Mindful Work by David Gelles
How meditation is transforming business from within.
In two words,
In Mindful Work, we will learn about the benefits of meditation. This book tells us about the effect of meditation on our minds and how we can get rid of stress by changing the structure of our minds with its help. This book tells us about different types of meditation exercises.
Who it is for
- Those who want to know about the benefits of meditation.
- Those who live under a lot of stress.
- Those who want to improve themselves in their work by keeping their minds calm.
About the Author,
David Gelles is a writer for the Sunday Business section in the New York Times. Prior to this, he worked for the Financial Times. He has appeared in magazines such as Forbes and The Los Angeles Times. They have been working for the past few years to know the benefits of meditation.
Why you should read this book?
Even though we may have left the forests to live in the comforts of cities today, it did not have much effect on our happiness.
In today's time, the world is running very fast and we expect so much from ourselves that it has become a common thing to be under stress. People are going into depression and are also using medicines to sleep at night. But can this problem not be cured?
Is it necessary that we earn a lot of money by working hard and then spend that money by buying medicines? Not at all. In today's time, meditation is a very easy and successful way to get rid of stress.
There are many benefits of doing this and we do not have to pay a single rupee for them. This book tells us about the benefits of meditation.
This book tells us how in the business world people use meditation to keep their minds calm and become more successful.
- What is the effect of meditation on our minds?
- By meditating, how can you make yourself a better leader?
- What are the problems arising in the market regarding meditation?
CHAPTER 1:Mindfulness is becoming a part of companies today.
As we are progressing, the work pressure is increasing on us and in the same way our stress is also increasing. If the World Health Organization is to be believed, then due to increased stress in America, $ 300 billion is lost every year. Companies today are understanding this and they are trying their best to reduce it.
Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which we focus our attention on the present and let our thoughts come into our minds without saying good or bad. With this, we can reduce our stress and do our work well. With this, we can get to know ourselves better, train ourselves and get the ability to think clearly.
With the help of mindfulness, we can help the people around us understand their problems as well as our problems in a better way and find better solutions to them. For example, someone may tell you something in anger, but if you are of a calm mind, you will try to understand his anger, not get angry yourself.
Today in companies, employees are being given the training to meditate. A good example of this is General Mills, where Janice Marturano began training employees to meditate. Janis himself had been under a lot of stress in the past and after fighting it with the help of meditation, he teaches his employees to do the same, and today meditation has become a part of his company culture.
CHAPTER 2:Science has proved the benefits of meditation.
In the 1990s, when we didn't have much technology, it was difficult to tell people why they should meditate. At that time we did not know the effect of meditation on our brain. People used to think that these things were related to religion and they did not do it. But with today's technology, we can see what are the benefits of meditating.
Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), we can see how our brain is moving. With this, we examined the different parts of the brain and we found that people who meditate have a somewhat different brain structure. The structure of the mind is not like a stone, but we can change it through our habits.
Using fMRI, scientists found that the part of our brain responsible for stress calms down when we meditate. Apart from this, the movement of that part of the brain decreases with the help of which we think about ourselves. This means if you find faults in yourself every time or if you feel after doing some work that you did not do that work well, then by meditating you can reduce your cursing.
Meditation increases the activity of the prefrontal cortex of our brain so that we are able to show more empathy. At the same time, it increases the width of the cortical and we are able to remember things better. It reduces our stress and fear. By affecting the amygdala, it protects us from nervousness before the interview or speech.
CHAPTER 3:By using MBSR, you can overcome your pain.
When the great people of the world started advising people to do it after understanding the benefits of meditation, then people gradually started adopting it. But in the 1970s, when John Cabot Zinn told people about a new type of meditation, it spread very quickly. It is called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). MBSR is not related to any religion and it teaches people to be present and feel the movement in their bodies.
With its help, you can know how your body is hurting. Once you know this, you understand yourself more than ever before and get over that pain. In one of the MBSR exercises, you see where your body is hurting and where you are feeling comfortable.
After doing this, again and again, you come to know that you do not get the same pain or the same relief every time, but with time it keeps getting less and more. It lets you know that nothing is here forever. You see your pain disappear with time and it has proven to be a great way to fight stress.
CHAPTER 4: Meditation increases your focus.
In today's time, we have many tasks and we have to complete all the work before the day is over. In such a situation, many people think that doing two things together can be a good way of working, which is absolutely wrong.
When we do one thing at a time, we give our full focus to that work and are able to do that work well. But when we have to divert our attention from that work due to some work in the middle, then when we return again we have to see how far we had left our work incomplete and what to do after that. Our time is wasted on this. You can never concentrate on two things at once.
When you're doing two things, you're actually shifting your attention from one task to another, and then shifting your attention to the first. Due to this, your brain has to think again and again about what it has to do now, due to which it gets tired very quickly. But with the help of mindfulness, you can keep your focus in one place and by doing it again and again, one day it starts happening automatically, and then you do not have to work hard to focus your attention on one place.
Also, your attention wanders less. To keep your focus on one task at a time, you have to ask yourself again and again whether you are doing what you should be doing at the moment? Maybe you are doing some work for the example and then a friend of yours comes and talks to you about the cricket score.
You won't even notice and you will find yourself talking to him about cricket. In such situations, if you are practicing mindfulness, you will be able to learn to be present and reply to the person that you are busy with and talk to them later, before you lose your focus. In this way, you can train yourself.
CHAPTER 5: By meditating, we can better understand our own and the feelings of others.
