With practice, meditation has the potential to transform your life. Even a brief workout of just 10 minutes a day can have business benefits beyond lowered heart rate, lower cortisol levels, and better recovery. The effects are not uniform among the practitioners, each person obtains different results. “Meditation is an exploration,” explains veteran meditation teacher Jeff Warren. "We have to learn for ourselves exactly how this will change our perspectives and ways of working."
jeff warrenHe is an author, meditation teacher, and co-author of Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. He writes and records his daily commute on the Calm meditation app and has created many ten percent happy meditations and courses. His work makes meditation and practice accessible to a diverse audience, including US Army cadets, law enforcement officers, Google executives, distracted teens, and "every other conceivable thinking demographic."
I interviewed Warren to find out some of the amazing benefits for entrepreneurs who make meditation part of their daily routine.
increased creativity
Creativity means discussions and flip charts and drawing and free writing, right? Incorrect. Creativity doesn't just come from the hustle and bustle; it also arises from silence. “When the mind calms down and moves out of normal thought patterns, it becomes available for amazing new connections,” Warren said. Do the same things, get the same results. Sit, stay still, redirect your thinking brain and see what happens.
"Strange ideas from the depths well up, offering new associations and possibilities," he added. "Being still is possibly one of the best practices for creativity." When you are active throughout the day, your brain remains in a mode of thinking and doing, in words and actions. But the stillness that meditation brings can help put that aside and open up opportunities for breakthroughs, discoveries, and new ideas.
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Trust that your mind has the answers you need, it just needs more rest to find them.
More time
Maybe you think you don't have time to meditate. Warren suggests that you don't have time not to. "Most people think of meditation as an investment of time," he said. "Something that takes time and takes away other things, but the contradictory thing about meditation is that it actually takes time." A practice that provides more spaces? It almost sounds too good to be true.
"By taking a little time to do nothing, you can make room for more," said Warren, who has seen this firsthand. urgent, so he could end up making more space in his schedule ”. Say goodbye to being a busy fool and say goodbye to a clearer sense of priority that means letting go of the unimportant without guilt.
Meditation is a time investment that will give you more time back, so use it with more intention.
A lighter self-confidence
You might mistake someone who meditates as intense, antisocial, or boring, "and sometimes that's true!" Warren laughed. "But sometimes it's the other way around. You can definitely come away with a glowing charisma. Meditation can make things stand out existentially. You start to see the randomness of things and the weirdness of whatever environment you find yourself in." Through meditation one realizes that absolutely everything can be taken more lightly, and this is a strange realization.
“You stop taking your situation for granted and everything can have that ridiculous or humorous quality,” Warren added. "It's great to enjoy the strange twists and turns of life without being fixed and tied down to control the outcomes." The roller coaster of entrepreneurship takes strange turns every day, but recognizing this pattern in life can help you enjoy the ride while looking on the fun side. Because what is the alternative?
Take your meditation practice seriously to take yourself less seriously and be more joyful.
clearer priorities
"Meditation improves the signal-to-noise ratio in our mind," Warren said. "The longer we sit, the calmer it becomes and you start to see what's important." Much like meditation's impact on your creativity, it can also "clarify your values in these moral ways, often making you feel more compassionate or associated with a feeling of caring for people."
What matters is not money and possessions, what matters is the effect we have on others, including friends, family, and clients. But with the noise of traffic, messages, and notifications, it's easy to forget. Sitting in meditation can shut out some of the media and feedback and bring more clarity, and according to Warren, our new sense of priority not only comes "more through the work we're doing," but now we know how to focus on what we're doing. . it can be important for our work.”
Distinguish meaning from noise without being carried away by hype, and channel purpose into your daily actions to move your business forward without feeling overwhelmed.
more love and purpose
Meditation in all its different forms helps its practitioners to access more love. But Warren said this isn't "fluffy love" but "more of a feeling of wanting to contribute to something worthwhile." The more you sit, the more the talk subsides, the more you stay with what is real, and the more you know the reason for your life and your work.
Warren believes that "the sense of wanting to do rewarding work, or spend time on more rewarding work, is strengthened through mediation" when we try to understand the actions we are taking. He also believes that meditation helps you access "strategies to get there." The path becomes clearer the calmer we are.
Do what you love and love what you do and use meditation as a tool to find out exactly what that is.
Better at negotiation and communication.
Negotiating with someone without understanding them is unlikely to be successful, but "meditation helps you see people for who they are and really listen to what they're saying," Warren said. "You can get a clearer idea of what someone stands for, and that allows you to not only understand them better, but also communicate more effectively."
Meditate to get to know yourself and others better. Meditate to better recognize subtleties in body language and tone that reveal a person's true intentions and desires. Meditate to develop empathy, connect with others on a deeper level, and reach win-win situations. "It can make us better listeners and communicators," Warren said, "and it helps you realize when you're getting in the way of connecting with someone."
Be good at shedding your ego, seeing the world through someone else's eyes, and finding the best path for everyone involved.
Dissolving into a pool of cosmic unity
"Yes, the stereotypes are correct," Warren said. “Meditation can make you feel connected to everything, including trees and animals. The feeling of being part of something bigger.” Warren finds this part "very rewarding and weird at times".
But where could an entrepreneur live better? The purpose of building a business is to move the world forward and leave a legacy for your team, your customers and the future inhabitants of the planet. Meditation can help you in your search. "Business is the vehicle through which many actions and projects happen, and when you are more aware, you see more connections and more opportunities to respond to them creatively."
Find out why you're here and how you'll help make everything in the cosmos more connected and open to new business opportunities.
Meditation may bring more creativity, more time, and sharper priorities, but it's much more than a productivity hack for entrepreneurs trying to get more out of each day. Meditation can create more complete people, capable of appreciating the absurdity of life and business, feeling more connected to their work and to everyone who crosses their path. If that translates to less stress, a more carefree lifestyle, and more successful business ventures, then it's worth committing to a regular practice.