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What Does Mindfulness Even Mean Anyway?
It's Simpler Than You Probably Think
Mindfulness in the Midst of Disaster
A week after Hurricane Katrina had ravaged the Gulf Coast and the levees had breached and flooded New Orleans, U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen flew into the devastated city for the first time. Chaos and suffering had reigned in the first days after the storm, as federal, state, and local leaders were overwhelmed by the scope of the disaster. There had been many examples of heroism performed by rescuers from the Coast Guard, other agencies, and private citizens, but thousands of people were still trapped in their homes a week later, bodies were laying in the streets, and a public safety crisis was evolving at the Superdome as storm refugees were trapped there with very little water or food. By the time Admiral Allen was asked by the president to take over the government's response, New Orleans was on the verge of anarchy. Allen's job was to pull the situation back from the brink and to come up with a plan that would accelerate the recovery from the storm.
In an interview for this book, Allen told me what he saw from his helicopter as he approached New Orleans and how that shaped his thinking and approach:
When we flew in over the city it was still filled with water. The water was black. The odor was pretty intense. The temperature was in the nineties. There was no potable water, no electricity; there was sewage in the town. There were still helicopters buzzing around. Some were trying to repair levees and floodwalls that had collapsed. . . .
When I flew over the city it just struck me like a bolt of lightning that one of the reasons we'd had all the problems in the previous week . . . was that we didn't understand the problem. . . .
We weren't really dealing with the hurricane anymore. [It] was pretty much gone within 48 hours. . . . [What we were dealing with was the] equivalent of a weapon of mass effect used on the city without criminality that resulted in a loss of continuity of government without decapitation of leadership.
With the perspective of watching from a distance what had happened in the previous week and then flying in over the city, Allen was very aware of what he was dealing with. There was no coordination among the officials who would have normally been accountable for disaster recovery. All the communications systems that would have normally allowed them to take control were destroyed by the storm and then by the flooding caused by the broken levees. Allen realized that the impact of the levees failing was essentially the same as if a terrorist group had blown them up in order to wipe out the city with a flood.
With awareness of the nature of the challenge and what it would require from him, Allen then set some intentions around his immediate priorities: to establish a clear chain of command among the agencies that could solve the problems and to assure the citizens of New Orleans that a new level of help was on the way. In his first press conference after arriving, he wanted the people of the city and those watching from around the United States and the world to know that he was aware of the depth of the problems and that he intended to turn things around. He told me:
The watch words I used . . . were to be completely transparent with the public, to be honest with them, to create expectations of what we were going to do . . . and to let them know that I was there to manage the response. . . . I don't know how many times I said that in my first news conference. “I'm here. I'm accountable.”
That press conference marked the beginning of the recovery of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Allen was a mindful leader in the right place at the right time. Most of us, no matter how overworked and overwhelmed we are, will ever face the gravity of a situation like the one that Allen faced. But, on a relative basis, we all face our own crises, challenges, and opportunities that call for mindfulness. What can we learn about mindfulness from the way Allen turned things around on the response to Katrina? What does mindfulness even mean anyway?
Mindfulness = Awareness + Intention
In this chapter, we'll hear what some experts have to say about mindfulness and, through the example of Admiral Allen, consider why a practical definition of mindfulness boils down to awareness and intention. We'll also flag the factors that can keep you from performing at your mindful best and then wrap up with why, if you want to pursue the mindfulness alternative, you need to be aware of and ready for your moment of truth and intentional about what comes next.
Mindfulness Begins with Awareness
Jon Kabat-Zinn created the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in 1979. The program was a groundbreaking combination of mindfulness meditation and yoga that has made dramatic differences for people suffering from chronic pain and anxiety. Over the years, MBSR programs have been established at more than 200 hospitals around the world, and its stress management principles have been adopted in programs conducted by thousands of organizations from Aetna Insurance to Google to the U.S. Army. Kabat-Zinn is a true pioneer in the application of mindfulness in everyday life.
