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THE (UNDERUTILIZED) POWER OF BREATH FOR SUCCESS

When you own your breath,
nobody can steal your peace.

—ANONYMOUS

Before I had my “aha” moment for a beauty product idea and built it into a multimillion-dollar business (Moisture Jamzz), before I wrote my first small-business guidebook (Your Idea, Inc., Adams Media, 2009), and before I built my entrepreneurial/small-business consulting business, the only thing I was known for, way back in 1989, was “the girl who always left yoga class right before Savasana.” Sanskrit (an ancient language of India) for “corpse pose,” Savasana is the last pose of yoga class where you lie still for several minutes. Being still made me anxious. Savasana seemed like a complete waste of time. I'd stare at the ceiling as my mind swirled into to-do lists and my heart set off to race. I saw no value in those last five minutes of class. I had places to go and people to see. I had no respect for stillness. I wasn't wired for it. “Namaste, see you tomorrow!” I'd nod to the teacher and slip out the door sideways.

Slithering out of yoga class pre-Savasana was a total rookie move that was offensive both to my teachers and the practice of yoga. It was also a disservice to my mind and body. But at that time, I wasn't capable of questioning my disdain for stillness or even to simply recognize the value of those precious moments at the end of class. The teachers began to pull me aside and ask why I bothered making the daily effort (sometimes twice a day) to attend yoga class but left before it was over. They'd kindly urge me to complete the traditional practice. Instead of faking it, I decided to try to experience what they all considered the “most important pose.” When it was time for Savasana, I awkwardly stayed on my mat with eyes wide open, but I wasn't finding any answers in the ceiling fans, so I closed my eyes. Only there, in my internal darkness, was my body finally moved to take a long, deep breath, allowing me to quietly settle in. How was it that one simple deep breath could magically ease me into a “space” of centering that I had never arrived at before? Ever.

That powerful yet peaceful place where I could be still and quiet and absorb all the goodness of the practice . . . that was Savasana. Aha! Savasana is the reason that we do an entire yoga flow class in the first place—to get to a place where our mind and body can happily be still. Instead of Savasana making me tired, as I feared it would, it was completely rejuvenating. It felt like my mind and body were holding hands and smiling. I felt whole and connected, focused and energized. Therein was my truth; when I owned my deep breath, I could connect my mind and body and take control of my pace, my mood, and my attitude . . . on and off the mat. The indelible lesson of simple deep breathing had been formed and I'd never look back. Breath is an extremely underutilized tool for success. We have to do it to stay alive, and yet, the tool remains untapped in the lungs of stressed-out, overworked people all over the globe. I hope to change that, one deep breath at a time. I'm compelled to share my story of breath and its full effect on my entrepreneurial life in hopes that doing so will help many others in business on so many levels. Not everyone has the capacity or desire to do long-form meditation, but we can all tap into the empowering benefits of 3DB (three deep breaths) as meditation.

Three deep breaths (3DB) has given me more inner strength than I could ever have imagined. 3DB is the best way to begin to get to know the power of your breath. Once you begin to own your breath, you'll never have to experience a challenge on your own again. Your breath will always be with you to support and empower. I initially shared my enthusiasm for breath in 1998 when I wrote my first article in the spa industry magazine Pulse. In my article, titled “02 Breathe!,” I shared my experience with breath after almost ten years of practice and told how it sustained me in business and in life as a new mom. But in that pre–social media time, there was no engagement after it published and I was busy building a business, so there was no further conversation. Now that meditation is mainstream and the business sector has become what it is today, the timing could not be better to share my (even deeper) enthusiasm with breath for success.

When you enhance your breath, you connect to your mind and body, and this connection allows you to be in sync with your positive and strategic thoughts to “breathe your goals to life.” With mindful breathing, you'll begin to access everything inside you that will have you performing at your highest level, feeling a sense of control and limitless potential. It will bring more value than you can fathom at this moment. Improving your breath and mindset is what leads you to finding and exemplifying attributes of success. Qualities like patience, persistence, confidence, nonjudgmental behavior, clarity, creativity, and compassion are easily accessible through breath and will help tremendously in business. When you're moving from a place of inner strength and positive intentions, you solve problems easier, make better decisions, have clearer lines of communication, and build a culture of respect that leads to long-term success.

