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Every man can, if he so desires,
becomes the sculptor of his own brain.
– Santiago Ramon Y Cajal

I highly recommend reading Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Much Meditation Changes your Mind, Brain, and Body written by Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson, both leading PhD scientists and New York Times–best selling authors.

In their book they share how meditation not only leads to pleasant mind states but also to altered traits, that is personality traits that remain and endure after meditation sessions have ended. And that with just two weeks of 8 minutes of daily meditation, participants can start experiencing short term changes to their brains, including less reaction to stress, better focus, less mind wandering, improved memory, more compassion, and less bodily inflammation.

On a more personal note, clients have shared receiving the following benefits from a meditation practice:

• A self-awareness and awareness of the environment around them
• A calmer, more grounded presence
• Improved ability to regulate emotions, navigate difficult situations, and manage conflict
• Gains in creativity and innovative thinking
• Deeper active listening skills (being more present and patient)
• More compassion towards others and less critical of one’s self
• Improved concentration, engagement, and focus
• Enhanced perspective (the ability to see different sides and points of view)
• Stronger, richer, and more fulfilling relationships

More about Meditation …..

Meditation The practice of setting aside quiet time to calm our mind and relax our whole body by focusing on our breath, other body sensations, sound, sight, or mantra. Meditation is training for the mind; it involves an internal effort to self–regulate the mind; turning your attention away from distracting thoughts and focusing on the present moment.

Alexis Santos, meditation teacher and mindfulness expert, shares that meditators have three jobs:

• Relate to Experience Skillfully To be in wise relationship with what is by not taking things so personally. Thoughts, emotions, and feelings come and go based on certain causes and conditions, so we can see things as being part of nature.
• Develop Awareness Is the mind aware of thoughts, emotions, and sensations? Welcoming and accepting the present moment versus resisting.

• Balance and Steady the Mind Anchoring the mind by focusing on the breath or something else like another body sensation, sound, sight, or mantra.

Mindfulness versus Meditation Mindfulness is a capacity of mind – a way of relating to whatever is happening – while meditation is an activity, a thing you do. If mindfulness is like strength training and flexibility, meditation is like running or going to the gym.

The Mind-Body Connection Routine stressors in the workplace – an abrasive email, a contentious conversation, a high-stakes meeting – feel as real and as threatening to us today as a potential attack from a saber tooth tiger did thousands of years ago. Whether it’s a tiger or an angry colleague, we have basically the same physiological response – that is, we get triggered, stressed, and go into a “fight or flight mode.”

To better understand how meditation positively affects your physiology and helps manage your triggers, consider these scientific findings:

Brain – The amygdala, an almond-shaped structure in the brain, is responsible for handling our emotions. When we become triggered, we experience an “amygdala hijack.” Blood literally leaves our brain and moves towards our limbs, so we can either fight or flee. This also negatively impacts our memory and cognitive function. A regular meditation practice will improve your mental clarity and reduce the intensity and recovery time of stressful emotional triggers.

Heart – When we become triggered, the stress hormone cortisol is released, making us more susceptible to heart attack, stroke, and hypertension. A regular meditation practice will help you manage stress and its harmful effects by reducing cortisol levels in the bloodstream. This leads to slowing your heart rate and lowering your blood pressure, helping you control your breathing and remain calm.

Immune System – A strong immune system is critical to maintaining overall health. Antibodies, which fight bacteria and viruses, are critical to a strong immune system. Meditation has been shown to boost activity in the areas of the brain that command the body’s immune system, making it work more effectively. Studies have also shown that meditation boosts antibodies in the blood.

Whether you want to strengthen your existing practice or learn how to meditate – consider joining the June 28 day Summer Meditation Challenge – click here for more information.

Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
 – Victor Frankl

A leader recently shared with me the value of taking a one–minute pause before he spoke at board meetings so he could be more present, take a few deep calming breaths, create some space for himself, and respond in a more thoughtful, deliberate way. A Wharton student shared with me that she used the technique of taking a pause, focusing on her breath, and getting grounded in her body by feeling her fingertips to help her feel more calm during emotionally charged conversations.

Tara Brach, meditation psychologist and meditation teacher, speaks about how most things are really out of our control – even our thoughts, body sensations, and emotions – but because our mind is trainable, we can take control of how we respond to certain situations. She mentioned something called “the interrupter,” a mindful moment where we take a pause and respond to the situation at hand in an intentional way versus being stuck in autopilot or acting out based on our old patterns.

