I learned the cost of stress during a pivotal time of my career. By the end of my first year serving as the president of Starcom Mediavest Group, traveling 500,000 miles a year managing over 100 offices globally, I had had six root canals from grinding my teeth at night. When leaders are overwhelmed and depleted, they run the risk of consuming the energy of those around them.
When I was in the Army, I was taught from day one of Ranger training to “Put your own boots on first.” In fact, looking after ourselves before others is not selfish. It is necessary to be ready to lead. Radical self-care is ultimately a selfless practice that ensures we are ready and recharged before giving our full attention to the people who depend on us for motivation, vision, and inspiration.
Effective leaders understand the importance of maintaining positive emotional energy. It sets the tone for workplace culture, motivates teams, and creates a safe space for innovation. But it starts with a foundation of radical self-care cultivated by mindfulness, meditation, and movement.
Forget what you have heard about these practices as chores and instead, think about them as small, daily steps designed to replenish your energy, not add to your burdens.
Power of the Pause
One of the biggest misconceptions about practices like meditation is that they require long-term unwavering commitment and hours of your day. The radical part of self-care is that it is so simple and organic, yet it runs counter to the overwhelmed worker’s first refuge: distraction.
The former vice president of People Development at Google, Karen May, used the practice of taking one mindful breath before every meeting to reset mentally and physically. It took her six seconds.
The six seconds between is a potent symbol for bringing attention to the present moment and for the natural moments of pause that life provides.
Instead of getting frustrated about the time wasted, take a moment to be present and aware of your surroundings, your breath, what you can hear, see, taste, smell, and feel.
We can use these short breaks to breathe consciously, practice gratitude or simply observe our surroundings. You can do this almost anywhere and anytime, even while waiting in a queue. Instead of getting frustrated about the time wasted, take a moment to be present and aware of your surroundings, your breath, what you can hear, see, taste, smell, and feel. These moments of awareness and appreciation are meditation.
The Science of Overwhelm
After Starcom, I cofounded a venture incubator, Abundant Venture Partners. We worked with Dr Richard Davidson, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has spent 30 years studying people’s brains. His research on the prefrontal cortex showed that with the advent of new technology, our stress responses are increasing in frequency and intensity, and it is reshaping our brains.
One study by research firm Dscout estimated that the average user touches their phone 2,617 times a day, and that for most people, it is a triggering moment. Our brains and bodies are designed to respond to stress stimulus a few times a day but are not programmed for a 24-hour-a-day email onslaught. As a result, we are in a constantly triggered state, and our attention and focus has never been so frayed.
So when people say they are overwhelmed, it’s a physical fact. We are running new software on old hardware. The brain and body are wired to remember the bad events because that helped us survive much earlier in our evolution. Science calls this tendency “negativity bias.” We need to change the patterns.
Set Bite-Sized Goals
Meditation is less about achieving some transcendent state akin to a Japanese monk and more about training our ability to be nonjudgmentally aware of the present moment—which may also help us keep our minds from swinging wildly from thought to thought. (What are the 50 things I need to do? What are the emails I didn’t answer? Who are the people I need to call?). It’s about asking “what is” now versus “what if.