He offered a simple definition of mindfulness in a February 2013 panel discussion for the Nour Foundation when he said, “Mindfulness is the awareness that arises by paying attention on purpose in the present moment and nonjudgmentally.”1 Let's break that down piece by piece:
- Awareness is another word for noticing what's going on.
- Paying attention on purpose suggests that we can make a choice to be aware and notice.
- In the present moment means focusing on what's happening right now, not ruminating on what's already happened or worrying about what might happen.
- Nonjudgmentally means we don't waste mental or emotional energy labeling events or thoughts as good or bad. We just acknowledge what we're seeing, thinking, or feeling.
Awareness Leads to Choice and Then Intention
Even if you've never been on a yoga mat yourself, you've probably heard of Power Yoga. It's a vigorous form of yoga that stretches you out, gets your heart rate going, and makes you strong. It was invented in the 1980s by a teacher named Bryan Kest. I'm fortunate to take classes with Kest on a regular basis, and in talking with him for this book, he offered a definition of mindfulness that builds on Kabat-Zinn's definition:
Mindfulness means being aware of where your mind dwells because it's only [then] that you can stop feeding harmful tendencies. . . . That's what mindfulness is. Wake up. Wake up, and look at what you're doing. . . .
[If you're] conscious of where your mind dwells, then you can decide, “Is that a healthy place? Am I having judgmental thoughts right now? Am I having critical thoughts right now? Angry thoughts? Fearful thoughts? Are the type of thoughts I'm having creating what I want?” . . .
That brings us full circle. That's where mindfulness comes in. You start to notice that [kind of stuff]. When you notice it, then you have a choice in your life.
To sum up, Kest is saying that mindfulness is about waking up and being aware of what you're thinking so that you can assess the impact of your thoughts and then make an intentional choice about what to do next. Mindfulness is about managing that gap between your thoughts and actions.
Human beings are the only species in the animal kingdom who have the capacity to manage that gap. This observation was eloquently and movingly presented by Viktor Frankl in his memoir, Man's Search for Meaning.2 Before he founded the school of psychiatry known as logotherapy, Frankl was a prisoner at Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps. He lost his wife, children, and most of his family in the Holocaust. Rather than allowing that experience to crush him, he gained insights that saved his life and eventually changed the lives of millions of others. One day in camp, after another of the inhuman atrocities inflicted by his guards, Frankl realized that the Nazis could take everything away from him except for one thing—his dignity and sense of worth as a human being. From that moment forward, no matter what his captors did to him, he chose to respond in a way that upheld his dignity. His example began to change the behavior of many of his fellow prisoners and even some of his guards. His choice helped him survive.
Reflecting on his experience in the concentration camps and how his choice saved and changed his life, Frankl wrote, “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.”3
How Mindfulness Sets You Up for High Performance
Mindfulness is what fills the space between stimulus and response. Awareness of what's going on externally in the outside world and internally in your mind gives you the insight to choose an intentional response. By accessing the mindfulness alternative, you can choose responses and make decisions that reduce the feeling of being overworked and overwhelmed. As Caroline Starner, the senior vice president of human resources for sunglasses and sports apparel company Oakley, said to me, “Mindfulness is not about clearing your brain; it's about being able to think clearly.” The mindfulness alternative is not about sitting with your legs crossed and your eyes closed for hours a day. It's about putting yourself in a position to be more aware and intentional about what's really going on inside and out and what, if anything, you want to do about it.
Teddy Tannenbaum is a longtime student of mindfulness as well as an executive coach and consultant who has spent decades working with executives and managers at well-known companies including Apple, Disney, and Whole Foods. In a conversation with me, he made this great point about mindfulness, awareness, and intention:
Mindfulness is not a passive thing. People are afraid, “If I become more mindful I'll be more gentle, more passive. I won't get shit done.” No, you'll be more conscious; you'll make better decisions. You'll be more insightful and more incisive, and you're not going to be bound by your biases.
