could say they were not having it.

I rang a small bell and we sat quietly together. I gave some basic meditation instruction: Sit in a way that is comfortable and with energy; sit up straight with your back slightly arched, without leaning backward; keep your eyes open, looking down, without focusing; pay attention to your body and breath. As thoughts and feelings arise, just note them and return to your body and to your breath. Let yourself be curious, like a child, noticing your breath as though being aware of it for the first time.

While we were all sitting I spoke for a few minutes about the practice of generosity, of being open and kind to yourself and others. I mentioned the importance of paying attention to fears because they are real, but that fearlessness was a form of practicing generosity.

After about fifteen minutes of sitting I rang the bell and separated the board members into four groups. Each person in the group would have five minutes to speak, without interruption and without being asked questions. I suggested that each person address three questions, though they might sound unrelated to the scope of the retreat:

What is my purpose for being here on this planet?
How am I doing in relation to this purpose?
What steps do I need to take to align my purpose and my actions?

My thinking was that the members of this group needed to step back from focusing on the organization’s strategy, and instead find a way to connect with fellow board members and be more vulnerable with each other. Becoming more vulnerable with each other in this safe context might allow them to better understand who their fellow board members really were and how their deepest personal goals dovetailed with the larger mission of this particular organization.

I suggested that the person speaking in each group not try to look good or impressive or smooth. I further suggested that the person speaking might be surprised by the words that came from his or her mouth. I asked that the people listening give full attention to the person speaking rather than rehearsing what they would say during their time.

As the groups began to meet I could see that people were taking the questions I posed seriously. Group members huddled closely together. I spent some time briefly visiting with each group, listening to a variety of people speaking. There was a lot of emotion expressed: a lot of laughter and even a few tears, respectful listening and impassioned exchanges.

After about thirty minutes I called everyone back into the conference room. The energy of the group was transformed. The group felt more relaxed and connected. I asked how the groups were for people. The first person who spoke said, “We should have begun our retreat this way! This is what was missing. We tried to begin working without stopping, without opening our hearts, and without connecting with each other.” These words came from the CEO of a large technology company, someone who by his own admission didn’t usually talk this way.

I left shortly after this session and learned afterward that the last day and a half of the retreat was extremely successful. The board established a good deal of clarity and agreement on the organization’s strategic plan. Several board members sent me notes expressing how important they thought the meditation had been. Others mentioned that slowing down and reflecting, thereby getting the discussion to a deeper, more effective level, had not only transformed the meeting but had positively impacted the way they thought about structuring future meetings.

Three days after the retreat one of the board members, the CEO of a venture capital firm in Washington, D.C., sent me an email: she said she’d felt concerned when she’d heard about my proposed quiet time and was both cautious and curious about meditation practice. She usually strongly resisted anything that smacked of being “New Age,” or as she put it, “woo woo.” She concluded: “If what we did is woo woo, I want more of that!”

It can be difficult to accept that to accomplish what we want often requires doing less, not doing more — especially initially. In this case, that meant putting aside the retreat’s planned agenda and courageously taking time to be reflective. To move forward, everyone needed to step back and engage deeper questions, both of the organization’s mission and of what each person hoped to realize for themselves and for the retreat. Slowing down or stopping (such as with meditation or other practices) is a very important part of doing less, but only one part. The retreat got off to a terrible start because the group was so intent on immediately tackling the most obvious question — formulating a strategic plan for the organization — but this wasn’t necessarily the most important question. In order to work together at all, they needed to be more open to one another and establish their common ground first. It took courage and commitment to do this in an agenda-packed, fill-every-minute environment.

In our world of more, faster, better, it can be difficult to get to the heart of what’s most important. Here are several questions to think about or even better to write about to help get to what matters most.