By meditating, we can better understand our own and the feelings of others. When you meditate, you realize that we all have bad days and we all have negative feelings. With this, you gradually learn to put yourself in the present, then you start getting to know about your feelings. You start to understand yourself better.
Once you understand yourself, you can understand others better and solve their problems better. To understand your feelings well means to be able to control them well. When you fill yourself with happiness by controlling the negative feelings inside you, then this happiness slowly starts coming out and going towards others. People see you as a nice person and they are attracted to you.
By doing this meditation called metta, you can create a feeling of empathy in yourself. In this, you develop good and positive feelings for yourself. I tell you that you will not suffer any harm and will not hurt you in any way. You bless yourself to be happy. With time, this feeling for others also starts to arise in you.
Empathy makes you stronger than ever. With this, you not only keep yourself away from pain and stress, but at the same time, you also keep others away from it and understand their problems and try to solve them. But all this will not happen in one day. This may take some time. If you are doing it every day, you will see the benefits of it. You will be calmer and happier than before.
CHAPTER 6: Many companies are taking good care of their environment and their people by practicing mindfulness.
There are often many people working in companies. Here some people work together to make products for their customers and try to keep them happy. Many companies focus their attention only on their profits. They see how they can make maximum profit.
But some companies practice mindfulness and they take special care of their people. Such companies are understanding that they are working for society. For example, a clothing company called Patagonia asked its customers to reduce their expenses by telling their customers about the damage to the environment. He came up with an act in which he asked his own customers to see if they were buying too many clothes.
A company named Eileen Fisher pays special attention to its employees. After paying tax, they distribute 10% of the profit they make to their employees. Apart from this, she is also working to keep the environment clean. In 2012, he spoke to the Chinese company that made silk for him.
He told the Chinese company how his methods are harming the environment. He made some necessary changes so that now his silk is made by using 45% fewer chemicals and 25% less water. Apart from this, he told how his employees are working in bad conditions. Later he improved the working environment of his employees and gave them a safer environment than before. An application company named Sharemeal, through its app delivers the leftover food of the people to the children who do not get food. This company tells its employees about the importance of this work and also asks them to tell their friends about it and help them in their mission.
In this way, these are some companies that take care of their customers, their employees, and their environment by putting their benefits next to them.
CHAPTER 8: By meditating you can make yourself a good leader.
A good leader is one who listens to his employees, identifies his targets and completes them on time, and takes care of his people. But today's leaders are far away from these qualities.
They do not listen to their employees and are stubborn on their own and if any trouble comes, they take their anger out on their own people. When you meditate, you are able to focus your mind on your goal and try to solve the challenges that come your way more easily.
You understand your feelings very well and do not take your anger out on someone else. You have empathy for your people and you are able to take all decisions honestly. By meditating you are able to keep your mind calm and for a leader to think as much, it is very important to have a calm mind. When your mind is calm, you learn to deal with the challenge that comes your way easily by breaking it down into small chunks. In this way, you do not get stressed and when you know what you have to do, then you can keep your mind calm and take care of your work. Often when there is an obstacle in the way, we get irritated. But a good leader gives the task of solving that obstacle to the person who is an expert in that work. Apart from this, a good leader tries to maintain the culture of his company.
He applies the principle of his company well to his employees so that his employees understand their responsibility and work better. When employees start doing their job well, they not only improve their life but they try to put everyone who comes to them to work by making them feel their responsibility. They do good to others and make them capable too.
CHAPTER 9: Many people have not understood the benefits of meditation very well.
You will always meet some people who will say that meditation does not help. Also, there are some people who just want to earn profit by using meditation. Many teachers do not teach people to meditate well and many people do bad things about it. Many people believe that the benefits of meditation are being sold in the market today. Many people invite people to their classes by telling them the strange benefits of meditation and earning benefits from them.
Some people still believe that all this work is being done only to promote religion. But all these allegations made on meditation are not true. There are some people who are giving half incomplete knowledge to the people. They only tell people how to meditate to make themselves better at their work, but they don't explain the benefits of empathy. This type of meditation is called McMindfulness which focuses on only one specific benefit of meditation and ignores the rest. Some people believe that by meditating they become more stressed.
The real thing is that by meditating you understand your feelings better and it brings out those feelings which you had suppressed for a long time. So when these feelings come to the fore, then you have trouble, but by doing it every day, you come to control them. Meditation doesn't make you happy, by meditating you learn to control your emotions so that you don't let the things that bother you dominate you. This is how you keep yourself happy.
The real purpose of meditation is to understand yourself. Many classes have come into the market today whose purpose is only to earn money. We need some such rules by which a person can find out which of these is a fraud. Today many people are going to the wrong classes and when they are learning to meditate in the wrong way and when they do not benefit from it they say that meditating is a waste of time. It is not their fault in this, they have been taught to meditate in the wrong way. There are many benefits of meditation, but right now we need some people who can teach people to do it in the right way.
Overall, today many companies are understanding the benefits of meditation and making it a part of their company culture. Meditation has a great effect on different parts of our brain so that we are able to reduce our stress, fear, and anxiety. This allows us to increase our focus. A leader can improve himself to a great extent by meditating. Increase your focus. The next time you feel stressed, just close your eyes for five minutes and focus on your breathing. Watch how the air is moving through your nose to your lungs. If your attention wanders in the middle, bring it back to your breath. Doing this for a few minutes can also reduce your stress.
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