Tannenbaum's point sets us up nicely to come back to the example of Admiral Allen as a mindful leader. No one would ever accuse Allen of being passive. He's focused, direct, and decisive. But because he's aware and intentional, he's also mindful. Let's break down how those two factors manifested in his mindful approach to leading the Katrina recovery effort.
Awareness
Awareness operates in two big domains, external and internal, and one big time frame, right now. When Allen flew into New Orleans after Katrina, he was aware of what was going on externally. To use Harvard leadership expert Ron Heifetz's metaphor of the need for leaders to regularly shift their perspective between the dance floor and the balcony, Allen, as he flew over New Orleans in a Coast Guard helicopter, literally got a balcony view of the situation he was dealing with.4 Then he showed great internal awareness of how he needed to show up to deal effectively with what he was seeing externally.
Allen's approach very much lined up with leadership (and former tennis) coach Tim Gallwey's definition of performance—your performance (P) equals your potential (p) minus the interference (i).5 It's expressed in this simple equation:
If you can eliminate the interference, you're left with pure potential. The interference can be either extrinsic or intrinsic. The extrinsic interference is external, and often there is little you can do about it. The facts on the ground in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were what they were when Allen arrived. There was nothing he could immediately do to change any of that. What mattered most at that point was his ability to recognize and manage his intrinsic or internal response to what he saw as he flew over the city. His mindful capacity to choose his response to what he saw made all the difference.
Intention
That leads to the second part of this two-part definition of mindfulness: intention. Once you're aware of what's going on externally, outside of you, and internally, inside of you, what is the next best choice to intentionally make? In Allen's case, it was to immediately establish clear lines of authority and then to reassure the people of New Orleans that an accountable commander was in place to coordinate the response to the disaster. Being fully aware of what was going on externally and how he needed to respond internally, Allen was able to be intentional about what he needed to do and how he needed to do it.
Through awareness and intention, the mindfulness alternative sets you up for high performance. It helps you identify the difference between extrinsic interference that you can't control and the intrinsic interference of thoughts that can keep you from performing at your full potential. The more you mitigate the intrinsic interference, the more your performance equals your potential.
What Are the Barriers to Mindfulness?
So we'd probably all like to show up and be as calm and cool under pressure as Thad Allen. Heck, we'd probably settle for something that looks like mindfulness in the sixth meeting of the day, in the traffic jam we didn't expect, or with the kids that demand our attention right now! How do you build a stance of mindfulness that will serve you well in high-stakes situations as well as in the gerbil wheel of everyday life? That's the question we'll be addressing in the rest of this book.
But first, in the belief that it pays to know your enemy, let's take a quick look at some of the common barriers to mindfulness.
Mental Chatter
Vritti is a Sanskrit word that refers to the chatter in your mind. The Hindus came up with that word thousands of years ago, and if anything, vritti is probably a bigger challenge today than it was then. Another great phrase for this is monkey mind. It's the intrinsic interference we were just talking about. It's also what Susan Piver, mindfulness author and founder of the Open Heart Project, calls discursive thinking. She shared with me a funny example of what discursive thinking sounds like inside your head:
What are your discursive thoughts? Hmm, I wonder what she is talking about. What does discursive mean? I should know what that means maybe. I hope it's not cancer. Did anybody go shopping for dinner?
Is there anyone who's not familiar with thoughts bouncing from one seemingly unrelated thing to another? Of course not; we all are. Mental chatter, or intrinsic interference, is a fact of the human condition. The trick is to recognize it when it's happening. By developing the mindfulness alternative, you'll be more aware of the chatter when you hear it and make an intentional choice to reorganize your thinking. As Oakley's Caroline Starner describes it:
It's about a state of being, but it's also the ability to put yourself in that state of being. So I think when you are being mindful, you are aware that your thought processes are chaotic and that you need to do something to break that cycle and return yourself to a calm state where you can function in a better, more high-quality way.