EMPOWER YOURSELF WITH BREATH

Breath can be your closest comrade in the battle of business. It will always be with you as a first level of defense against what can be the most brutal force on the field: your own (negative) mindset. Breath facilitates that connection to finally liberate you from feeling driven by habitual negative thoughts and emotions. There's a vulnerability that entrepreneurs face while trying to juggle all aspects of a business until we have the means to either fully learn a process or bring in people who are strong where we are weak. Until then, we have to learn to roll with the punches as new and unusual situations arise daily. We can find empowerment from Breathing Like a Boss to get back up each time we feel defeated.

When others tell you that your ideas sound silly and ridiculous, when the manufacturer that you need is nowhere to be found, when your comments aren't being heard in a meeting, when you've been overlooked for a promotion, when someone else got the sale or took the opportunity, when you get that sideways look that makes you feel completely inept or ignorant when you're just trying to learn something—breath is the tourniquet.

Enhancing your breath from the automatic shallow breathing pattern allows you to control your energy by connecting to the corresponding part of your brain that regulates emotion. (More in Chapter 2 about the power of the mind.) Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD, says, “Shallow breathing is a reaction to the unyielding stress of modern life—and is itself a cause of further stress, which leads to more shallow breathing.”⁵ You may lose many fights, but you're in it to win the battle, right? You can begin to fill the well of doubt or negativity with each deep breath. Shallow breathing brings shallow results.

BREATH IS THE NEW MEDITATION

Sure, it seems that most people want to meditate; they like the idea of it, but there's a real disconnect between wanting and doing because of the time and effort involved to just sit still. Meditating for a full session every day is a difficult sell for many, let alone the stereotypical Type A's with short attention spans or an overworked and time-crunched employee, corporate leader, or entrepreneur. Breath is the first step. Meditation is frequently thought of singularly in regard to finding enlightenment and feeling Buddha like—calm and chill—but it's so much more. One deep breath can be considered a meditation. It's science; it's not mystical. Breathing Like a Boss covers a big swath that includes not only calm and chill but also a plethora of other positive emotions to help you take charge, accomplish your goals, and up the ante with productivity.

Enhancing your breath is ground zero, the perfect place to begin to feel the benefits of meditation without having to reserve a chunk of time or master the art of stillness. It meets you where you are. Mindful breath is meditation at the speed of todays on-demand business lifestyle. There's abundant power in even one deep breath, but 3DB is still my go-to several times a day. It's my reset button and nobody's even the wiser. You can be completely inconspicuous while you're regrouping your energy. 3DB is an easy way to begin to experience the power of your breath and the freedom and strength that it brings. Imagine how much better and more productive your work will be when you begin to take advantage of mindful breath. With each deep breath you inhale, you can bring in something positive while letting go of what's holding you back with every exhale.

As with meditation, many different types of breath techniques are available as well as endless ways to enhance them. (Learn more coming up in Chapters 2 and 3.) You can begin and end with 3DB (three deep breaths) and still have life-changing results. Or you can dive deep and go wide. I look at breath practice in the same way that I see entrepreneurship: we all need to find our own unique way by doing. I hope to open your mind to the idea that owning your breath can be completely transformative and easily integrated into your day to add a sense of ease in reaching your goals and enjoying your journey to full-blown success—whatever that means to you. We all have different ideas of what success is, so be true to yourself. Finding clarity on your meaning of success will also become easier with breath practice.

IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO BREATHE LIKE A BOSS!

If you let a negative mood or energy ruin your day, that's usually when things go awry, right? It's when we experience the broad, intense range of emotions that business can evoke (sometimes all before 10 A.M.!) that it's up to each of us to stop, refuel, and refocus with breath. We forget (or may not have ever fully understood or believed) that how we think and feel is a choice! Without my breath practice to help tap into my confidence and inner strength back when I was launching my business, I definitely would have given up at several difficult milestone points. But I chose to breathe, stay positive and strong. I had to.