Tips around the one–minute interrupter!

• Take a few deep breaths, with more focus on the exhale. This will help stop your fight/flight response, activate your parasympathetic (the rest and digest) system, regulate your emotions, and cultivate a sense of calm and well-being.

• If you are in a conversation or meeting, and things get heated, request a short coffee or bathroom break to give yourself time to step away and settle your mind. Again, a few, slow, deep breaths will help interrupt the fight/flight response and facilitate the parasympathetic (rest and digest) system.
• Rather than mindlessly checking your phone, take a mindful minute to take a few deep breaths, get present, and feel centered. As a practice, because we’ve become so addicted to our phones, Tara Brach encourages us to skip once every four times we check our PDAs – and take a mindful pause.
• At end of the day, right before you enter your home, take a moment, a few deep breaths, check in with yourself and ask – what’s my best intention for how I want to show up and be with myself, family, and/or others? Relaxed? Calm? Joyful? This is a great exercise to do anytime of day – either for yourself or before you meet with someone.
• Here’s a simple four step approach – called STOP that I learned as part of my MBSR (mindfulness based stress reduction) training. It’s a simple way to be more deliberate and thoughtful about how you respond to any kind of moment – pleasant or stressful.

1. Stop: Pause.
2. Take a Breath: It might be half a breath, one breath or ten breaths – depends on the situation you are in and the pace of your experience, so trust your judgment and work with what you have.
3. Observe: Notice what’s happening. Pay attention to and honor your thoughts, emotions, and sensations. Say “YES” to this moment, accepting that it is here. Try to coexist with whatever you are noticing. The suffering comes in when we resist or want things to be different than they are.
4. Proceed: What’s the appropriate response here given what you are noticing? What’s your best intention for this situation? Make a decision based on a deliberate choice versus habit.

In 1982, Ari Weinzweig, along with his partner Paul Saginaw, founded Zingerman’s Delicatessen with a $20,000 bank loan, a Russian History degree from the University of Michigan, four years of experience washing dishes, cooking and managing in restaurant kitchens and chutzpah from his hometown of Chicago.

Today, Zingerman’s Delicatessen is a nationally renowned food icon and the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses has grown to 12 businesses with 700+ employees and $65+ million in annual revenue. And in 2019, Zingerman’s Roadhouse was named a semifinalist for the prestigious James Beard Foundation Award.

Our family met Ari last summer on a visit to Michigan while dining at Zingerman’s Roadhouse (he was the water boy, refilling our glasses!). Since then I have gotten to know Ari and continue to be inspired by his community values, artistic creative expression, prolific writings, and business success.

Ari has authored several excellent books, including recently released pamphlet, The Art of Business, in which he emphasizes that we all have the capacity to approach our lives, jobs, and businesses as artists.

As an executive coach, I especially appreciate Ari’s philosophy of how showing up as an artist links to mindful leadership and emotional intelligence. He believes that having an artist’s mindset is about being more conscious of what you think, how you view the world, what you say and do, and how you relate to others. Doing so means ultimately leading a life of your own design (versus one that was chosen for you), believing in what you do, being true to yourself and your organization, and creating more meaningful business offerings. To learn how to live as an artist, read on!

The Art of Business – Why I Want to Be an Artist by Ari Weinzweig

Here’s an idea. Next time someone asks what you do for a living, try telling them you’re an artist. Watch their response. My forecast? They will pay far more attention when you start to share more about your life. So, I’m pretty sure, will you.

Don’t worry. I’m not trying to get you to tell tall tales. I believe it—even if you’re not an artist by trade today, I have full faith that you might already live an artistically inspired life. If you don’t now, I’m confident that you are more than capable. Accountants, actuaries, and astrophysicists—regardless of profession, we all have the ability to live our lives as if we were artists. And when we choose to live our lives creatively, to make the most of the days and months and years we have on the planet, to be true to ourselves as best we can and as often as possible, then our lives—and our organizations—are truly art as well. Most of us, I know, haven’t conceived of ourselves as artists. But I’m guessing that if we start imagining ourselves in this new light, our lives will likely become richer and more rewarding. Excellent, if imperfect, works of art in the making.

