Mindfulness, a core career and life strength, is the practice of becoming more fully aware of, and attentive to, what’s taking place within and around you. It’s focus and concentration on steroids, with a big dosage of stress reduction. I’m a Nashville-based writer, talent strategist, and certified executive coach. On this website, I primarily write […]
“Baris, you’ve got to be less sedentary,” Dr. Morgan, his general physician, told him during yet another disappointing annual physical and blood work review. “Get some movement going. Walk. Run. Swim. Play tennis. Anything.” The 55-year-old clinical psychologist and native of Turkey looked at Dr. Morgan and nodded, and then sighed in exasperation. “I know, […]
Across 2019 I’ve been peeling back the many layers of Buddhist teaching that support mindfulness practices, and attempting to apply them to my self-care, relationships, and work. I’d been studying and trying to practice mindfulness for several years, with mixed results. When I fully opened myself to Buddhism, in which mindfulness finds its larger context, […]
I’m at a Starbucks, thinking about loving-kindness. My Saturday began early, journaling about loving-kindness while my youngest daughter, Olivia, got ready for us to drive to her high school. There, Olivia and the other freshmen are cheering on people of all ages with disabilities as they participate in the Achilles Nashville 6th Annual Hope and […]
Many professionals find slowing down and focusing on one thing to be counter-intuitive. They’ve been eating a diet of “mindless frenzies” and “getting more stuff done.” The alternative approach is mindfulness habits. Mindfulness is the practice of becoming more fully aware of, and focused on, what’s taking place within and around you. It’s concentration on steroids.
No one will give you “permission” to live in the manner that’s optimal for you. It’s up to you to get clear about what optimal looks like, start “practicing” its associated habits, and begin to develop new muscle memory until it has truly become your life.
As you grow mindfulness, learning agility, and storytelling habits into strengths, all three will increasingly interrelate and optimize one another. Here’s how. Mindfulness is the practice of becoming more fully aware of, and attentive to, what’s taking place within and around you. It’s concentration on steroids. Mindfulness habits create a present-moment mindset of curiosity […]
Sometimes my life feels like it’s divided into various halves. There’s life before my father died, and life after my father died. Another perspective is my life before I became a dad myself, and my life ever since. And yet another angle is life before I dove deeply into the Enneagram, and life ever since. […]
One of my top strengths is also one of my core weaknesses. I’ll elaborate in a moment, but consider whether this statement is generally true for you as well, whatever your strengths happen to be. The personal strength I’m referring to is labeled as “Input” by the popular CliftonStrengths assessment, but I was cultivating this […]
During the past few months I’ve devoured several books on the Enneagram, an ancient spiritual road map that helps a person grow lighter and gain clarity once they’ve owned their lingering darkness and confusion. As I’ve read, I’ve captured dozens of pages of insights in my journals, often diagramming how the different Enneagram concepts tie […]