Without breath and mindfulness, I wouldn't have been able to ignore the salesman at the fabric cutting company who chuckled and condescendingly told me that my order was way too small for their production requirements. I stopped in my tracks because I needed reinforcement. I could easily have said something nasty and stormed back to my car, but instead, I took my 3DB, refueled with positive intention (and some chutzpah), and calmly marched with purpose around to the back cutting area to speak with the manager. I confidently pleaded my case for smaller minimums; I needed help meeting current demand but had to start small. Apparently, the manager saw potential and made an exception. That felt much better than the alternative. I went on to become one of their biggest customers. Breath.

Simultaneously, without the power of breath and positive mindset I wouldn't have had the fortitude to walk in and out of well over fifty sewing contractor offices while struggling with a language barrier to find the right match for my difficult-to-sew product. Mission accomplished, but it was long after I would have given up if it weren't for my breath as a guiding force. I still have one of the original sewing contractors from those (difficult) days working with me twenty-five years later. Breath. Without my breath practice priming me before important phone calls, I never would have sounded confident enough to talk with big corporate buyers. I landed a large chain store account before I even knew what “PO” meant. Seriously. I was outside of the business world; my degree was in broadcasting journalism. “Purchase Order” wasn't in my lingo yet. When the buyer mentioned it, I had to quickly call my friend who was in sales for the translation. You don't know what you don't know, so sounding confident can go a long way until your confidence actually comes from experience. Breath also helped me through many challenges with technology at times of complete frustration—from learning electronic data interchange, or EDI (electronic methods for purchase orders and shipments), to later dealing with things like algorithms and search engine optimization (SEO). Innovations in technology make it pretty difficult for non-techies like myself to keep up with digital marketing. Tech in the digital marketing space was unlike most other aspects of bootstrapping where a small business entrepreneur can fake-it-till-you-make-it. Breath.

Energy that is positive, clear, and confident allows for the kind of mindset that will make better decisions, and it's our daily decisions (even the ones that seem small) that lead us closer (or further away) from our goals. Breath brings tenacity for endurance and long-term persistence. It never gets old, and it's always empowering. So many things are out of your control every day at work, so utilize the one thing that you can control—your breath and therefore your thoughts, emotions, energy, and actions.

BREATH IS READY WHEN YOU ARE

Breath will meet you right where you are. No need to hold onto the stress, anger, or frustration and wait for the evening gym workout, run, or yoga class. You'll still get there, but you can begin to manage your situation right away with breath. Nobody knows exactly what you need to hear in a challenging moment better than you do. Begin to silently speak up to yourself in the moment. Show up for yourself. Tell yourself that you're going to be fine, that you can do it, breathe slowly and deeply with the intention of mustering up your inner strength. It's in there; breath will bring it to you. Exercise classes are awesome—I'm a big fan of the collective energy of a daily yoga class—but for the other twenty-three hours of the day, you are your best teacher and biggest supporter. Take the inspiration from classes and personalize it. That's where the “aha” moments happen; the real transformation happens inside. You are in control of your thoughts and emotions. 3DB and you can “turn on a dime.” No need to wait for an outside source to recalibrate and turn a bad situation into a win.

When you learn how to be self-aware (coming up in this chapter) and upgrade your breath, you'll make mindful business decisions rather than hasty ones. You'll build meaningful long-term business relationships rather than simply conduct transactions. You'll tap into your creativity instead of just working from random or mediocre ideas. You can expand your energy and mindset by activating different kinds of breathing techniques and swapping your automated shallow breath for higher-performance oxygen while detoxifying your body at the same time. Breath is the catalyst that will begin to change the way you reach your goals. You'll communicate with your brain and instruct it to help your mind and body think and feel in a way that will lead to expansion—more success, more opportunity, more abundance. You can take control. It's hard to imagine how something so simple can be so transformative.