If artist doesn’t feel quite right, you could try saying you’re a poet. “Real poetry opens all doors,” Jim Morrison once said. “You can walk through any one that suits you.” To Morrison’s point, there are many we can go through. We get to pick the door we’re best suited for, based on what we believe, our dreams, and our desires. The path it leads to may be difficult, challenging, anything but easy. But at least we’re on the right road. I far prefer to fall short going after the life I want to lead than to succeed on a path that others say I should have chosen. With that in mind, I opt for the door that leads to an interesting and meaningful life, to more creativity, to helping others around me be themselves; the door to learning, to loving; the one that opens to appreciating the nuance, the shading, the surprise. All of these, I believe, make for better business as well.

Don’t panic. I’m not going to make you present half a dozen poems in PowerPoint. Whether you put your poetry to paper or not isn’t the point. I don’t write poetry. But I do try to live poetically. Poet Robert Duncan said “poetry must have music and magic.” I’d say the same is true for a great life. I look for them wherever I go. The crema on a freshly poured cup of espresso; the smell of real Spanish saffron; the caramelized crust on a dark loaf of bread from our Bakehouse; the look of amazement on a customer’s face as they take their first bite of a Reuben at the Deli. They’re all pretty poetically powerful to me.

Which door we opt for is our decision. Robert Henri, in his 1923 book, The Art of Spirit, said, “Be yourself today, don’t wait till tomorrow.” Pressure and problems are always present. Your sister, your soul mate, and society can all have their say. But, in the end, the choice to live an artistic existence is ours alone to make.

When my partner Paul Saginaw and I were working on our University of Michigan commencement address in 2015, it occurred to me that what everyone asks when you graduate from school could well be the wrong question. “What are you going to do now?” seems so narrow. A far more powerful and infinitely more interesting way to frame the inquiry might be to ask: “What kind of life do you plan to create?” There are as many “right” answers as there are human beings in the world. There’s so much more to our lives than what it says on our business card. The beauty, the depth, the artistry, I believe, are in the details. Remember, it’s the fine brush strokes in the background that bring the foreground into focus. We can, I’m confident, all live a creative and an artistic existence. The more we help everyone in our organization to do the same, the more rewarding their lives will be and the better our business will become. As Robert Henri says, “In every human being there is the artist.”

There’s great energy that comes from living artistically, as Henri advocates. Creating a life of your own design, even when others raise their eyebrows in doubt and disbelief, can be challenging in the day to day. But ultimately, it’s invigorating. It brings our unique passions to the fore. Whether it’s baking or business (or, in our case, both at the same time), believing deeply in what you’re doing makes all the difference. As Henri writes, “When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He becomes interesting to other people.”

It seems to me to be what great business is all about—well-crafted, original art in our products and services; engaging language in our marketing materials; compassionate, kind, community-oriented workplaces; and in our case, high-quality food with distinctive character. That creative, caring, engaging energy is a lot of what gets people lining up to spend time and money in unique businesses such as ours. I believe—more strongly all the time—that this creativity and ability is in everyone. Our job as leaders is to help bring out of the folks we work with, and help our friends and family to do the same.

The late Irish theologian John O’Donohue wrote that, “In a sense, all the contemporary crises can be reduced to a crisis about the nature of beauty.” With that lens, he goes on, “for the first time we gain a clear view of how much ugliness we endure and allow. . . constant struggle leaves us tired and empty. . . . When we lose sight of beauty our struggle becomes tried and functional.” As a history major, I know that social patterns ebb and flow; that what cycles up will steadily then cycle down, and vice versa. We are then, in O’Donohue’s framing, suffering a crisis of ugliness on so many fronts. As he wrote many years ago, “The time is now ripe for beauty to surprise and liberate us.” I can see glimmers in the darkness. I’m ever more adamant that an artistic approach to our lives, our organizations, our work and our relationships is an answer. If we work hard at it, we can effectively turn the page. Here’s to bringing back that beauty, to the coming of a caring, collaborative and creative Age of Art. Each of us has the power to make the world just a bit gentler and a bit more beautiful every day!

Click here to learn more about Ari!

Click here to purchase The Art of Business!

Click here to hear Ari’s talk at Google!

Click here to hear Ari and Paul’s University of Michigan 2015 Commencement Speech!

Click here to email Ari (at his request, he loves connecting!)

Many of my clients sign up for coaching in order to develop their executive presence – that is the ability to show up confident, calm, and present – especially when dealing with difficult individuals. A recent client shared that one of his peers was making rude comments about my client in front of others. As a result, my client felt himself getting triggered when he came into contact with his peer. My client was concerned because he had to work regularly with this peer and intuitively understood that his colleague’s behavior was not going to change.

