Meditation for the Business Owner

I recently threw together this topic while at a business retreat, more specifically the Cody Askins Power Player Retreat. And while my talk was short and sweet, the response was truly overwhelming. So, I really wanted to expand on the topic and bring it out for everyone to enjoy and benefit from.

Losing My Religion?

First and foremost, however, it’s important to clear up a common misconception that people have about meditation. Meditation is not a religion. While it is used by some religious or spiritual practices as a tool to help them grow deeper in the understanding of their faith and spirituality, the practice of meditation in and of itself is not a religion. You do not have to convert to Buddhism or escape to an Asian Zen Monastery to understand or practice meditation. 

Meditation is simply a tool used to gain insight into one’s self and his surroundings. Wikipedia defines meditation as a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. Note that the definition doesn’t include any sort of religious mumbo jumbo and is purposefully vague since meditation can be applied to any range of objects, subjects, thoughts or activities, but the key is in what you achieve through a proper practice, attention, awareness and a mentally clear and emotionally calm state.

For our purposes here, we are focused on how meditation can be applied in business and entrepreneurship to help a business owner achieve greater success. And with that said, I’ve come up with six simple ways a business owner can benefit from developing a basic but routine meditation practice.

Reduce Stress, Tension and Anxiety

This first one is pretty obvious actually. The very foundation of a meditative practice involves deep breathing or “belly breathing” as it’s loosely called. This requires slow, long breaths in and out through the nose. As you breathe in, you should feel your belly expand, and as you breathe out you should feel your belly relax. It’s extremely difficult, nearly impossible actually, to be stressed out, overly anxious or angry when breathing this way. Alternatively, have you ever paid attention to the pattern of your breath when you’re angry, panicking or stressed? Your fight or flight response kicks in and your chest is heaving, your breath is shallow and rapid, and your mouth if often agape as your heart pumps quickly to keep up. This is why when we are angry, stressed or anxious, people often tell us to stop and breathe. Even if it’s just for 30 seconds or one minute, breathing deeply can completely reverse these anxious or tense feelings and emotions. 

As business owners we’re constantly faced with stress and anxiety. Speaking from experience within the insurance industry we have customers to serve, agents to train and develop, and insurance carriers to represent. It’s a very competitive industry and all three levels are often pulling for our attention and time. And unfortunately, not everything always goes smoothly. The insurance carriers occasionally make mistakes that we have to step in to resolve for our customers. Our customers sometimes procrastinate timely enrollments thus making their emergency our priority. Our employees and agents often bring their own assortment of problems and drop them in our lap. And that’s just a few examples. You also have vendors that assist you, bills to pay and the struggle of balancing work and personal or family life. Put all of these together and it becomes a recipe for a chaos of which you’re the responsible owner. It’s easy to see how running a business can be very stressful and wreak havoc on your mental, emotional and physical health. 

However, with a simple meditation practice you can create a calm demeanor, balanced emotions and a great resilience to the stresses and anxieties that running a business bring. The deep, slow breathing clear your mind, allowing you to focus on a singular thought and prevent you from running into panic mode when problems arise. You’ll be prepared to handle anything that comes your way with a tranquil and confident demeanor.

Minimize Negative Thoughts

Let’s be honest; it doesn’t matter how good you are or how successful you are, negative thoughts will invade your headspace. You may choose not to express them and that’s a wonderful trait to have, but it doesn’t mean that negative thoughts don’t at least occasionally enter the mind. And like anything else we receive more of what we feed. And if we feed our negative thoughts by brooding over them, we’ll shrink our confidence and create doubt in our abilities and actions as a potentially successful entrepreneur. Thus, it should go without saying that if you feed your doubt you will buy into it more and more until eventually you become the failure you continually reinforce yourself as through these negative thought loops. As Henry Ford told us, “Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you’re right”.

So instead of thinking you cannot do anything you set your mind to, use meditation to reaffirm that you know you can. Every successful business person will tell you that a winning mindset was a key to their success, and meditation can be a wonderful tool to help you achieve that winning mindset. This is because meditation involves focusing on a singular thought; something such as “I will win” or “I will succeed”, repeated over and over in your mind as you continue your deep breathing. Combine that with mental visualization of you winning or succeeding in your profession or business and you have a perfect recipe for accomplishment.

Furthermore, meditation teaches us, through the focus on a singular thought, to recognize and ignore, or let go of, the negative or destructive thoughts. As you’re sitting or standing still in your meditation practice, your thoughts will pass through your mind like clouds float through the sky. See these thoughts, recognize these thoughts for what they are, and let go of them. You are the unwavering mountain of success standing strong and confident as the clouds pass by. Don’t be afraid to even smile and chuckle at them once you realize these negative thoughts have no power over you.

