To fire up, and actually re-condition, the parts of your mind that are keeping you in the present in a state that is healthy, wise, and calm you have to actually behaviorally shift. One obvious way of shifting is to begin a meditation practice. Once upon a time, prayer was widely accepted as the practice of turning inward. Over the last few hundred years, the decline of organized religion in the west has left an empty space around finding time for or avenues into reflection,

Presence requires your emotional system. What takes you out of the present? Perceived threats. What do we interpret as perceived threats? Change. Change of any kind e.g. the status quo you have created in the last 5 minutes or that which you have created over the last 5 years. You are wired biologically to identify any change - that which you create and that which is created unto you - as threatening. How do you stop that loop? Practice presence. The more you practice presenc

"Abandon hope... stay present instead." I've been tempted to make a line of t-shirts to carry this message. 'Abandon hope' is Pema's. I have to find which book she writes it in, but she teaches how hope keeps us out of the present moment. Hope positions the mind to be in the future and while that is sometimes a useful coping mechanism, the shadow side is that it is a trap. When our minds and thoughts are constantly in the future (and past), we are sitting in our frontal lobe.

We use the now to tell us the next moves. We listen rigorously. We stay grounded. We take cues. We adapt. We think deeply. We guide. We make small moves. Then, we leap. (K. Maloney)

Take a 5 minute break to consider.... GETTING RID OF YOUR CRAP!!!!!!! (Literally and metaphorically) We have three times the amount of space we did 50 years ago, more credit card debt, huge environmental footprints, and our happiness has flatlined over the same 50 years. Create space, reduce, let go of stuff, and stop feeding emotional stress by accumulating. It is not helping anything. Here are some good tips: 1. Edit Ruthlessly. Cut the extraneous out of your life. Stem the

This article doesn't entirely ring true for me, but I think it's interesting. I like my noise in particular ways, on certain days, and for specific types of work. Most days though I prefer silence or some easy listening music in the background. An open office would most likely cripple me. Late in the afternoon when I'm done doing the heaviest thinking lifting, I'll head out for a coffee, a change of scenery, and some noise. At that point, I am doing work that is taskier and m

This is a great image. When I talk about strategy thinking™ and my inside out business process I use with clients, a significant component of what I facilitate is the emotional stamina, resilince, and open minded thinking required to push ahead. Structure and strategy is totally in the mix, but those are almost the easy parts. The emotional parts and the people dynamics will make or break a company. Our fears, blocks, and bad habits create the lessons we need to learn to achi

Thank you @ShaneParrish @FarnumStreet for the following post. Click here for original post. This beautiful excerpt from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention beautifully illustrates why it’s so hard to pin down creativity and creative people. His book passes the Lindy test — it was written many years ago, which is incredible in today’s world of pop psychology. "Are there no traits that distinguish creative people? If I had to

In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone. (Rollo May)

Enjoy Elizabeth Gilbert's infamous (and lovely) TED talk to round out the week on creativity, genius, strategy thinking, and truth.