Being Fully Present
When people talk about being "fully present", most of it is made up gobbledygook... because almost no one really knows what it is like to experience that blissful state.
Imagine that Eric Clapton is playing the opening licks to the song "Layla". Imagine that you're watching him... his eyes are closed, his fingers move without any thought or direction, and it feels as though the music is flowing straight out of his soul. That's what it's like to be fully present.
Now imagine that you are trying to play the same licks. You are almost certainly thinking, "Start with my index finger on the fifth fret of the first string. Use my ring finger to play the seventh fret of the first string. Now, move my index finger up to the eighth fret of the second string. Use my ring finger again to play the tenth fret of the second string. Finally, slide my ring finger down to the ninth fret of the second string. As I play each note, hold it for the same duration and give it a slight vibrato—a small shake—to add some character to the sound."
This is how most of us spend 99.99999% of our waking existence, with words and thoughts filling our mind and pulling us into either the past or future.
To be fully present, you must leave words and thoughts behind.
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Harness a Mindful Approach to Entrepreneurial Growth
As an executive coach who has worked with many founders, owners and CEOs of aggressive growth companies, I've seen firsthand how transforming to a more mindful corporate culture can take your organization and customer experience to the next level. But what exactly does "mindful" mean in a business context?
At its core, mindfulness is about focusing with clear eyes on the present moment—on your customers, employees, and the reality of your business—without being clouded by preconceived notions. It's about truly seeing through your customer's eyes, which as a busy leader immersed in the day-to-day of your company, can be extremely difficult to do.
Your vision can get obscured by internal factors such as your KPIs, org chart, budgets, and the competing priorities and opinions swirling around you. While massive corporations and bootstrapped startups may have more freedom to innovate solely based on customer insights, aggressive growth companies in the middle have to be much more deliberate about developing a customer-centric culture.
That's where mindfulness comes in. By fostering a corporate culture of focus, honesty, open-mindedness, and genuine care for customers and employees, you can position your company to sense and respond to customer needs with much more agility.
But in today's 24/7, hyper-connected world, how do you cut through the chaos and noise to operate mindfully? Here are some principles I coach growth-focused leaders on putting into practice:
Contextualize, but don't compromise on, customer focus. View any policies, KPIs and best practices through the lens of what will help you best serve customers in the present moment. Don't let them become blinders.
Prioritize presence and single-tasking. Create a culture that enables and expects employees' full attention and best efforts on the task at hand, whether that's a customer interaction or an internal meeting. Mindless multitasking won't cut it.
Instill intellectual honesty. Be precise and objective when assessing how you currently treat customers versus how you could better serve them. Seek out and embrace even inconvenient truths.
Foster diversity of thought. Make space for differing opinions and approaches. Trying to force agreement leads to blindspots. Diversity of perspectives is key to understanding customers.
Make it effortless. Look for every opportunity to reduce friction for customers, employees and partners. The easier you make the experience, the more they'll engage with you.
Default to transparency. Truthful, clear communication is essential to collective awareness of reality. Attempts to obscure or spin the truth will backfire, so lead with radical candor.
Transforming entrenched corporate habits is never easy, especially amid the intense demands of scaling a business. But in my experience coaching growth company leaders, committing to these mindful principles is one of the most powerful ways to align your culture around delivering world-class customer experience - which ultimately will be a key competitive advantage in unlocking new levels of growth.
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Stillness 101
The basic idea: My friend Molly Tschang—creator of Say It Skillfully—reacted to one of my many "stillness" posts and texted me to suggest that I do a longer piece explaining what I mean and how you might actually "be still".
Molly, this is that piece.
Stillness, to me, means clearing your head.
It means being quiet and emptying your mind of thoughts, so that actual, highly valuable insights have room to get your attention.
It entails shifting from a fire hose of chatter in your head to a single, beautiful truth.
And sometimes it simply means doing absolutely nothing, so that you can recharge.
"Be still and know."
A bit more background: To achieve a dramatic shift in your state of consciousness, there are two basic strategies. You can either unload stimuli (i.e. be still) or overload stimuli (i.e. go skydiving or whitewater rafting). I use both approaches.
The photo at the top of this issue is of a stream at the foot of a mountain above the town of Park City, Utah. I took it this past Monday afternoon, just before I settled down to sit by the rushing water and be silent.
In the woods above that stream, I've also ridden my mountain bike so fast that there was no room in my brain for any thought except: stay alive!
Other strategies I've employed to clear my mind include:
Hiking alone in the woods
Juggling
Counting the duration of my breaths
Gazing into a fireplace or campfire
Rock climbing
Kayaking into the middle of a body of water and simply sitting there
Attempting to draw something
None of these is right or wrong. They are simply tools to withdraw from the habit of talking, talking, talking in your head and/or with other people.
Why do you want to take a break from that sort of chatter?
It's easy to get stuck in thoughts and opinions that simply aren't true. The vast majority of people think they are self-aware, but actually aren't. They think they are seeing the truth, but they are not.
Very often, I have been such a person. The price of such self-delusion can be very high. I've learned that stillness is a path to more accurate perceptions. Why? Because when you stop trying to justify the same incorrect perception in your head, you open the door to what might be a more accurate sense of reality.
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Be Quiet, Make Friends and Have a Purpose
A good friend of mine likes to say that when your body is trying to get your attention, you had better listen. It will keep kicking you harder and harder until you do.