If money weren’t an issue — that is, if you had all the resources you needed — what would you do? What problems would you want to solve? What type of life would you lead?
What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of partner, parent, child, sibling, human being? What personal qualities do you most admire in relationships? How would you respond to the question, “Who are you as a leader?”
Why are you here on this planet? Do you feel a larger sense of social purpose or calling?
What do you wish you could do to make the world a more beautiful place? What everyday things; what huge things?
In your current life, what problems do you wish you could solve? Be specific. If you want more money, space, or time, how much? If the problems are with or at work, what’s your ideal scenario?
In your current life, what would increase your joy? Do you play, laugh, and love as much as you want? What activities have you always wanted to do but haven’t yet, or wish you could do more often?

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Die Knowing Something

On February 18, 2016, early in the morning, I was at home reading the newspaper, drinking a cup of strong coffee and experiencing my guilty pleasure of reading The Arts section of the New York Times. I was relaxing, hanging out. Then, at the beginning of an article about Paul Graham, a British photographer living in New York, I read a quote by Walker Evans that profoundly caught my attention:

Stare.

It is the way to educate our eye, and more.

Stare;

pry;

listen;

eavesdrop.

Die knowing something.

You are not here long.

When I first read those words by one of America’s greatest 20th-century photographers, especially his instructions to “stare,” my entire body was jolted. I became immediately more attentive and upright. I was always taught, as most of us are, not to stare. We are taught to turn away from what is different; what is uncomfortable. “Don’t stare,” our parents told us repeatedly. (In fact, Walker Evans’s mother often scolded him for staring or pointing.)

In a similar vein, we don’t want to feel stress or anxiety. We don’t want to feel vulnerable. But this turning away can become a habit. It can become, without our knowing it, a way of being in the world that is numbing. When I first read these words over my morning coffee, I vowed to myself no more. No more turning away. I resolved to stare more, pry more, listen more; to be more alive. I wanted to know something, to really know something before my death. I also wanted these feelings to not be limited by this individual mind and body but to extend to and embrace my wife and children and others I know and even those I don’t know, ever outward, without limitation or separation.

That morning at my kitchen table, I felt challenged by Evans to “die knowing something.” We are not here only to make ourselves feel comfortable, safe, and stress free. Of course we want that easier state, and much of our consciousness yearns for it. But we often can’t locate that ease because of harsh personal circumstances or the conflicting needs of others, or because life is tremendously difficult at times. And in the broad arc of our life, this may be a good thing because we can learn a lot from that which makes us uncomfortable. We can grow in empathy if we try to get better at listening to others, and ourselves. This is something to know before dying.

What else is important to know? For starters here’s my list:

We should know how to say hello and how to say good-bye, and appreciate the preciousness of these words when we say them.
We should know how to truly meet our self and others, fully, right now.
We should know how to be separate and connected at the same time.
We should know that we matter and that every life matters.
We should know how to love and how to open our heart to being loved.
We should know not only that we are loved, but that ultimately we are love.
We should know that we belong and that our belonging goes beyond this lifetime.
We should know that we are not here long, and that our lives, our actions, contribute to the world in large and infinitesimally small ways.

What’s on your list? What do you most value, what is most important, right now?

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Interview: Anxiety Slayer

Marc Lesser speaks on the Anxiety Slayer podcast about how to cultivate mindfulness and calm anxiety. Marc discusses his book, Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader and how beginning a dedicated mindfulness practice is easier than you think! You can listen to the conversation below.

 

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With A Well-Oriented Mind You Are The Boss of Everything

A core aspect of mindfulness practice teaches us to include everything, to have a wide view, a wide mind, and to see, and hear, and feel fully, opening the heart and mind, to experience the full experience, whatever it may be. Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center, once said that the purpose of Zen practice is to have a well-oriented mind, and that the way to achieve this is to realize that you are the “boss of everything.”

Now being the boss of everything doesn’t mean you are in control in the usual sense of the word boss. Rather, it involves being completely comfortable with being fully engaged and connected to whatever you are doing. It means simultaneously letting things be, just as they are, while also responding to whatever you find needs your attention.