BREATH IS FOR SUCCESS . . . AND WELLNESS

There's an SOS that I'm hearing loud and clear within the business sector. We are a little over a decade into using smartphones and our fully immersed digital business lifestyle has no real boundaries. We are expected to be available 24/7/365 . . . and we don't always mind! Maybe it's an excuse to have our eyeballs attached to our screens. Maybe we enjoy the distraction. Maybe we're addicted. Maybe we love what we do. Regardless, this connected lifestyle can lead to a warped sense of busyness that's easily mistaken as productivity and constant connectivity leads to low-level chronic stress.

Technology is only going to continue to increase in our lives, but we have human needs and limitations that need to be managed. Experts have said that our brain and body are not designed for this current lifestyle of excessive screen time (more on this in Chapter 4). The power of breath can answer this SOS and bring much-needed relief to refocus and manage our digital stimulation and distraction. It's in moments of enhanced breath that you can feel like you're in Savasana basking in the goodness of silence and stillness, recovering and recharging. Utilizing your new favorite breath technique at key moments in business will make you more mindful and productive. Breath is at your beck and call. Breath also has compounded benefits that stick around long after each exhale.

SELF-AWARENESS COMES FIRST

Self-awareness begins by understanding who you really are and discovering (and accepting) your personality traits, mental habits and patterns, and where and when you tend to be weak or negative so that you'll know exactly when and where to add positive reinforcement through breath. Self-awareness means becoming an observer of your own thoughts, behavior, and energy. Our mindset and mood can easily steer us in the wrong direction at any given moment, but we can nip it in the bud with breath. As you begin the self-awareness process, be open to seeing yourself in a nonjudgmental way. It's best to realize the truth so that you can make changes and improvements. Also, be aware that where you may feel weak today can be improved with self-awareness. Don't think of your weaknesses as personality defects; they are simply traits that you haven't yet reformed.

You might be surprised at how long you've let old, toxic, and limiting beliefs take up residence in your mind. It's time to evict. The stop-gap can come in the form of even just 3DB and a simple positive thought or intention. Building self-awareness is like having your own mindful security team who will be there to stop negativity when it gets too close. You may not typically spend even one minute thinking about your mental state, energy, attitude, or anxiety level when you are reacting to all of the tasks that need to be taken care of in one typical day at the office. That needs to change. I like the way Tony Robbins defines this self-awareness that we need to hone in on: “Self-awareness is one of the rarest of human commodities. I don't mean self-consciousness where you're limiting and evaluating yourself. I mean being aware of your own patterns.”⁸ This awareness becomes very important as you begin to utilize breath for success.

Don't worry; after a while it becomes second nature and “self-awareness check-ins” serve as the positive reinforcement that you are in control and aware of the way you think and feel. You'll begin by consciously tuning out outside stimuli and turning inward briefly and consciously so that you notice both how you feel and what you're thinking at various times during the day. You'll begin to clearly identify your negative tendencies. In his Harvard Business Review article titled “How Leaders Become Self Aware,” Anthony K. Tjan says, “There is one quality that trumps all, evident in virtually every great entrepreneur, manager, and leader. That quality is self-awareness. The best thing leaders can do to improve their effectiveness is to become more aware of what motivates them and their decision-making. Without self-awareness, you cannot understand your strengths and weakness, your ‘super powers’ versus your ‘kryptonite.’”⁹

You already know the physical feelings of stress that your ongoing negative emotions can elicit: the knots in your stomach; the proximity of your shoulders to your ears; the clenching of your jaw; the nagging neck pain; or the on-edge, tightly wound feeling that you could snap if someone looks at you the wrong way. Noticing your thought patterns is also part of the process. Maybe you can even begin to see that when you're having negative dialogue, you feel accompanying physical annoyances. Notice the correlation. Many people have a constant negative loop happening in their heads that may sound something like, “I can't do this. There are much smarter people doing similar things. I don't have a degree in this. I don't have enough money to do this. It's such a long shot. I should save myself the pain. . . .” (These certainly sound familiar!) Letting negative dialogue drive your decisions is a dangerous daily practice that will inevitably lead you in the wrong direction, and on top of that, your stress continues to simmer. When you're steeped in your negative thoughts, you begin to have a tunnel vision for only the negative situation and limit your potential of seeing other positive possibilities and opportunities.