One of Thad Allen's favorite axioms is, “You have to be careful about what rents space in your head.” That's the first step in quieting the mental chatter. Being aware of the chatter is the first step to overcoming it.
Distractions
So many things can distract us from focusing on what we really intend to pay attention to. For more than 20 years, Tracy Columbus has led a busy life as a personal manager to actors and other artists. Columbus grew up in Rochester, New York, in the 1960s and 1970s, when Kodak was the flagship employer in town. According to Columbus, people in Rochester were so into cameras back then that they saw very little of what was going on in their lives because they were too busy taking pictures of what was going on in their lives. Of course, that's the analog precursor of constantly taking selfies and other pictures with our smartphones. The distractions don't stop there, of course. How many e-mails and text messages do you get a day? When you're working at your computer, how often do you switch screens? As noted in Chapter 1, the research suggests it's probably about once every 90 seconds. More research from the University of California at Irvine shows that you're likely interrupted once every 11 minutes and that it takes about 25 minutes to get back to the original task you were working on before the interruption.6 Clearly, the math is not working in our favor when it comes to distractions, so we'll have to come up with some alternatives for dealing with them.
Lack of Awareness in Your Story
There are undoubtedly too many barriers to mindfulness to catalog, so I'll end this section with just one more and that's your awareness—or lack of awareness—about the story you're living in. To keep it simple, I'll break this idea down into two categories of stories: the micro story and the macro story.
The micro story is the story you're telling yourself about whatever is happening right now, whatever happened in the past that seems to affect right now, or whatever might happen in the future. Quite often the story will focus on a specific source of extrinsic interference you're noticing. The real story, though, is whether you recognize the intrinsic interference that the extrinsic interference is creating in your mind. Do you have enough micro story awareness to recognize when you start to go mentally (and even physically) off the rails? We'll talk more about how that happens and what to do about it in the next chapter.
That brings us to your macro story. The macro story is the one you tell yourself about why you're doing what you're doing. Are you even aware you have one? If you aren't, there's a pretty excellent chance that you're living someone else's story and aren't even aware of it.
This idea about living someone else's story really hit home with me a few years ago. I was in charge of a two-day leadership program for high-potential managers at a major corporation, and the group's conversation turned to how hard everyone was working. One of the participants was a really bright and funny regional manager with a big frame and a personality to match. He told us a story about how he and his wife, along with two other couples, took all their kids to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas for their second trip there in two summers. “So, we're out at the pool, and the kids are running around, the parents are having beers, and I'm on my phone,” he told the group. “One of the other wives comes over to my wife and asks, ‘Why is Mike on the phone all the time?’ My wife answers, ‘He's on the phone this year so we can come back here next year.’” As Mike finished his story, the group sensed that he told it with a measure of pride. There was some murmuring, some pained looks, and a few comments along the lines of, “Man, that was your vacation with your family.” Mike looked a little chagrined and confused as we went to a break.
During the break, one of the other participants pulled me aside and said, “I didn't want to say this in front of the group because I don't want to come across as holier than thou, but I used to work all the time like Mike and now I don't.” I asked him how he made the shift and he told me, “I realized one day that I was working like I either already was or was going to be the CEO of this company someday. And then it hit me that I'm not the CEO and really would never even want to be. Once I recognized that, it was actually pretty easy. Don't get me wrong; this company still gets a lot out of me, but the first thing I do every year now is schedule all of my vacation [time]. I don't give it back anymore. And when I'm on vacation, I'm on vacation. I'm not working on vacation.”
