Be More Productive Now: Mindful Strategies for Increasing Performance

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According to research – including studies by the London Business School1 and the Franklin Covey Institute2 – the majority of business professionals use their time inefficiently.

Sure, they stay busy by answering email, replying to requests, and taking care of other mundane tasks. But as it turns out, being busy doesn’t necessarily equate to being effective.

In fact, if you take a close look at the data, it’s amazing how bad many of us in business are at utilizing our time and staying focused on our goals.

But why?

As it turns out, we’re actually addicted to the action itself.

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About the Authors

Rasmus HougaardRasmus Hougaard is an internationally acknowledged expert in training the mind to be focused and clear at work. He is the founder of The Potential Project – a leading global provider of corporate based mindfulness solutions operating in 20 countries. He is training senior executives, leaders and employees in organizations like Google, Nike, Accenture, GE and many other organizations in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Rasmus is author of the book “One Second Ahead – Enhancing Performance at work with Mindfulness”, published by Palgrave MacMillan, October 2015. Rasmus has a Master’s degree in Organizational Development & Adult Learning and degrees in Philosophy and Human Resources.

Jacqueline CarterJacqueline Carter is passionate about working with leaders to enhance performance, effectiveness and well-being. She is a Partner with The Potential Project and has worked with leaders from around the globe including from Sony, American Express, RBC and KPMG to name a few. She is a co-author of the book “One Second Ahead – Enhancing Performance at Work with Mindfulness” and gives regular talks on how to improve focus, clarity and results in daily work. She has managed teams of more than 100 people and budgets of over $60M. Jacqueline has a Master’s degree in Organizational Behavior and degrees in Labor Management Relations and Mathematics.

Gillian CouttsGillian Coutts has over 20 years of experience as a leader and change agent in the sales and operations functions of large corporations. She has worked across a range of industries including retail, government, transport, oil and gas, and human services. Gillian is a Partner with The Potential Project Australia. Her clients include Yahoo!7, Telstra, BUPA, and large not-for-profit organizations. She also sits on a number of boards and regularly speaks on integrating mindfulness into leadership, work life, and – following her own wake-up call of cancer diagnosis and treatment – programs for post-traumatic growth.

Notes:

  1. Harvard Business Review, “Beware the Busy Manager,” February 2002.
  2. Franklin Covey, “FranklinCovey Global Time Matrix™ Survey,” 2011.
  3. Britta K. Hölzel, James Carmody, Mark Vangel, Christina Congleton, Sita M. Yerramsetti, Tim Gard, Sara W. Lazar. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 191, 2011, 36–43.

Your Missing Power: Master Mind

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Perhaps the most powerful principle Napoleon Hill wrote about, and certainly the most enduring, is the 9th step towards riches: Power of the Master Mind. The idea of a Master Mind group was created, put forth, and expounded upon by Napoleon Hill in his two classic books, Think and Grow Rich, written in 1937, and “How to Sell Your Way Through Life, written in 1938.

If you want to have a better, easier, more fun, more productive, less frustrating (sound good so far?), more bountiful, and more profitable life: Create a Master Mind. A Master Mind group can help you and your business succeed far better and far faster than you can on your own.

Hill defines Master Mind as, “Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.”

In other words – people working together in harmony to get to ‘best answer,’ ‘best response,’ ‘best ideas,’ or ‘best strategy’ to any situation or issue.

You have problems, issues, and concerns. Do you think you’re the ONLY person facing your issues and concerns? Come on, really now? My bet is that every one of your colleagues and connections have exactly the same issues. So, eh, why are yours reoccurring?

Why didn’t that deal go through? Why aren’t your calls getting returned? Why are you having a challenge to set a meeting? Why are you having major blockage to get to the decision-maker? Huh? Why?

Because you have not yet created your own Master Mind. A group of peers facing the very same issues in their life.

Hill stresses and uses the word POWER in conjunction with MASTER MIND. Hill says, “POWER may be defined as ‘organized and intelligently directed KNOWLEDGE.’ Power refers to ORGANIZED effort, sufficient to enable an individual to transmute DESIRE into its monetary equivalent.

ORGANIZED effort is produced through the coordination of effort of two or more people, who work toward a DEFINITE end, in a spirit of harmony.” He goes on in all capital letters to say, “POWER IS REQUIRED FOR THE ACCUMULATION OF MONEY! POWER IS NECESSARY FOR THE RETENTION OF MONEY AFTER IT HAS BEEN ACCUMULATED!”

Hill says, “POWER comes from accumulated and organized knowledge.” That’s what the Master Mind helps build. He also says, “If POWER is accumulated and organized knowledge, let’s examine the sources:

INFINITE INTELLIGENCE. This source of knowledge may be contacted through the procedure described in chapter 6, with the aid of Creative Imagination.
ACCUMULATED EXPERIENCE. The accumulated experience of man or woman, (or that portion of it which has been organized and recorded), may be found in any well-equipped public library. An important part of this accumulated experience is taught in public schools and colleges, where it has been classified and organized.
EXPERIMENT AND RESEARCH. In the field of science, and in practically every other walk of life, people are gathering, classifying, and organizing new facts daily. This is the source to which one must turn when knowledge is not available through ‘accumulated experience.’ Here, too, the Creative Imagination must often be used.

Knowledge may be acquired from any of the foregoing sources. It may be converted into POWER by organizing it into definite PLANS and by expressing those plans in terms of ACTION.”

Who Should You Ask To Join Your Master Mind?

Smart, positive, successful people that you know and trust. People with BOTH wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom is knowledge and experience applied. Someone you respect. Someone willing to be open and contribute.

A Master Mind has to be content-rich, to the point, value-based dialog – and it’s each participant’s responsibility to bring their gold to each meeting, and share it freely.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].