For example, if you wake up feeling overwhelmed by a complicated project, you can choose to focus only on how difficult it's going to be, or you can choose to be positive and focus on a variety of solutions that you're enthusiastic about considering. This shift is where the transformation of energy happens, and it happens through breath. You can begin to stop the madness by becoming self-aware of your destructive patterns and replacing them with positive habits. It's a choice.

GETTING TO KNOW YOURSELF AND OTHERS

Self-awareness is necessary for building high-quality relationships (with teams, employees, colleagues, vendors, manufacturers, and customers), which really are the biggest asset of a business. Getting to know yourself also helps make you more curious about getting to know others. How well do you know the people you work with and/or do business with every day? Knowing more about someone's backstory allows for real connection and a better understanding of what's important to that person. People like sharing their stories. Take a few minutes here and there to get to know people better. When I spent a lot of time exhibiting at trade shows, I realized that every entrepreneur has a unique, interesting, and often surprising and poignant back-story. Whenever there was downtime at a show, I'd walk around and ask people how and why they began their business. I found it super inspiring, and it made me want to support a company once I understood the passion and sweat equity that went into it. I also spent many years recently writing about entrepreneurial stories on the HuffPost website. When you read inspiring stories and see a piece of yourself in someone else's journey, it can spark confidence and momentum. You can also learn from other people's mistakes.

MANAGING NEGATIVITY

When I first began to build my business, I'd post inspiring quotes above my desk on a (pre-Pinterest) bulletin board. One of my favorite quotes was from self-help author Peter McWilliams: “You can't afford the luxury of a negative thought.” It kept me in check with the mind–body connection that's critical for success. It came in handy more times than I like to admit since it is a luxury to allow yourself to feel negative because that's easy. You can resign yourself to the rejection or the fact that you probably aren't going to be able to do something because it's hard or it requires more than you think you may have inside you. Wallowing in negativity is a normal default, but it affects your mind, energy, and confidence, therefore affecting the outcome of your efforts in that same negative way. Often we don't realize how much negative conversation we allow ourselves to silently conduct every day in our mind. A big percentage of our daily thoughts are both repetitive and negative, and they are sabotaging our efforts. Hence, we cannot afford the ease or comfort of residing in that place of defeat or negativity. Just as we need to know the numbers in our company's profit and loss statement, we also need to know what our mind and emotions look like to see exactly where and when change needs to be made. Although these are two very different things, both are critical to success. Breathe.

Activating your self-awareness comes right before activating your breath. Self-awareness will help you sense and understand when you feel in need of an energetic shift or boost. You'll stop for a second and realize that you're thinking negatively, feeling anxious and fearful, or moving from a place of chaos, impatience, or frustration. Once you become aware, you make the change with breath. When you learn to sense negative energy in your body and then have the self-awareness to know that you need to change it, that's when breath becomes an important part of your daily routine. In fact, it can change your routine habits into powerful rituals for success.

The process of self-awareness grows faster each time you use it and becomes embedded in your mind as a new habit. You're empowered to sense, notice, and then swap counterproductive thoughts and feelings for a higher level of energy through your intentional deep breaths. When you take deep breaths, you oxygenate the blood, which causes your brain to release endorphins to trigger a positive feeling that also helps to reduce stress. Bingo. It's all working together!

IT'S A PRACTICE

I'd bet that if asked, most people who know me well would describe me as happy and calm. I certainly don't always feel that way. Sure, I love “happy and calm,” so I work at feeling and being that way. I know the feeling in my mind and body when I'm in it, and there's nothing better. But if left to my own devices, I might default to other standard settings that I've brought in during my adult years. I'm a worrier. I'm fast-paced (that's a nice way of saying I tend to be impatient). My mind is always moving. I have a short attention span. I'm a future-based thinker. But I know that the magic happens when I'm self-aware and present in the moment. I confront my chaotic energy head on and slow it down with some deep breaths to keep me “happy and calm.” Mindful breathing and positive mindset are ongoing active practices that really have changed me . . . and my nervous system.