Boost Creativity

 It’s no big secret that innovation is a huge key to success, and unconventional thinkers often make the biggest breakthroughs. But as business owners and entrepreneurs we often work long hours, bogged down in our projects, and our minds become jumbled, chaotic and tired. The more we go on like this the more the cobwebs begin to form within the creative thinking areas of the brain, and the more stagnant we get in productively imaginative thought. No matter if you’re trying to resolve a solution to a customer’s needs, or come up with a new process to stimulate efficiency in your business, you’ll rarely find it in a textbook or even on the internet. Let’s face it. Coming up with great ideas, day in and day out, isn’t easy. 

However, meditation can help stimulate your creative thinking by settling the mind, increasing your attention span and simplifying your ability to recognize inventive thoughts. As we’ve already discussed, meditation involves sitting mentally still while thoughts pass through the brain. You see them, label them, and allow them to keep moving. However, this cognitive flexibility also allows for pulling down the thoughts that excite you and spur your creative juices. In school we called this brain storming, but in technical science terms, it’s known as divergent thinking.

An entrepreneur who is skilled in divergent thinking will tend to think more outside the box and can more easily find multiple new solutions to complex problems versus a singular thinker who is more likely to be stuck in a rut banging his head against what he believes is the only solution. Next time a complex problem pops up, even if you’re not a regular meditator, take some time to sit quietly, undisturbed, and focus on untying the knot to the problem at hand. Let your mind freely attack the problem and most likely you’ll find many possible solutions to work through.

Improve Adaptability

Another key trait to any successful business owner is adaptability. We’ve all witnessed business owners who were slow to adapt when the market shifts, and when this happens they often get left in the dust, and unfortunately sometimes even end up closing their doors. The current state of affairs we are living in is a perfect example. COVID19 and the resulting economic shutdown has caused many a business owner to become effectively unemployed. In any city right now, we can find at restaurants who were unsuccessful at adapting to having fewer dine-in customers and have since gone out of business. In the world of sales, we can look in any direction and find salespeople who were scrambling to find ways to move their business to a virtual sales model. Many went into panic mode, many have been completely upturned and are now working elsewhere.

The art of adaptability is not an easy skill to embody and it was famously written about in the book by Spencer Johnson, Who Moved My Cheese. Once of the basic conclusions to the book teaches us that the key to successful entrepreneurship is realizing that change is inevitable and actually a good thing. A savvy business owner will welcome change because he’s ready to adapt knowing that most others will get dragged into change kicking and screaming the whole way.

Meditation teaches us to let go of attachments in thought creating a realization that the only thing that is truly constant is change. By sitting quietly in a meditative state, we learn to allow thoughts to move freely through our mind and we do not hold onto them, versus allowing our mind to become fixated improperly and spin out in unproductive imagination. By eliminating distractions, we create a versatility in our thought process, free from rigid thinking, that can, through our now expanded creativity, more easily adapt when the winds of change come blowing in.

Expand Your Mental Capacity

The older we get the more our mental capacity deteriorates, and meditation is like a workout for your brain. Lifting weights builds muscle, running and jogging strengthen cardio, and meditation actually expands the power of your brain. This is because meditation requires a laser-like focus for extended periods. Just like longer sessions of cardio workouts lengthen your stamina, longer periods of meditation increase your ability to concentrate and focus singularly for lengthier time periods. And as business owners its vitally important that we have the ability to maintain sharp intellectual acuity for long hours. 

An entrepreneur is required to make decisions and judgments, solve problems and create solutions, and manage people. All of these things will drag on your mind and by the time your day or week or month closes, you’re mentally exhausted. Attempting to manage your business through this level of mental duress will ultimately cause your business to suffer.  

However, science has proven that a regular meditation practice will increase the volume of gray matter in your brain. Gray matter is the dark tissue of the brain and spinal cord, consisting mostly of nerve cells and dendrites, which is ultimately responsible for intelligence. It’s the area of the brain that involves speech, sensory perception, emotion, decision-making, memory and self-control. As a successful business owner information needs to be processed and recalled accurately, new skills learned quickly, and decisions made on logic and facts, not emotion. If just a few minutes of meditation everyday can expand your mental capacity, raise your intelligence level, and sharpen your ability to effectively lead your business, wouldn’t it be worth it? Imagine what sitting for longer periods could do.

Build Better Relationships

Strong relationships are key in business, and can be equated to the oil that helps a machine run smoothly. Again, speaking from my background in insurance there are multiple levels of relationships to maintain and rely on. It’s obvious we must have healthy relationships with our customers or else we’ll have no base to offer our services to and reap referrals from. But we also must have strong relationships with the brokers we obtain our contracts from, the agents we assist and develop, the insurance companies whose products we represent and the various vendors who help us market our skills and services. 