Composure and effectiveness at work, and outside of work, comes from a keen sense of responsibility and full ownership of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. At the same time your heart is open and responsive. You are not easily knocked off center or fooled by your habits or narrow ideas. You are more and more clear about your purpose, and at the same time you are not grasping for results.

Being “the boss of everything” also means being radically responsible, and noticing when you’ve drifted from this state of mind. When our thoughts control us, when our problems control us, when we are driven by our feelings and emotions and ideas, they become the boss of us. This can be as blatant as blaming others, or as subtle as second guessing yourself, feeling sorry for yourself, or even blaming yourself. We all have these tendencies from time to time – they’re part of the human condition – but when you’re the boss, you recognize and name this, taking back responsibility, (and perhaps some appreciation) of yourself and the situation.

Meditation is a core practice of moving toward being the boss of everything. It’s about practicing and training your awareness to be attentive to your breath, your thoughts, and your feelings, again and again, while noticing when you may be distracted and not taking full responsibility for yourself. It means noticing when you aren’t noticing, as much as possible – with curiosity and kindness. Then, coming back, orienting your mind toward confidence, openness, and vulnerability – experiencing the full experience.

Ask yourself:

How might you practice with being “the boss of everything?”

What supports you in this practice and what makes it difficult?

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Audio: Finding The One Who’s Not Busy

In this guided meditation, we learn how to stop, pause, and bring attention to the body and the breath, exploring what it means to be alert and relaxed at the same time.

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Interview: 10% Happier with Dan Harris

Marc Lesser speaks with Dan Harris on 10% Happier about how to integrate business practices with mindfulness, and Marc’s latest book, Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader. You can listen to the conversation below.

 

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Why Our Desire for Clarity Can Sometimes Undermine Our Effectiveness

Most of us want the world to make sense. We tend to yearn for predictability. We often resist and maybe even despise what doesn’t fit into our worldview, and we commonly dislike change. But our desire for clarity can sometimes undermine our effectiveness — when we insist on order and clarity in the midst of uncertainty and complexity, the result is sometimes limited thinking and faulty conclusions about ourselves and the world. Let me illustrate with a story.

In 2011, Daniel Kanneman wrote a story in the New York Times which perfectly described how wanting our ideas about the world to align with reality can lead to false assumptions. Daniel was doing leadership assessment as part of his national service for the Israeli Army and the following is an excerpt from the NYT piece, with Daniel as storyteller:

“After watching the candidates go through several such tests, we had to summarize our impressions of the soldiers’ leadership abilities with a grade and determine who would be eligible for officer training. . . . We were completely confident in our evaluations and believed that what we saw pointed directly to the future.

Because our impressions of how well each soldier performed were generally coherent and clear, our formal predictions were just as definite. We felt no need to question our forecasts, moderate them or equivocate. . . . As it turned out, despite our certainty about the potential of individual candidates, our forecasts were largely useless. The evidence was overwhelming. . . . Our forecasts were better than blind guesses, but not by much.

I thought that what was happening to us was remarkable. The statistical evidence of our failure should have shaken our confidence in our judgments of particular candidates, but it did not. It should also have caused us to moderate our predictions, but it did not. . . . We continued to feel and act as if each particular prediction was valid.

We are prone to think that the world is more regular and predictable than it really is, because our memory automatically and continuously maintains a story about what is going on, and because the rules of memory tend to make that story as coherent as possible and to suppress alternatives.

I coined the term “illusion of validity” because the confidence we had in judgments about individual soldiers was not affected by a statistical fact we knew to be true. The confidence you will experience in your future judgments will not be diminished by what you just read, even if you believe every word. “

Daniel’s story and situation matches that of many executives I have worked with – it provides a wonderful example of how real clarity and confidence can be reached through embracing paradox.

When we pay attention, right in the midst of the difficulties and strains, and the pleasures and pains of our lives, it’s the unexpected, the puzzles, the paradoxes that catch us, open us, change us.