Breathing Like a Boss has moved me closer to the energy that I had when I was younger and more of a free spirit, but life happens and we become responsible adults. We all know that best version of ourselves that often gets pushed away in order to focus on work. The goal is to live in our positive energy more often and be our best selves even when things get crazy. When I work on being present, confident, and certain, that's when I get my best ideas, my creativity is in complete flow, and I hear the word “yes” in abundance. With each practice session of breath, you're breathing into something new, with a new thought or perspective. Or you're breathing through something that will continue to change. With each exhale, you're breathing something out, letting something go. Some element is always a little different than the day before. Your mind and body are always changing, so 3DB will always feel fresh and empowering. The practice is about learning, growing, and evolving with your breath and your mind–body connection. You are developing your keen sense of self-awareness and getting to know and appreciate your inner self with each deep breath.

MAKING THE PRACTICE YOUR OWN

One of the absolute best things about breath practice is that it's yours. You don't need anyone's permission, acknowledgment, or guidance. You'll evolve with your practice in the way that works best for your mind, body, and personality—knowing that however and whenever you want to activate your breath, that's the right way for you if it's making you feel more productive, more present, and clearer. You'll learn to develop your own habits and rituals for both self-awareness and breath practice that will empower you over and over again. Breath is a guiding force that feels like putting on new glasses and finally being able to clearly see both close up and into the distant future. As you become familiar with the power of breath and the power of your mind (see Chapter 2), you'll experiment and get uniquely creative with your breath practice. Personalizing your breath makes you want to tap into it more and more. There's no right or wrong way to utilize your mind–body connection to do better, feel better, and think better. Use breath in a way that wakes you up inside and empowers you to be the best version of yourself. Own your breath so that you can own your peace!

SELF-AWARENESS SAVED ME FROM MYSELF!

Not long after launching my business in 1993, my patience was tested big time. I had a large chain-store buyer interested in placing a purchase order larger than I imagined. I was so excited to get this order in motion (before she changed her mind!) that I became very impatient to seal the deal. I wanted to offer a discount to incentivize the buyer to have a sense of urgency. I knew that I needed to wait it out, especially because she hadn't complained about the price, but I knew that price was a big part of the negotiations. From being self-aware, I definitely knew that I had a tendency to be impatient and that it never served me well. Every morning I turned to my breath for patience; it became my ritual as I waited. It stopped me from calling the buyer and nudging or offering that random discount. It helped shift my focus onto something else. I knew that if I acted on my impulses, not only would it look totally amateur but it could also jeopardize the whole deal. I had to breathe into my patience and have faith in the timing. Knowing where I fell short, I was able to bring in reinforcement through breath to focus on the bigger picture goal of building a mutually beneficial long-term business relationship while being mindful in the process and keeping my stress level in check. I was able to hold tight until the buyer responded with that dream purchase order. Breath worked and the launch of this new partnership felt so rewarding. This big chain turned into a twelve-year relationship. If I had been impulsive and offered even a small discount in order to expedite the deal, it would have cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. I'm grateful for being self-aware and calling on my breath to save me again and again.

LEARNING TO LISTEN TO OURSELVES . . . AND OTHERS

As I became more self-aware, l realized that listening to my own internal voices made it easier to listen better in general, too. Like many, I wasn't always fully present in a meeting or a conversation, but where I really noticed that I fell short was while exhibiting our products at trade shows. The pace is frenetic, and it's common to juggle having to talk with a few different people at once. I had a tendency to semi-listen while toggling back and forth between conversations, trying not to miss a question or have anyone leave the booth without fully understanding our products. I was leaving business on the table by not being fully present to connect one on one with potential buyers. It left me feeling frazzled as well. I decided to change my trade show habits, slow my pace while in the booth, and focus when someone was speaking to me. One at a time. First come, first served. My breath kept me in the present moment and made me a much better listener, which led to developing meaningful, long-term business relationships, understanding the customer's wants and needs and closing deals on the spot. Buyers felt understood. And guess what? People waited to talk with me because they could see that I gave individualized attention. I cared. Listening is an important part of success in business, and it doesn't come easy with a fast-moving mind that lacks self-awareness.

