Really good stuff! Ellen Langer, Harvard professor of psychology, describes how mindfulness is simply the practice of noticing new things.

1. Recognize you don’t know. You might think you know. Ask yourself how it could be different from what you thought it would was?

2. Actively notice new things about everything around you: the physical environment, the people, the work that you’re doing.

3. As soon as find yourself feeling stressed or in any negative emotional state, you need to actively look at it in this mindful way. Ask yourself, what are the advantages of this thing that you’re fearing? As soon as this negative thing has advantages, it becomes less negative.

4. How to mindfully deal with stress:
If you’re stressed, stress relies on two things: on the assumption that something is going to happen, and when it happens, it’s going to be awful. Attack both of those. How do you know it’s going to happen? Give yourself 3, 5 reasons why in fact it might not happen. So now you’re not sure if it’s going to happen or not happen and you immediately start to feel better. Then assume it is going to happen, what are the advantages to it actually happening? And so the stress will dissipate.

Click here to listen to Ellen Langer’s interview on mindfulness.

Happiness depends on inner peace, which depends on warm-heartedness.
There’s no room for anger, jealousy or insecurity.
A calm mind and self-confidence are the basis for peaceful relations with others.
Scientists have observed that constant anger and fear eat away at our immune system, whereas a calm mind strengthens it.
Changing the world for the better begins with individuals creating inner peace within themselves.

– Dalai Lama

Watch this insightful 3 minute video where Cory Muscara, one of my favorite meditation teachers!, shares his cognitive reframing mindfulness exercise: shifting your “What Ifs” to “What Is”. This helps us drop in and anchor ourselves to the present moment – and cultivate an attitude of gratitude.

Cory Muscara is the founder of the Long Island Center for Mindfulness. He teaches at Columbia Teachers College and the University of Pennsylvania – and spent six months living in silence as a monk in Asia. Learn more about him at www.LImindfulness.com.

If you are interested in how you learn a new habit (like meditation!) and rewire your brain, watch this 2 minute video on neuroplasticity.

While it’s a survival mechanism, stress is stressful and and when we are stressed, it becomes more difficult to think clearly, learn, and remember things.

And as a leader, you are particularly at risk because you constantly face the following four challenges that lead to stress and burn out:

• An uncertain outcome
• Something important is at stake
• Being observed or watched
• Anticipation of any of the above

Learn more about stress and how to better manage it by clicking here.

Watch this heart warming, inspiring, TED talk – When There’s More to Life than Being Happy by writer Emily Esfahani Smith.  She shares how happiness comes and goes and that serving something beyond yourself and developing the best within you — gives you something to hold onto. Learn more about the difference between being happy and having meaning as Smith offers four pillars of a meaningful life: belonging; purpose; trancendence; and story telling.