As you (unfortunately!) know, difficult colleagues – as well as people in our personal lives – come in many shapes, sizes and flavors, including being overly critical, bossy, unaware of how their behavior impacts others, and even – on the more extreme side – self-centered, mean–spirited, and manipulative.

Since difficult people are not always interested in or capable of insight, most likely they are not going to change. Therefore, it’s really up to you to change how you show up, so that you can remain confident and grounded and protect yourself from their negative energy.

While I don’t believe there is a one size fits all approach for dealing with difficult individuals, you can experiment with different self-management strategies to better manage difficult individuals and situations and build your inner resources.

I would say the overall goal when dealing with difficult individuals is to learn how to expand your window of tolerance for dealing with discomfort (an important life skill!), train in the skill of compassion – toward yourself and others, and ultimately feel happier and more resilient.

Here are a few different self-management strategies clients have successfully used when engaging with difficult individuals – hope you find them useful!

Set a Goal for the Interaction. Your objective is to remain present, calm and grounded and find some peace and ease during a difficult moment. For example, when I start to feel triggered, I will get grounded in my body, feel my feet on the floor, and start to focus on my breath. See Get Present and Grounded below for more information on how to use your body and breath to remain present, calm, and grounded.

Prepare. Take time and space to prepare for a difficult interaction. It’s helpful to prepare by writing out your goal and process, meditating, and/or taking a walk. Click here  to download a worksheet clients often find useful when preparing for a difficult situation.

Have Compassion for Yourself, First. Acknowledge that it’s tough and often draining to deal with toxic individuals. Make sure you give yourself sufficient space to prepare to be with them and engage in self-care after the situation to recover and renew your energy.

Have Compassion for the Other Person. While it doesn’t excuse their behavior, recognize the other person is behaving the way they are because they are suffering. One technique to help with this is a loving kindness meditation ­­– you are welcoming in self–compassion and extending compassion to the other person. You really do it for yourself, because it helps you remain more at peace and find some ease in a difficult situation. For more information, click here to read Loving Kindness Takes Time by Sharon Salzberg.

Get Present and Grounded. Use your body and breath to find a sense of equilibrium and ease. Continue to focus on your breath and bring your attention to your feet planted firmly on the floor. Connect with your own breath by counting to three on the in–breath and five on the out–breath – which will activate your rest and digest (parasympathetic) system and stop the fight or flight (sympathetic system) response.

Take a Break. It can be very challenging to remain calm and grounded for an extended period of time, so continue to check in with your goal and feelings during the difficult conversation. If and when you feel like you’re losing your grounding and going into overwhelm (fight or flight) mode, ask to take a coffee or bathroom break, return to your breathing, and remind yourself of your goal. One client found it calming and grounding to place her open right hand over her heart as she took three deep breaths.

Stay Out of Drama and Be Solutions Focused. Remain clear about your best intention and vision for the meeting and relationship – so that you can come from a place of being grounded and centered – versus reactive.

Acceptance. Recognize you are not responsible for the other person’s behavior and they are (most likely) not going to change. Sometimes, by showing up grounded and calm, you can have a positive impact on the other person. But sometimes you cannot. Your goal is to remain grounded and calm – and try to find some ease in a difficult moment – regardless of how the other person behaves.

Let Go. It’s the same thing as acceptance. Remember it’s not your job to fix or change the person: Even if you are in a situation where it is your job to provide feedback about their behavior or actions, the other person is ultimately responsible for their own thoughts, words, and actions.

Forgive but Don’t Forget. By forgiving the other person, you are not condoning their actions but rather cultivating a self-care practice that releases you from toxic and negative feelings and enables you to meet difficult individuals where they are, free from judgment – in order to keep your energy calm and grounded. But it’s important to note that you should always do your best to project yourself from being in harms way. Forgiveness does not mean condoning their actions.  Click here  to learn more about establishing a forgiveness practice through meditation or journaling.

Establish Energetic Boundaries. Some clients find it helpful to visualize a spacious circular bubble around their body so they feel protected by a cushion of space. Then, if the other person says something that is upsetting, imagine it bouncing back off the bubble and right back at them. This approach keeps their negative energy from entering into your own personal space.

Maintain a Sense of Humor. You only have to be with this person (hopefully!) for a short amount of time. They have to live with themselves 24 hours a day.

