Leadership, Mindfulness
In 1960’s America, hairstyles were getting longer, trust in institutions was getting thinner, and drug use was on the rise. The “turn on, tune in, drop out” counterculture movement popularized by Timothy Leary terrified parents, pastors, and politicians alike as experimental drugs like LSD spread from research labs to the city streets. Some psychologists turned to researchers to conduct experiments on rats to prove that exposure to these psychoactive drugs led directly to addiction and death.
The researchers took up the cause. They had labs filled with rats that were kept in what were known as Skinner Boxes where they could neither see nor touch other rats. The only visual stimulation they got was seeing the people who brought them food and water and cleaned the metal pans under their cages every few days. The researchers offered the rats the choice between drinking plain water from a bottle or another bottle of water laced with drugs like heroin, morphine, amphetamine, and cocaine. The rats quickly became addicted. They consumed large amounts of the drug-laced water until they overdosed and died. The researchers confidently concluded that the drugs were irresistibly addictive and deadly to rats, and by extension, to humans. The mass media, in turn, reported that irresistibly addictive drugs could not be allowed to circulate in human society.
In the 1970’s, American psychologist, Dr. Bruce Alexander, questioned these findings. “What if the rats were offered the same drugs in a different environment?” he wondered. Rats were naturally social creatures. Maybe they had turned to the drugs to overcome the abject isolation and lack of stimulation. Alexander and his colleagues created “rat parks” where rats lived with others and were free to play and socialize and were given the same access to the same drugs as those in the Skinner Boxes. The “rat park” rats remarkably preferred the plain water over the drug-laced water. Even when they did imbibe from the drug-laced bottles, they did so intermittently, not obsessively, and never overdosed.
Connection with a social community beat the power of drugs.
In their new book, Brain Wash: Detox Your Mind for Clearer Thinking, Deeper Relationships and Lasting Happiness, Drs. David and Austin Perlmutter suggest that humans are becoming as isolated as the rats in Skinner Boxes. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the explosion of highly addictive personalized technology has caused us to turn away from community and toward irresistible short-term pleasures. Every time we give in to the addictive impulse, our brain gets a little hit of dopamine. And every time our brain gets a hit of dopamine, as Berkeley Professor Dacher Keltner shared in The Power Paradox, our ability to empathize with others gets suppressed.
As leaders, it is our job to connect with what is meaningful, not what is convenient. It is our job to stop the endless swipe, the bottomless scroll, to put down the screens between ourselves and others and start conversations. Our job is to step out of our hyper-personalized world that feeds us information that we’re predicted and programmed to like and connect with people who are different from ourselves.
Starting now, you can either reclaim your brain or give in to the addiction of disconnection.
Question: Have you noticed that while we’ve been upgrading our technology we’ve been downgrading humanity?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
Mindfulness
“On the morning of April 7, 2007, I was lying on the floor of my home office in a pool of blood. On my way down, my head had hit the corner of my desk, cutting my eye and breaking my cheekbone. I had collapsed from exhaustion and lack of sleep.” Those are the opening words of Thrive, the 2014 New York Times Bestseller written by Arianna Huffington, co-founder and former editor-in-chief of HuffPost.
That fall was her wakeup call. It caused her to re-think her definition of success and to seriously consider the impact of stress on her life.
Stress. It’s become such a prevalent part of our workdays that we’ve come to accept it as an occupational necessity. Yet, the long-term effects of stress can be lethal. Stress is a factor in 75% to 90% of all medical visits, and a factor in the six leading causes of death.
If you consider yourself a leader who thrives under pressure – if you work best under a deadline – you may be addicted to stress. According to Heidi Hanna, author of Stressaholic, “stress is a drug.” When we’re under the gun, stress releases dopamine and feeds endorphins to our brains which temporarily boosts performance.
As a leader, you have a responsibility to create a culture of performance. Over time, your time-crunched lifestyle can not only have serious health implications for you, but can have a debilitating impact on your organization. Here are two practices that will help you navigate the path between stress and success:
Be Mindful. Our response to stress is something we inherited from our ancestors. It was a fight or flight response that triggered an ‘all systems go’ reaction in the body. When faced with a sabre-toothed tiger, that reaction was designed to improve our chances for survival by releasing a burst of cortisol to mobilize the body for action.
Although the sabre-tooth is extinct, our flight or flight mechanism is alive and well. Any time we face a threat – a deadline, a conflict with a colleague, a financial struggle – our body goes into stress mode. It releases cortisol causing our blood pressure to rise and our heart to beat faster. But, without a physical release of fighting or fleeing, the cortisol builds up in our system. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that we can train our brains to recognize these sensations in the moment, and learn to react calmly instead of letting out our inner caveman. It’s a practice known as mindfulness.
As defined by Dr. Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness is “paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.” The next time you’re in a stressful meeting, try the ABC method of mindfulness. Become Aware of the stress rising in your body. Breathe deeply and consider your options. Then Choose thoughtfully.
Build Margins. Today’s leaders are incredibly busy. Everyone, it seems, wants a piece of you. And no one seems to appreciate the fact that you are a finite resource. Perhaps you don’t even realize this yourself. You can’t be an effective leader if your calendar is crammed with back-to-back meetings and your inbox is full of unread messages.
