Translator: Ryan Hildebrandt Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
When I started coaching others on leadership, at age 29,
I felt like a fraud.
I was young.
I had no managerial experience,
no formal training or initials after my name.
And even worse,
when I decided meditation would be at the heart of my business,
I had never meditated.
Of course, no one knew this outside of a few friends.
I didn't tell any clients,
and I certainly haven't shared it in public before today,
because somehow that didn't stop me.
I knew I had something to share.
I knew I saw something others didn't.
In my short career,
I had worked with some of the best and worst leaders imaginable,
from world-renowned management thinkers
to physicians who'd openly yell at staff in front of patients.
That left a mark.
And I spent years immersed in technology as a digital marketer
devoted to getting you to spend more time on this little guy every day.
I learned to pick up on patterns around me,
to see trends in where we are today and where we're going.
And here's what I saw.
Half of Americans
report excessive stress and anxiety are a normal part of their lives.
Happiness levels hit a 10-year low in 2017.
We're facing a loneliness epidemic,
especially among men my age.
And yeah, we spend about 11 hours every day
on screens just like this one.
Now, this little device and the technology inside
are driving nearly every trend in our lives today
in going forward
and changing things at a pace most of us can't fathom.
See, technology is on an exponential growth curve.
That's one of those hockey-stick-looking charts
that shows like the growth of Instagram today.
And this is how technology looks as it advances.
It's autonomous vehicles driving us around in the next 10 years.
It's AI and automation displacing millions of jobs by 2030,
right around the time
that virtual reality experiences will seem completely real.
It's massive change.
And we can trace nearly every other trend in our lives today to technology as well,
from energy to climate change to privacy and security
to something I don't think enough people are talking about.
The scarcity of time and attention we're going to face,
that we face today as we spend nearly half of our day on a screen.
Each of us is exposed to upwards of 10,000 brand messages every day.
And that doesn't include the deluge of emails
and text messages we're expected to respond to.
Opting out and turning off, it happens less and less.
Our world is becoming a screen.
And in the midst of all this,
well, one thing will remain constant for us as humans:
we're here to connect.
Now, I could tell you the science of this,
share stories of mirror neurons
or the medial prefrontal cortex,
but I don't have to.
Everyone in this room already knows it to be true.
That's why we're here today.
To be present, in person, as people share their deepest truth,
to feel the texture of that experience,
to connect with it.
Could any of you imagine a TED Talk without this dimension?
It wouldn't be the same.
So, while our technology platforms are going to evolve,
we'll still be drawn to connect in the same physical space.
It's who we are.
Then the question becomes,
How do we reconcile these two parts, our humanity and a world of technology?
How can we be what the world needs today and tomorrow?
I believe the people best equipped
to step up and face our challenges and opportunities,
the leaders our world needs today and for the next 20 years,
will first and foremost be able to connect with others.
It's our primary function.
They'll have to be comfortable dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty
to solve the complex problems that we face.
And they'll have to be able to remain calm and focused
despite the environment around them.
The leader we need, the mindful leader, is defined by three things:
self-awareness, awareness of others,
and the ability to focus on what's important.
Now, I call this person the mindful leader
because these happen to be the same skills
that a mindfulness practice helps to develop.
And I can't forget what might be the most important part,
if you all take one thing from today.
For this mindful leader,
no title, no role,
no assigned responsibility is necessary for her to act as leader
to demonstrate these qualities.
It's her choice.
To be leader is an internal act first that produces external results,
just like our meditation practice.
And it starts with self-awareness;
that's the foundation on which everything is built.
Now, self-awareness, as I see it, is our ability to recognize
whatever it is we're bringing with us from moment to moment.
It's our thoughts - maybe surface level or deeper -
our emotions and their effect on our bodies,
our physical state - are we hungry or tired? -
our judgments, our biases, our motivations -
what would we like to happen or not happen? -
our needs -
my desire to be seen in a certain way.
It's all the stuff that doesn't show up on a personality test
but impacts every one of our interactions.
And the fun part about it is,
well, we don't get to reach a point of complete self-awareness,
because we never stop changing, just like the world around us.
And that's a good thing.
It keeps our attention rooted here,
in the present.
My first speaking opportunity with Golden Bristle,
the company I founded,
was at a creativity workshop in Nashville.
My mentor and teacher, Maria,
was helping me to lead the group in a guided meditation -
remember, no meditation experience here.
And when I showed up for the event,
I was positively amped.
See, I was an athlete for 20 years,
so game day meant to me
get my energy up,
rise to the occasion, be at the top of my game.
And of course I was quite nervous and anxious;
I really wanted things to go well.
And Maria felt it immediately.
She greeted me,
"Wow, your energy is blowing me away right now.
Are you okay?"
I was unfazed.
"Yeah, this is just how I am when I'm on stage. It's normal."
"Well, if this is how you are,
I can't be around you before we go on."
And she wasn't.
