Three Minute Leadership: When Did You Last Take Any Time to Do Nothing?
To: The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning
In his January 2013 TED post, All It Takes is 10 Mindful Minutes, Andy Puddicombe, a former fully ordained monk with extensive monastic, retreat and teaching experience, asks the question: “When did you last take any time to do nothing?” For most of us the answer would be a challenge to our memory. The lives of great leaders and their world are filled with a myriad of demands on their time and personal life.
At the center of all those relentless activities is our human mind, that beautiful and wondrous miracle through which we live our life. As precious and vital it is to us: “We don’t take any time out to look after it.” writes Puddicombe. The end results of this are: stress, distraction and confusion. In his words: “We are no longer present in the world in which we live.” Puddicombe addressed his situation by becoming a monk and studying meditation. From his magnificent and peaceful experience he found valuable learnings that he shares with us.
The present moment is underrated, he believes: “It sounds so ordinary, and yet we spend so little time in the present moment.” He quotes a Harvard research paper that found that people spend 47% of their time in “constant mind-wandering… a direct cause of unhappiness” – almost half of a life. The answer he suggests is in ten minutes of daily meditation… “familiarizing ourselves with the present moment.” He tells us:
“Meditation offers the opportunity, the potential to step back and to get a different perspective, to see that things aren’t always as they appear. We can’t change every little thing that happens to us in life, but we can change the way that we experience it. That’s the potential of meditation.”
Capture more of the richness and beauty of the present moment that is so fleeting. Find time for your quiet moment of meditation to briefly free your mind of distractions and clutter that you may have greater focus on what is important. It takes only ten minutes, less than one percent of the total minutes in a day. What a magnificent return you will receive on your investment. Remember the words of Peter McWilliams, self-help writer: “Meditation creates more time than it takes.”
Have a beautiful day and a magnificent week!!!
Mike