After the juicy pleasure of my angry outburst subsided a bit, the more evolved part of my brain came back online and noticed I'd just done it again. Fallen into the trap of complaining about "them" in front of my leadership team. And in the very process of presumably exercising the privilege of "the boss" to be angry and demanding, paradoxically diminished my own standing as a leader with a group of people it's essential I actually, you know, lead.  

Let's roll the tape back a bit to see how we got here. I had championed this project and convinced the organization it was essential for our continued growth in this market. At a cost of a few millions dollars and many developer-years of effort, I felt my credibility and career were dependent upon this project's success. So, I wanted a particular outcome. And whenever I let my mental "guard" down (mindfulness in this case being my "guard"), it was easy for my mind to generate a thought-narrative that complained and blamed myself and others for any threats to that outcome. It's a very short step from habitually and mindlessly letting those complaining thoughts take the "driver's seat" in my mind to their taking control of my mouth.  

So that's how we got here. Now what? Well, luckily, I had been devoting a good bit of time and effort to this training of the mind we call mindful leadership. So even though in this case, my automatic reaction to unwanted news led me to spew unhelpful, and ultimately counterproductive speech, it did not go completely unnoticed. Very quickly, mindfulness practice kicked in, lighting up the executive function of my brain, so I could have clarity about my internal state. The ball is then in "my" court, and I have a chance to respond more effectively. In this case, I said with a smile "Strike that from the record! I don't know why I said that, I'm sure they've run into issues we aren't aware of. Let's get together with them this afternoon to see what we can do."

What to do:

First of all, I'm not suggesting you tell yourself it's bad to have negative thoughts. Partly because that itself is a negative thought. And it doesn't work. You may have noticed.  

What I am suggesting is that you develop a practice of noticing the way-too-easy-to-fall-into patterns of thought that come up when you face a challenge. "Purposeful Pauses", a powerful practice we teach at the Institute for Mindful Leadership, can be put to work in this way. One "flavor" of Purposeful Pause is to use the experience of feeling stressed as a signal to check in with yourself. Aside from grounding in awareness of your physical sensations, you can pause and notice the thought patterns happening in that moment. Over time you will become very familiar with your own go-to habitual reactive thought patterns. Eventually, your mind will begin to alert you when that pattern is being triggered. And, who knows? Next time you may even take the wheel back from your automatic reactivity before you sabotage your leadership presence.

To do this, we apply the same basic skills we'd otherwise bring to the cushion to our common daily experiences instead.  We can develop these skills through these four steps:

• Recognize where your attention is
• Redirect the attention, if necessary, to what you're actually doing now (including noticing body sensations)
• To the best of your ability, bring a matter of fact, impartial, kind attitude to doing these steps
• Repeat

By the way, in case you're thinking the third skill is just a "nice to have" -- cultivating this impartial attitude (traditionally called equanimity) is a crucial part of the practice. 

So when can you apply these steps?  Literally, any time at all is an opportunity, but it's often helpful to begin with some routine activities that we usually perform without much awareness that we're doing them.  So bringing the practice to these activities can turn them into what we'll call "Un-Habits".  

Some suggestions for Un-Habit opportunities:

• Brushing your teeth
• Waiting in line
• Running on a treadmill or lifting weights at the gym
• Driving
• Eating a meal

You may typically perform activities such as running on a treadmill or commuting with music playing or some other way of entertaining yourself.  The suggestion for this training is to just do the activity, at least for part of the time (say, initially 5 or 10 minutes) without the soundtrack.  This will allow you to more clearly notice whatever is actually taking place in your experience and to follow the four steps.

Over time, you just add more Un-Habits to your day.  As you do, you'll become more and more familiar with how it feels to bring mindfulness into your daily life.  And you didn't add even one extra minute of "work" to your day! 

One approach is to be primarily mindful of the body and the interplay between sight, hearing, and physical movement.  It's possible to touch into a sense of the entire body and mind acting in concert while performing this complex activity.  In a very light way we can be aware of the role vision is playing, how the body is responding with subtle or large movements, and the degree to which the body is relaxing or tensing up.  Depending on circumstances, it can be possible to "abide" in this restful but very aware state for some period of time. 

It's not uncommon, however, for the mind to require something a bit more engaging to keep it interested.  As long as we are experienced drivers, it's very likely the mind is already quite busy thinking, so it makes sense to bring our awareness to that.  You may notice a lot of judgment and comparing thoughts about other drivers going through the mind.  You may notice feelings of satisfaction when you are able to, for example, pass a slow moving vehicle with ease; conversely, you may notice feelings of somehow "losing" when other vehicles pass you, or otherwise  "get ahead".  It can be pretty surprising to see the degree to which fairly illogical ideas in the mind can actually drive our mood and actions -- how, if these ideas go unnoticed, we can in some way just be "along for the ride".  Even if we are the ones driving!

The foundations of my practice are the teachings of Ajahn Chah, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, and Thich Nhat Hanh.  and I would be remiss to not also cite Ram Dass who, for like many of my generation, played such a critical role in pointing to the possibilities of what could be known.   

Like many others, I have been the beneficiary of the extraordinary generosity and wisdom of Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield in establishing the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.  The impact they have had on the world through this wise action would be impossible to measure.