“To be truly effective,” says leadership expert Dr. Tony Baron, “you need to make time for margins your life.” You need to create white space, or times of reflection so that information can be turned into knowledge, and that knowledge into insight. Sometimes, you just have to stop and let the information catch up with you.
Building margins in our lives helps us get over our feeling of scarcity that leads to stress. We start by stressing that we never have enough time, that we cannot make time to truly connect with our employees, that there is only so much to go around.
Margin is not something that just happens. You have to fight for it. You can start by creating a time budget like this one from Michael Hyatt to help you focus on what matters most.
Stress is not going away, but you don’t have to be addicted to it. Make the choice today to be mindful and build margins in your life to build the resilience you need to manage it effectively.
Question: How does stress impact your ability to lead effectively?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
![Mindfulness Moment: Strength comes from forgiveness]()
Mindfulness
Have you grown weary of feeling weak and powerless? Does life seem too heavy to bear at times?
One of the surest ways to experience freedom in your life is to forgive. Bitterness and anger is a heavy burden many carry around with them every day. They go to bed with it every night and in the morning they pick it up and put it on again.
That person or situation who hurt you no longer has control over you in this moment. It is up to you to decide to move past the hurt.
Don’t spend one more moment clinging to the hurts of the past. Today is a new day and you deserve more.
Choose to be filled with a strength that only comes from forgiveness.
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Jenny is a dynamic speaker, coach, and blogger and is passionate about helping people integrate their personal and professional selves.
Jenny helps organizations empower their employees by implementing tools that help manage stress, achieve self-awareness, and challenge mental barriers that may hinder behavior change. Learn more about Jenny
.
CONTACT INFO:
jjacobs@executiveexcellence.com
877.223.1428
@JennyJacobs
![Mindfulness Moment: Strength comes from forgiveness]()
Mindfulness
Are you letting other people dictate what you should do or who you should be?
If you are, I am certain that causes you to feel powerless, stressed out, and defeated. You are the only one who can take back that power.
In this moment focus on who you really are deep down. It is time to step out of the shadow of the life you have been living and into the brightness of the life you are meant to live.
In this moment take that first step. What is holding you back?
Are you interested in receiving weekly mindfulness moments by email?
Send us a message at info@executiveexcellence.com and we will add you to our
Mindfulness Moments subscriber list!
Jenny is a dynamic speaker, coach, and blogger and is passionate about helping people integrate their personal and professional selves.
Jenny helps organizations empower their employees by implementing tools that help manage stress, achieve self-awareness, and challenge mental barriers that may hinder behavior change. Learn more about Jenny
.
CONTACT INFO:
jjacobs@executiveexcellence.com
877.223.1428
@JennyJacobs
![Mindfulness Moment: Strength comes from forgiveness]()
Mindfulness
When ONE bad thing happens the cascade of poisonous thoughts often follow:
Nothing good ever happens to me.
I’m not smart enough.
Why does everyone around me have more than I do?
No one likes me.
I will never succeed.
These are lies we tell ourselves. Life is made up of good and bad situations – that is the cycle of life.
Stop that cascade of detrimental thinking.
When you focus on embracing this moment it allows you to acknowledge what is happening and then move on to the next moment.
Take a deep breath and remember that this too shall pass.
Are you interested in receiving weekly mindfulness moments by email?
Send us a message at info@executiveexcellence.com and we will add you to our
Mindfulness Moments subscriber list!
Jenny is a dynamic speaker, coach, and blogger and is passionate about helping people integrate their personal and professional selves.
Jenny helps organizations empower their employees by implementing tools that help manage stress, achieve self-awareness, and challenge mental barriers that may hinder behavior change. Learn more about Jenny
.
CONTACT INFO:
jjacobs@executiveexcellence.com
877.223.1428
@JennyJacobs
![Mindfulness Moment: Strength comes from forgiveness]()
Mindfulness
Do you know who you are? Do you do things because you think you should or it is what everyone wants you to do?
In order to experience a sense of empowerment and calm in your life, it is imperative to know who you are.
That process can be an uncomfortable one as you go through the journey of letting go of disappointments, choosing to forgive (yourself or someone else), or taking the first step toward something you have always wanted to accomplish.
The series of events in your life have been working to make you who you are. Learn from them and then move on. Being your authentic self is one of the single most gratifying experiences you will ever have.
Don’t allow life’s circumstances to defeat you. In this moment, focus on the fact that what is happening around you is temporary.
Take a deep breath and focus on one thing for which you are thankful. That is the first step to rising above difficult times and becoming the authentic person you are meant to be.
Are you interested in receiving weekly mindfulness moments by email?
Send us a message at info@executiveexcellence.com and we will add you to our
Mindfulness Moments subscriber list!
Jenny is a dynamic speaker, coach, and blogger and is passionate about helping people integrate their personal and professional selves.
Jenny helps organizations empower their employees by implementing tools that help manage stress, achieve self-awareness, and challenge mental barriers that may hinder behavior change. Learn more about Jenny
.
CONTACT INFO:
jjacobs@executiveexcellence.com
877.223.1428
@JennyJacobs