Remember it’s a practice, so experiment with different strategies and always go easy and gentle on yourself!

When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
– Mary Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019)

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate.

Give in to it.

There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be.

We are not wise, and not very often kind.

And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left.

Perhaps this is its way of fighting back,
that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world.

It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins.

Anyway, that’s often the case.

Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty.

Joy is not made to be a crumb.

– Mary Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019)

“One of the sad things today is that so many people are frightened by the wonder of their own presence.

They are dying to tie themselves into a system, a role, or to an image, or to a predetermined identity that other people have actually settled on for them.

This identity may be totally at variance with the wild energies that are rising in their souls. Many of us get very afraid and we eventually compromise.

We settle for something that is safe, rather than engaging the danger and the wilderness that is in our own hearts.

Just as the true artist is always haunted by the desire to bring the dreams of the imagination to expression, the failure to follow one’s own calling to creativity severely damages one’s spirit.”
– John O’Donohue

Practice sharing the fullness of your being,
your best self, your enthusiasm, your vitality,
your spirit, your trust, your openness, above all your presence.
Share it with yourself, with your family, with the world.
– Jon Kabat-Zinn

Given the fast pace of life, constant distractions, and multitude of demands placed upon us, we often struggle with showing up at our best – especially during important work and personal situations. Whether it’s a meeting, dealing with a toxic co-worker, setting limits with a challenging teenager, or being compassionate toward an aging family member, it’s helpful to pause and remind ourselves – what’s my best intention for this situation?

In coaching, executives quickly learn that that how they say something – that is their style and how they show up – is just as important as the content of what they are saying. An executive recently shared, “I now spend a lot more time thinking and preparing for interactions with others, above and beyond the content itself. Working on grounding myself as well as preparing for difficult meetings has been very helpful. Not surprisingly, this has been helpful in my personal life as well.”

But how do we show up at our best – especially when there is the potential to become triggered? Here is an effective, simple exercise for showing up as your best self that works great at work or in your personal life!

How to Show Up and Lead with Intention!

Step One: What is my goal? What do I want? What is my preferred outcome for the conversation? What does success look like from the other person’s point of view?

Client examples include (recommend identifying 1-3 goals):
• Learn more about the job and explore if the fit is right
• Get the job offer
• Get the promotion
• Make a good impression
• Make sure my body language and tone communicate interest in the other person
• Communicate important information
• Influence an important decision
• Share my point of view
• Delegate an important task to my direct report
• Provide the tough feedback
• Offer support in a difficult situation
• Offer career support and advice
• Gather information
• Actively listen and build trust
• Be present with the person and refrain from offering advice
• Pause before I respond
• Connect and strengthen the relationship
• Demonstrate I care about the other person
• Establish better boundaries
• Have fun

Step Two (my favorite step!): What is my best intention for how I want to Show Up? What would I want the other people(s), or a fly on the wall, to say about how I was “being”?

Client examples include (recommend identifying 3-5 attributes):
• Present
• Engaged
• Grounded
• Confident
• Approachable
• Authentic
• Empathetic, active listener
• Able to understand and respect others’ point of view
• Nonjudgmental
• Curious
• Collaborative
• Caring
• Compassionate
• Focused on what matters
• Respectful
• Grounded, not reactive
• Like-able, fun to work with
• Joyful
• Energized and upbeat

Step Three: What are my “watch outs”? What could I do or say that could get in the way of a successful meeting or conversation?

Client examples include:
• What could I say that might make the other person feel defensive?
• What could the other person say that might make me feel defensive?
• How might my need to be liked get in the way?
• How might my need to be right get in the way?
• What do I need to pay attention to in terms of my tone of voice and body language?

Step Four: How will I maintain leadership presence? How can I stay present and focused on my goal, intentions and watch outs? What will I do if I get triggered so that I can re-center and remain grounded?

Client examples include:
• Periodically remind myself of my goal, intentions, and watch outs. Clients often write them down on the side of their notepad or on a note-card placed in their pocket.
• Get grounded in my body by focusing on my breath, counting to five, or feeling the sensations of my feet on the floor.
• Get grounded in my body by bringing my attention to an outside sound, like a fan or an air conditioner.
• Request a coffee or bathroom break if I start to feel myself transitioning to reactive mode versus intentional mode and remind myself of my goal, intentions, and watch outs.