How business leaders integrate meditation in their lives and reap the benefit in their businesses

Written By Hira Khan

If you meditate, you know that it can be a struggle to bring that sense of calm and flow into the rest of your life.

However, it is not only Tibetan monks who use its secrets to bring a sense of contemplation and peacefulness into their everyday lives.

From Oprah to Arianna Huffington, many top business leaders have talked about how they use the power of meditation to help them thrive in the corporate world.

Stay positive

If there is one thing Oprah Winfrey, worth $2.6 billion, is known for, it is overcoming adversity and achieving astounding success.

How did she do this? By staying positive. Nowadays, she achieves a positive focus with the help of meditation.

“The outside world is constantly trying to convince you you’re not enough,” she writes. “But you don’t have to take the bait. Meditation helps you resist.”

Listen

Making sure you fully understand what is happening before you make a decision is important in business.

That is why the most effective and inclusive leaders listen. 

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has discussed how he uses meditation in interviews.

He also has not only introduced yoga into the workplace for employees, but he also joins in. 

He talked about the process of using mindfulness for successful leadership as well.

This means being aware and listening to his staff first.

He follows the age-old wisdom of trying to understand first instead of being understood. 

He described the experience of being present as a leader to The New York Times as having an inner companion where “the beginner’s mind is informing me to step back so that I can create what wants to be, not what was.

I know that the future does not equal the past.

I know that I have to be here at the moment.”

Set up schedules

Business leaders understand the importance of having resources.

That is a concept Arianna Huffington, CEO of Thrive Global, has talked about many times.

She has said getting enough sleep is one key to success. 

However, for her, meditation is just as vital as she told Yoga Journal.

That is why she does it for 20-30 minutes every morning.

Doing that replenishes our inner resources, which leads to increased productivity at work. 

Setting up regular patterns, such as taking 20 minutes each day for self-reflection, renewal, and relaxation, can rejuvenate the mind and prepare it for business.

This means when stress arises or a crisis happens, you have resources you can draw upon.

Enhance performance

As everyone knows, the corporate world is competitive.

Many top leaders and celebrities use a range of contemplative techniques to calm the mind and emotions.

Once they are no longer distracted by everyday thoughts, they can more reliably access that intense state of flow which is when peak performance occurs.

Athlete and entrepreneur Kobe Bryant talked about using meditation and being introduced to it by former Lakers head coach Phil Jackson.

“He helped give meditation, and other ways to renew ourselves, a legitimacy for business people and macho guys, who tended to identify it with New Age-y, flaky stuff.

Suddenly, meditation became a performance enhancement, as well as part of the journey of discovery.”

Understand value

Good business leaders know the value of the things and people around them because if they over-exploit their workforce, they are destroying potential future profit and relationships.

Panda Express founder, Andrew Cherng, has long understood the importance of valuing wellness and staff wellbeing.

Before it was fashionable, back in 2008, he supported staff self-improvement and encouraged meditation as this is something he also does himself and benefits from.

He feels this is important to do.

He says, “You can’t expect someone to do a good job if you treat them like an object.”

Increase confidence

A good business leader is usually understood to be a confident business leader.

Yet, especially for women, the corporate world can be a difficult world to stay emotionally balanced in.

For this reason, on her website, Oprah Winfrey describes herself as a “big proponent of formal meditation.”

She has frequently mentioned her practice there and its impact on her life.

One of the main consequences, which she found especially beneficial, was her increased resilience.

In her position, she often faced negativity, and meditating helped her remain self-assured.  

Meditation and mindfulness offer a range of benefits, from the physical to the mental.

However, your contemplative practice does not need to stay relegated to the 20 minutes you practice it for.

You can find ways to bring it into the rest of your life.

These real-life examples from successful leaders show how practicing meditation and mindfulness in business has a range of benefits. ◼︎