Through meditation we can become more level-headed, more accepting of our own emotions, and more adept at recognizing the emotional state of others. As a more balanced communicator we become more sensitive to others feelings and needs, and more approachable when others need to reach out. Meditation reduces our stress, raises our emotional intelligence, decreases our negativity, and through improved adaptability effectively makes us a chameleon able to match or balance our state of mind to that of other people. 

Any great leader of an organization must earn the respect of his people and his network, and to do so requires a balanced emotional state and a compassionate heart. Meditation brings this about by learning to sit quietly, temper our feelings and create a resilient mindfulness to any situation someone can throw in our direction. It’s been said that your net worth is your network. How good can your network truly be if you cannot properly maintain the relationships within it? Additionally, as meditation teaches us to more easily let go of attachments, we can learn to let go of the toxic relationships that drag on our business. Through proper, healthy relationships with the right network we can elevate our business making it more profitable, more efficient and more effective. 

Getting Started

Having explored how a meditation practice can benefit our business how do we get started? Truthfully, it’s actually very simple. Meditation can be done in many ways. When you think of meditation, you likely envision someone seated cross-legged on a cushion. This is certainly a very common position, but it’s not required and not necessarily any more effective. And for many people just getting started it can be extremely uncomfortable and ultimately not conducive to the overall experience or effectiveness of the practice. What’s most important is that you’re comfortable, but not so comfortable that you fall asleep. 

Personally, I enjoy standing meditation, especially for shorter periods no longer than ten or possibly fifteen minutes.  When practicing standing meditation, it’s important that you stand comfortable with your feet flat on the floor having relaxed shoulders, a relaxed lower back, and soft knees. Locking out your knees or your back will create tension and discomfort defeating the purpose altogether. In a standing position, your hands should be placed gently against your lower abdomen just below your navel.

In lieu of standing or sitting cross-legged on a cushion, sitting in an upright, comfortable chair is an excellent way to practice. The chair should allow for your feet to again rest flat on the floor with your thighs mostly parallel to the ground. You should sit up with an attentive posture and your hands can rest gently on your knees. Your back can rest against the chair back, given that it doesn’t allow for a slouching posture, otherwise sit up straight and proper, but not tense. Its important that you’re relaxed.

Into the Practice

Now that you have a comfortable position, getting started with the meditation is relatively simple. Firstly, setup a timer for a period of time you intend to practice and make sure you’re located where you cannot be disturbed for that amount of time. Your meditation will start after you’ve set the timer and gotten into position, and end when your timer goes off.

You’ll want to begin breathing deeply, and slowly in and out through your nose. As you breathe in your abdomen expands, and as you breathe out your abdomen relaxes. At this point you can choose to focus on the rising and falling of your abdomen or possibly the sensation of cool air moving in and out your nostrils. This focus is a good starting point to developing your extended concentration and will help keep you grounded in your practice.

To help increase your mental focus a good second step is to count your breath. There is no real right or wrong way to do this; feel free to experiment and find a counting rhythm that matches with your breath. You may find it difficult to count very high at first before your mind begins to wander. That’s okay. That’s the practice. Simply recognize you’ve lost count and start over at one again. The more your practice, the higher you’ll be able to count.

An alternative to counting is to recite a gatha internally, not aloud. A gatha is a short verse that you can easily recite with the rhythm of your breath and is comprised of works that reinforce your purpose. An example of a simple gatha to help you on your path to success would be as follows:

(In breath) With this breath, I breathe in.

(Out breath) With this breath, I breathe out.

(In breath) With each breath I attract prosperity.

(Out breath) And I succeed.

You would repeat these four lines over and over until the end of your practice. When using a gatha you can also practice visualization and in the example above you would be well off visualizing yourself accomplishing your goals and succeeding in your business. However, if you find that visualization distracts you from your gatha, then maybe practice just with the gatha until your focus improves.

A Great Success

That’s really all there is to the practice of meditation. It doesn’t have to be difficult, and you don’t have to start dressing like an avant-garde hippie to get started. Like anything in life, consistency is key. Being diligent to set aside a few minutes each and every day can be enough to make an enormous difference in your development and bring you exponential rewards in your business. A business friend and mentor recently shared an idea with me, that little things can lead to big things, or even huge things. 

Meditation is one of those little things that when done properly and with consistency, can truly lead to big things in your business and life. I encourage you to take some time and start your own practice; allow it to unfold and peel the layers of your mind back so that you may begin exploring new ideas, undistracted, and take your business to a new level of success.