Cultivating an Inner Smile: A Mindfulness Practice for Leaders

Before you scroll to the next thing, pause.

Take a breath.

This is for you.

Leadership isn’t just about thinking and doing—it’s also about being.

Your ability to lead with clarity, resilience, and presence isn’t shaped by external demands.

It’s shaped by your internal state.

Yet, in the constant movement of responsibilities, deadlines, and decisions, most leaders operate in reactive mode—pushing forward without pausing to reconnect with themselves.

Mindfulness isn’t about slowing down productivity—it’s about enhancing awareness.

One simple yet powerful practice? Cultivating an Inner Smile.

This exercise takes just a few minutes, but its effects are profound. It activates a deep sense of ease, calm, and clarity—which translates into better leadership, sharper decisions, and a more sustainable approach to high performance.

Life often gets taken quite seriously. While there are certainly times of great pain, grief, and difficulty, we sometimes find ourselves become unconsciously weighed down by the day-to-day.

Cultivating an inner smile is a practice that helps us lighten up when we feel contracted by the world or resistant to it. It is a way of shifting our energy and harnessing a sense of positivity, lightness, peace, and contentment.

Here's the short, but powerful practice:

1. Wherever you find yourself – seated, standing, or lying down – take a moment to bring a gentle smile to your inner world. This does not need to be reflected physically upon your face; rather, it is the cultivation of an inner feeling.

2. Notice where this inner smile presents itself. Is it generalized or localized? All over the body or in a particular area, such as the heart, the face, or the belly?

3. Imagine the energy of this inner smile filling you for two to three minutes. Within this time, notice if any thoughts or emotions arise in response.

4. If challenging feelings come up, tend to these with compassion, love, and patience. Is it possible to meet these with warmth? With a soft, compassionate smile? Know that there are no right or wrong thoughts, feelings, or experiences to have here. Simply open to the possibility of holding whatever is here, even if that is some sort of duality (i.e. pain and ease).

Note: It is important to acknowledge that cultivating an inner smile is not in alignment with denying our challenging emotions or experiences. It is simply an invitation to meet our experience with kindness and compassion.

5. After a few minutes, or whenever you feel ready to finish this practice, root your attention in the breath for three to five cycles. Open your eyes when you feel ready.

Take a few minutes to unpack your experience and write down thoughts and emotions that came up.

Here are a few reflection questions to help formulate your insights:

1. What was this practice like for you today? Did it feel natural or unnatural for you to cultivate an inner smile?

2. If difficult or heavy feelings or thoughts were present, how did it feel to invite an inner smile to your experience? How did you hold this perceived duality?

It's useful to write down (optimally by handwriting) everything that's just coming up, even if not prompted by these questions.

The greatest leaders aren’t just those who move fast.

They’re the ones who know when to pause, reconnect, and lead from a place of grounded awareness.

Try this exercise today (maybe tomorrow, too :). Take a moment to cultivate an inner smile, and notice how it shifts your energy.

Because the way you lead others begins with how you lead yourself.

?? What’s one small way you create space for inner alignment in your leadership? Drop your thoughts below. ??

PS - Let me know if you'd like to receive other mindfulness exercises, too.