We can appreciate and learn from these puzzles, and little by little, or all at once, solutions appear. By engaging this practice, we have the ability to transform and shape the context of our lives, becoming more skillful, both at knowing ourselves and at the same time, looking outside ourselves.

When my daughter was seven years old I used to read to her every night before she went to sleep. One night as we were completing our nightly routine, she turned to me and said, “Daddy, when we die, do you think we are given all the answers about life — like when you play a board game and you are done, and you look at the back for the solutions?”

The truth is I don’t remember exactly what I said but I hope it was something like this:

What a great question! I don’t think we need to wait until we are dying to ask amazing questions about what we don’t know. We don’t know what happens when we die. We never have all the answers. The gift and challenge is to find confidence and a deep sense of trust right in the midst of cultivating wonder and vulnerability.

Try this:

Explore and experiment with allowing the feeling of confidence, without an emphasis on self-consciousness. Try on – just walking when you walk, and just talking when you talk – letting go of judgments and comparisons as much as possible.

And, if you are feeling the stress or challenge of change and uncertainty, try leaning in, let your heart soften. Instead of resisting change, embrace it as much as possible. See how that feels. Often it’s not change that is hard, it’s our resistance to it.

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Audio: How to Be the Boss of Everything

In this 5-minute guided meditation we’ll practice orienting the mind to gain more clarity about our purpose.

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3 Ways to Transform Busyness and Regain Focus So You Can Accomplish More

An excerpt from Practice #7 – Keep Making It Simpler – in Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader.

“Are you as busy as we are?” This was the question a female executive from a technology company once asked me as we began our Skype meeting. I was talking with her regarding the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, and I could have easily said yes. Instead I said, “We don’t do busy. We aspire to work in a way that is focused, engaged, and spacious.”

I was attempting to be playful, and we both laughed. Of course I was busy, but I have a strong aversion to busyness, and she and I then had a meaningful discussion about our intention for how we wanted to work. It’s easy to get caught up in the prevailing culture of busyness. Having a lot to do is one thing; it’s a common problem we are all familiar with. To me, busyness means becoming caught up in that complexity and losing sight of what is most important. Busyness equates to mindless rushing. For me, the antidote to busyness is remembering to be mindful and to practice being focused, engaged, and spacious.

So, what does this mean? How do we make this shift?

1. Be Focused: See what matters most, your ground truth, your creative gap, the most important thing, and focus on that. Come back, over and over, to the simple, yet difficult question: What is my priority right now? What is the most important thing to accomplish in this call, this day, this week?

2. Be Engaged: This refers to your level of energy and attention. Whatever the task, engage with it fully till it’s time to move to a new task. In general, I find I can remain fully engaged with tasks in 45-90 minute increments, then it helps to take a short break of 5 or 10 minutes. When working, engage with your full energy, then completely disengage and relax.

3. Be Spacious: This refers to bringing your attention away from concerns about yourself and noticing the space and openness, literally, that exists around you, wherever you are. At the same time, notice stress without becoming stressed. Expect stress, anxiety, and fear to arise at times, and let them go when they do. Studies show that stress and busyness aren’t the real problem; the problem is our relationship with stress. In one study, people who believed that stress was inevitable and positive had greater well-being than those who believed that stress was negative and something to be avoided. Further, those who had a positive attitude about stress lived longer than those who experienced relatively little stress in their lives.

Try this:

Right now, notice where you may be feeling tight or constricted.
Give attention to those places, and relax and soften them. Notice how much space is now available. So often we miss how much space there is right in the midst of our busy lives. We tend to look only at people and things and miss how much space there is in between.
Explore, notice how much space there is, physically.
Right now, look up, look to the left and right. There is lots of space everywhere.
Then return to the question of what matters most to you right now.

Making it simpler doesn’t mean avoiding stress or accomplishing less. There is a good deal of evidence that we can live healthier lives and accomplish more, and more of what matters, when we are focused, engaged, and spacious.

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