And I find myself still touched by this moment today,
seeing so clearly the lesson in self-awareness she offered
I wasn't ready to learn:
to look closely at the energy I was bringing
and the impact it could have.
See, on stage I had one mode - amped, bring it on -
and I barely knew how to turn it on or off.
And it cost me.
It cost me connection with the one person
I wanted to connect with most in the moment.
And if I'm honest with you,
if I allow myself to look deeper at what was going on,
I see this way of being was largely driven by fear.
Fear of being a fraud, I confess to,
of not living up to a standard that I set,
of being rejected by others.
That's the irony.
And this fear,
well, it's with me often and rarely acknowledged.
It's here today.
So, I'm choosing to lead differently today,
by bringing the fear on stage with me so we can all see it
and choosing to meet it with love as well,
in whatever form that takes.
Now, this lesson in self-awareness I received,
in my gradual learning,
well, it came thanks to the fact that it affected someone else,
someone, in my case, I care deeply about.
And that's the second step toward mindful leadership:
being aware of others and how we affect each other.
And we can think of it as a simple stair step.
As I connect more deeply with myself,
I can learn to do the same with others.
So, why is this important?
Well, I lead workshops on mindful leadership
with all sorts of groups,
and I like to ask people for stories,
leaders they remember:
Who made an impact on their lives and why?
And in nearly every group,
I'm told a story that goes something just like this.
They ask me how I'm doing, and they actually stop to listen.
They care.
Now, we might find ourselves in quite a state
when all it takes to be a good leader is to care - right?
But maybe it is that simple.
After all, I bet any one of us could quickly recall a time
when someone made space to connect with us
and the profound impact that made on our day
and maybe our lives.
It sounds simple but it's extremely powerful.
And despite its simplicity,
we also know how difficult it can be to leave space for others
when you've been interrupted for the tenth time in an hour
or we have 100 emails in our inbox
and every single one needs to be responded to.
And when we've had a hard day at work
and we come home to a child who had an even harder day at school
and all they need is our presence.
In these moments,
the easy choice is to put others off or dismiss them outright,
to get lost in our own stories,
when perhaps,
the only choice we need to make
is to be present,
to see them as a human, just like us.
In fact, this is the wellspring for deep trust and connection,
and with it, we can be the leader we would like to be around,
someone who gives others opportunities for success,
whose actions increase the capacity for greatness around them,
who creates space for others to grow as leaders themselves.
And this ability to develop other leaders revolves around one key truth,
the final component to mindful leadership:
We humans are at our best
when we're working toward a purpose or cause
bigger than ourselves.
Now, this is a fact that's been documented by leaders
and philosophers throughout time,
from Aristotle to Victor Frankl
to Simon Sinek in "Start with Why,"
a simple concept you might know that itself achieved exponential growth
from a stage just like this one.
We're constantly drawn even to the idea of working toward a purpose.
It's almost as if we're starved for it.
Because we are.
Because Simon Sinek was right.
Most of us have no problem telling others what we do,
but we struggle to talk about why we do it.
Why we get out of bed every day and do the work we've chosen.
Why it matters to us and why we matter to the world.
It's no wonder that 70% of people are disengaged at work every day.
Now, this happens to be the part of the process
I get most excited about.
It's where it gets deeply personal:
finding our purpose, our why.
It's where you get to become the hero of the story.
So, I leave you with a call to action.
It's something you know somewhere inside you already,
even if it's just a whisper.
You weren't put here to trade time for a paycheck
at a place you dread going to every day.
Our future calls for more from us,
all of us,
even if our everyday lives seem to be asking for us
to dumb things down or cut them short.
This little guy is great.
Really, world changing.
And he's also a trap,
a convenient time-and-attention magnet
that can distract us from doing things that matter
if we don't open ourselves up to the bigger truth:
that we're here for more.
And our future relies on each of us having the courage to look deep inside,
to find what that is,
and to use it as our North Star going forward.
Now, this is arguably the scariest, most vulnerable act imaginable.
I know.
It is also the greatest act of love you can choose to perform.
Now, I'm not going to stand up here
and tell you that becoming a mindful leader
is as simple as learning to meditate and calling it good,
nor am I going to tell you it's a quest for perfection.
It's not.
It is a lifelong journey that we are always on,
whether we choose to see it or not.
It's an acknowledgement
that challenging moments and days and weeks will happen.
And in those moments is our choice to be leader.
It is a way to choose to show up,
now
and now
and now.
I believe each of us has the capacity to be exactly what the world needs.
It's grown through practice in the moments that matter
by asking ourselves some simple questions.
What am I bringing with me in this moment?
Am I choosing to be a leader?
How am I relating to others around me?
Am I present with them?
Am I connected with them as a human?
And where am I focusing my time and attention?
Is it on this thing?
Is it on the impact that I was put here to make?
If you focus on these things,
I believe you can be the leader our world needs,
fully present,
aware of yourself and others around you,
and focused on your larger mission
and how you're going to get there.
Thank you.
(Applause)