In addition to trade shows, meetings are another place to consider listening skills and notice the habits of others. Can you imagine how much more productive meetings would be if everyone was listening intently? Learning how to be present and fully listen opens so many more doors, too. Observing meeting etiquette is an interesting exercise. Are people listening for the end of someone's point to immediately jump in and add something of their own that has nothing to do with acknowledging the last comment? Not truly hearing all the feedback during a brainstorming session or conversation limits the full potential of a group's collective energy. Coming to the table ready and willing to listen changes the game. Maybe meetings should begin with 3DB, a basket for phones to be put in, and an intention to focus on what's being said so that no idea goes unexplored. All in favor of this, say aye!

STEP ONE WITH SELF-AWARENESS

An easy way to gain some self-awareness is to take a personality test online. One of the most popular tests is the Myers-Briggs (www.myersbriggs.org). You can take a similar one for free at www.16Personalities.com. I enjoyed doing this exercise and in case you're wondering, I'm considered an ENFJ type. If nothing else, these tests give you insight into a variety of character traits that you may not even realize have held you back in business. Doing these tests or even just writing a list of your strengths and weaknesses can help you grasp aspects of your personality that you need to watch and be able to intercept. Learning to be more self-aware of your detrimental habits will speed up the process of reversing their effects. A study by the American Management Association revealed that “A high self-awareness score was the strongest predictor of overall success.”¹⁰

Here are some situations that you can change with self-awareness. If you see them happening, you can now stop, take 3DB, and talk yourself out of your usual behavior so that you can overcome the tendency to repeat self-sabotaging behavior:

• Are you a perfectionist who works on things ad nauseam and never finishes because they're not good enough yet?
• Do you multitask and then not remember what you just did?
• Do you procrastinate on difficult tasks?
• Do you need results immediately rather than see the value of process?
• Do you take feedback or constructive criticism personally and negatively?
• When one thing goes wrong, do you then feel out of control and expect that everything else will go wrong the entire day?
• Do you ignore your gut instinct because you don't feel confident?
• Do you tend to be a creature of habit, sticking with a bad situation way too long because you fear unknown change?

Consciously changing your breath is about managing your energy. Enhanced breath expands your energy. When you shift from negative to positive energy, it's noticeable on the inside because it brings a sense of health and wellness to your nervous system. The change can also be felt and seen by others. You know how good it feels to be around people who are positive and supportive, compassionate, and kind? You can be one of those good-vibe people, too. I've been an eternal optimist and pretty intuitive my entire life, although I have questioned my intuition at various times and have since built a specific breath practice to fix that when I feel out of touch with my gut instinct (learn more in Chapter 3). I'm grateful to have some sort of mechanism that connects me to choose to change when I feel out of sorts. Self-awareness is not a switch that you can immediately turn on; it's a process and an eye-opening experience. You may have absolutely no idea that you've been one of those people who tend to be naysayers and need to focus on transitioning from a default of negative to positive. And by positive I don't necessarily mean happy; we can't be happy all the time. By positive, I mean that you feel strong, centered, focused, and optimistic and have clarity for the time being—even if that clarity means that you feel frustrated or upset. You don't have to let that emotion go unresolved. The self-awareness is about noticing the problem and then figuring it out from a better perspective after you've breathed through it a bit. You'll likely be amazed at how you begin to crave these self-awareness check-ins.

WHAT DOES A SELF-AWARENESS CHECK-IN LOOK AND FEEL LIKE?

Checking in with yourself is not a long internal dialogue or a lengthy process; it's more like a high-speed scan of your mind and body. It's similar to noticing if there's a tiny pebble in your shoe, or noticing that your button-down shirt feels awkward because the buttons were done on the wrong holes. The minute you sense something negative in your scan, it immediately becomes something you can't ignore any longer and you have to reset. It's your own bio-feedback hack. It's simple:

• Stop and be still.
• Close your eyes.
• Take three deep breaths.
• Scan your body for typical signs of stress: clenched jaw, tense hands, headache, stomach in knots, feeling your heart race, shoulders up to your ears, etc.
• Listen to your thoughts. Anything negative being said in there?
• Take a few more deep breaths to settle in for the initial check-in.

