Mindful Leadership

By Cara Bradley, Host and Co-Producer of the Mental Fitness Bootcamp, guest contributor

“The holy grail of today’s workplace is high employee engagement.” - Harvard Business Review, February 16, 2017

Top leaders know that high engagement leads to high performance. Engaged employees are happier and work harder on the job. Low engagement, on the other hand, cost US companies a cool $550 billion in lost revenue per year.

So how do you make your people more engaged? Well we all know telling them …

By John J. Murphy, guest contributor

According to a recent Gallup study, 48% of American workers say they are actively looking for other job opportunities, and the United States has reached record highs in quit rates and unfilled positions. The study also reveals that 74% of employees are experiencing some degree of burnout. Given these statistics and the daily challenges of running a business, what is a mindful leader to do, especially when so many factors seem out of control? How can we culti…

By Georgina Miranda, guest contributor

As the future of work continues to evolve at a rapidly changing place, our centeredness and heightened awareness as leaders become ever more so critical. The playbook we once used as leaders needs to be revisited with new eyes and heart so that we can be our own anchors and that for our people. We are called to consider a broader perspective of what world-class places of work look, feel, and act like. 

Conscious leadership asks us to be mindful, compassio…

By John J. Murphy, guest contributor

Sometimes during my lectures and coaching sessions, I need to remind people that we all have 24 hours in a day, and it’s been that way for a while. Therefore, emotions like anxiety, stress, and feeling overwhelmed are not manifesting because we do not have enough time. They are revealing important lessons to us about how we are prioritizing the time we have. 

Think about this like closet space. Often, people assume they need more closet space because the sp…

By Dave Potter, guest contributor

The concepts of “acceptance” and “non-striving" in mindfulness practice are difficult to understand because they seem to imply passivity and inaction. I don’t think I’ve ever taught a mindfulness class in which a student didn’t question mindful “acceptance” with concerns that it would lead to passivity:

“How does “acceptance” and “non-striving” apply when being attacked, verbally or physically?”

But “acceptance”, in the context of mindfulness, does not im…

By Larissa Hall Carlson, guest contributor

Working as a professional musician is incredibly demanding. Common challenges like intense competition, performance stress, long tours, burnout, and repetitive-movement injuries can prevent musicians from performing at their best. In their study of 2,536 adult musicians, Gembris, Heye, and Seifert (1) discovered that in addition to stage fright, when consistent pressure to perform well triggers music performance anxiety (MPA) in orchestral musicians pe…

By John J. Murphy, guest contributor

For the past 33 years I have worked as a transformational business consultant, helping organizations worldwide build high-performance work environments. The keyword here is environment. Albert Einstein once said, “The field is the sole governing agency of the particle.” In my experience, the field is the culture. It is the environment we live and work in. It is a form of energy that impacts the way we think, feel, look at things, and behave. Like gravity, we…

By John J. Murphy, guest contributor

One of the most common challenges we face in the workplace is conflict with other people. Maybe it is a boss who gets under our skin. Or maybe it is a colleague who rubs us the wrong way. In any case, we know it instantly. We feel it. Our heart rate increases. Our stress hormones kick into gear. We may even begin to sweat. Now, we have proof that this difficult person is responsible for how we feel. The evidence is clear.

If this sounds familiar, you are no…

By Georgina Miranda, guest contributor

After a year or more away from your office and peers, the thought of returning back to your desk, commute, and schedule can bring on new concerns or anxiety. Leaders today are challenged to create a new normal for their places of work and teams. While you might still hear many people say, “I can’t wait to go back to normal,” it’s important to acknowledge that our world has shifted, we as individuals have shifted, and the normal we knew is in the past. We c…

By Joy Reichart, New Ventures West, guest contributor

Zoomed Out

Yes, we are all “Zoomed out.” As connected as this wonderful platform has allowed us to remain over the past year of anxiety, separation, and loss, it carries with it a certain fatigue. For one thing, we are usually sitting down, hemmed in by a rectangle, perceiving ourselves, our colleagues, and our loved ones as only head and shoulders. For many it has become numbing, and we’re ready to be together again if only to remember we …