When this second guy realized that he was living someone else's story, he woke up and made some changes. It's easy, especially when you're living and working in a high-achievement environment, to end up living someone else's story. When he was president and CEO of GE Appliances, Jim Campbell used to see how this dynamic would contribute to the overworked and overwhelmed state that a lot of the young professionals who worked in his organization were living in. In an interview for this book, Campbell shared this observation:
It gets into lifestyle choices where people, you know, they just overspend. They are living way past what they should be and [it] puts you on that treadmill. . . . If you live within your means, you don't have to worry about what you make; it's what you spend and that's a whole element that you rarely hear talked about. . . .
I've just seen people do this over the years. You see a 32-year-old person . . . in this big house and driving the BMW . . . putting [himself] on the treadmill. If you get up there, great; but if you don't, you are in for a life of stress.
In fairness to the people Campbell is talking about, it's easy to fall into the story of thinking or feeling like you always need more. It's so common in today's society that researchers have come up with a term for it: mindless accumulation.7 As Tim Kasser notes in his work on the dark side of the American Dream, a big part of society is based on the idea that there is always something else to accumulate.8 That can be a powerful story, and it takes a lot of mindfulness to recognize and determine whether it's a story that works for you or not.
Get Ready for Your Moment of Truth
How do you become mindful enough to become more aware of your story and perhaps set some different intentions around what comes next? It might entail being ready for and awake to moments of truth when they present themselves and then processing what you learn from them. In working on this book, I have heard and read about many personal moments of truth that have been a turning point for leaders and other high-capacity professionals on the path to the mindfulness alternative.
For instance, in her book Thrive, and in her public appearances, media magnate Arianna Huffington tells the story of one of her moments of truth.9 It was when she woke up in her office in a pool of her own blood after collapsing from exhaustion and hitting her head on her desk on the way down to the floor. By the standard definitions of modern success—power and money—she was among the most successful people on earth. Collapsing in her office was the wake-up call that led to making changes in her life that created a richer and broader definition of what success means for her.
Another moment-of-truth example comes from my friend Marilyn. She's a very creative and accomplished learning and development professional in one of the world's largest and most admired companies. She's made a big impact there over the years, but the urgent pace, the bureaucracy, and the internal politics sometimes made her feel like the gerbil on the wheel. Her moment of truth came one afternoon when two of her colleagues asked her to stay in a hotel lobby and watch their purses, briefcases, and suitcases while they made a trip to the business center to finish working on a presentation. Marilyn didn't mind doing that until a false fire alarm went off in the hotel and the noise was incessantly shrieking in her ear. As she told me, “I couldn't leave because I couldn't carry all of those bags with me. I was trapped in the lobby with this head-splitting noise all around me. It was at that point that I knew I needed to make a change.” Marilyn still works for the same company but is taking a more relaxed and mindful approach to her work and life. The interesting thing is she's more productive than she's ever been and recently won an award for leading the most innovative project of the year.
The moment of truth for Jeri Finard, CEO of Godiva Chocolatier and former chief marketing officer (CMO) of Kraft Foods, came on her regular New York to Chicago commute. She found herself sitting on the floor at O'Hare Airport in a summer storm in one of her best suits. With her phone plugged into an outlet at floor level, she was desperately trying to make other arrangements to get home to New York to see her daughter in a milestone school event. Although she made it home in time, the absurdity of the whole scene was the moment of truth that told her it was time to make a career change that allowed her to stay closer to home. A few months later she quit her job as Kraft's CMO. The business press couldn't believe that she was leaving her dream job at Kraft, and the speculation was rife about what was really going on. It was as simple as looking for and landing a job that enabled her to reduce her travel from 60 to 80 percent of each month to 20 percent, allowing her to stay closer to home and family. Of course, the sweet perks that come with being the CEO of Godiva aren't bad either.
Maybe you've already had your moment of truth that led to a more mindful approach or maybe it's yet to come. Either way, when it comes, what do you do with it? How do you stay aware and intentional enough to work with it? That's what we'll explore in the chapters to come. Next up: How do you train your body and mind to work with you rather than against you?