Make a mental note to yourself and begin developing a sort of allergic reaction to your own familiar signs of stress. They will no longer be tolerated. Negative thoughts will be replaced with deep breaths and positive intentions. The next time you feel those signs of stress or hear those uninspired voices, you're going to immediately stop them. You're going to breathe them right back out. You know when you're in need of uplifting energy; it's just that you usually ignore the signs and keep moving from a place of habit. Self-awareness is a pact with yourself in which you commit to not living in that negative space anymore and understanding that your best ideas, decisions, and actions occur when you are in a healthy state of mind–body connection through breath.

A FEW IDEAS TO BEGIN YOUR SELF-AWARENESS CHECK-IN HABIT

Any one of the following suggestions may be enough for you to begin integrating this new habit. If you want to add extra reinforcement, go ahead and use more of these:

• Program reminders on your phone for two-to-four times per day to stop and check in with your mind–body. Definitely include upon waking and one before going to sleep. Starting and ending your day Breathing Like a Boss helps keeps the cycle going strong.
• Attach the check-in to another activity that you do regularly like eating, drinking water, and walking to the restroom, or when you would otherwise scroll your Instagram feed!
• Scan your mind–body when you get your caffeine fixes. Deep breaths can often replace that late afternoon caffeine that can mess with your sleep.
• When you get into your car, instead of immediately turning on the radio or podcast or making a call, enjoy some silence and check in with yourself. Take 3DB and bask in the quiet space. Let go of anything you don't need and clear your mind. Your car (or train ride or walk) can serve as another opportunity to go inward.

With so many benefits to self-awareness, it's something most people need to work on because Eurich also says that only a small percentage of us (10%—15%) fit the criterion of being self-aware. Let's get on that bandwagon. There's also a wonderful bonus to self-awareness where you begin to see the source of negative emotions and stress. You might begin to take the initiative to eliminate the source of the repetitive stress rather than having to breathe through it over and over. We begin to see incredible changes from taking action on what we learn through these quick check-ins.

IT'S TIME TO TAP INTO YOUR BREATH!

There's only so much you can learn from reading, and as with launching a business, you need to start by doing. So let's cut to the chase again for 3DB right now. Let's continue to to unlock the power of your breath. Don't overthink it. Just take a long, deep inhale starting from your belly. Close your eyes or leave them open if that makes you more comfortable. I recommend inhaling through your nose. Exhaling through either your nose or mouth is fine. Breathe in all of that untapped, uplifting energy. Then exhale just as intentionally and slowly. Savor the change in your body and mind. Appreciate the nourishing feeling. Second breath: Whatever it looks like, take it. It's about the doing, the starting to change, creating a new habit, activating your dormant breath and practicing. Three's a charm, right? Inhale deeply. Exhale it all out. Ahhhhhhhhh! You're beginning to own your breath . . . and your peace. Everything's better with breath. Every single thing. If you're going through a challenging business situation, breathe through it in the moment right when your body begins to produce those stress hormones. On the flip side, if you're enjoying an incredibly successful moment, breathe into it. It'll help you enjoy being present and embed yourself in the moment to produce the feel-good neurotransmitters. It's that versatile. It can push you through something and lend energetic support, and it can make you more present to fully enjoy a victory. It can also do so much more—you'll see. Begin to take more deep breaths everywhere—while you're driving, waiting, typing, reading, listening, in a meeting, walking. You get it. There's never a bad time for deep/mindful breath, and whatever you're doing is only going to become better, more thoughtful, more focused, more YOU.

You've unlocked the power of your breath. It's like uncorking a wine bottle; you can never go back, and why would you? Let breath become your secret weapon in business. Let it lead the way. Let it power you through obstacles, challenges, and decisions. Let breath clear your mind and reset your internal chemistry so that you can be the best version of yourself in business and beyond.