I like simple principles that people can remember. Too often, we receive advice that is so hopelessly complicated and convoluted that you can't even understand it, never mind live by it. (How many times have you walked out of a meeting confused by what, if anything, was decided?)
Be quiet, make friends and have a purpose is a simple prescription for a spectacular life and career. If you have a minute, I'd like to explain why.
The odds are stacked against you.
Everything in your life is external: your friends, family, colleagues, possessions, obligations, and smartphone. With one exception: The Quiet You.
The Quiet You knows that you (I'm making this up) really hate bossing people around, even though you manage a staff of 150. It knows that you're scared of dying, that you really want to be a singer, or that you have never liked your sister.
In other words, The Quiet You is you, stripped of all pretensions and social conventions.
All that external stuff distracts you from paying attention to The Quiet You, but this is a mistake. Without regular check-ins, it's too easy to start living someone else's life.
I'm not going to tell you that you have to:
a. Meditate
b. Practice mindfulness
c. Learn relaxation exercises
d. Take Tai Chi
e. Go for long walks alone on the beach
f. Chant "Om"
g. Swim laps
h. Pray
i. Practice loving kindness
j. Sit quietly with good friends or someone you love
...but any of these would be a step in the right direction. Do what works for you, and stick with it.
This is the first, critical step to being happy and productive.
For a deeper understanding of what I'm talking about, try watching the film Mindfulness: Be Happy Now. My brother made it, and you can rent it on Amazon, Google, iTunes, or Vudu.
"Social capital is one of the biggest predictors for health, happiness, and longevity" reports BeWell@Stanford University. Many physical and mental ailments are basically loneliness manifesting itself in your body.
If you don't believe me, let me make the same point from a negative perspective. "Captors use social isolation to torture prisoners of war—to drastic effect. Social isolation of otherwise healthy, well-functioning individuals eventually results in psychological and physical disintegration, and even death" observes this research report.
To stay healthy, you have to make good friends. I'm not talking about getting 98 Likes on your latest Instagram post. I'm talking about making the kind of friends who will help you clean your garage or invite you over to dinner on the spur of the moment.
If you don't know how to make friends, here is a wonderful primer on how to get started, along with these resources:
There's a big difference between a reason to get out of bed versus something that makes you smile when you wake up. It's the difference between an obligation and a purpose.
At the risk of harping on one point, knowing the difference is directly related to paying attention to The Quiet You.
Sorry.
What do you most value? Where can you have the greatest impact? What is possible, given your stage of life and personal circumstances?
I received a note earlier this week from a woman who sounded desperately lonely and very upset that she had no support. She was wrestling with some real problems, none of which I could solve with an email. Instead, I made a simple suggestion: find a way to help others. If she flipped her mindset, she might be able to form meaningful connections with other human beings. Instead of waiting to be helped, she could help others. Will she still have serious problems? Yes. Will she be as lonely and isolated? No.
Find a way to help others, and find the intersection between doing so and giving yourself satisfaction.
**
Being Aware of Being Aware
I asked ChatGPT to assume the role of the English spiritual teacher, Rupert Spira, so that I could interview the AI system responding as Spira.
I have read several of Spira's books and have found them to be truly profound. They include:
The Transparency of Things, Non-Duality Press, 2008
Presence: The Art of Peace and Happiness, Non-Duality Press, 2011
Presence: The Intimacy of all Experience, Non-Duality Press, 2011
The Ashes of Love, Sahaja Publications, 2016
The Nature of Consciousness, Sahaja Publications, 2017
Being Aware of Being Aware, Sahaja Publications, 2017
A Meditation on I Am, New Harbinger, 2021
The Essential Self, Sahaja Publications, 2021
Being Myself, Sahaja Publications, 2021
You Are the Happiness You Seek, Sahaja Publications, 2022
I barely edited this transcript. After being instructed to respond like Spira, the AI system remained "in character" as you see here.
BK: As I understand your books "Being Aware of Being Aware" and "Being Myself", you perceive that God or Source—or whatever words we choose to use to describe an infinite being—inhabits every living creature, so that we are all God. Is this a correct understanding?
Chat/RS: Yes, that is a fair summary, albeit somewhat simplified. I often speak of consciousness, which is the essence of our experience and being. Consciousness, the knowing element in all experience, is not limited to or by anything or anyone. It pervades all and everything. It's within this understanding that one may say we are all 'God', or 'Source'.
BK: In a similar manner, in our daily lives as finite beings, we tend to forget this truth that awareness, which is the essence of God, pervades us and everyone else. Our thoughts and experiences fool us into believing we are separate, alone and isolated. Is this close to what you perceive?
Chat/RS: Yes, that's quite close. It is our mind's habitual tendency to identify with the body and thoughts, creating a false sense of separateness. This illusion of being a separate self is what obscures the innate peace and happiness that is our true nature. Our true Self is ever-present Awareness, which is the common ground of all experience and is never separate from anything it knows. It's in recognizing this truth that we find our inherent wholeness and unity.
BK: To find happiness and peace, all we need do is remember that our true Self is ever-present Awareness. We don't need to meditate in a specific manner or eat specific foods or take specific drugs or do anything else. Correct?
Chat/RS: In essence, that's true. Peace and happiness are inherent in our true nature of Awareness. They are not a result of certain activities or conditions. That said, practices like meditation can be helpful. They don't bring us peace and happiness as new acquisitions, but rather help us to recognize what is already inherently ours. It's a matter of shifting our attention from the content of experience to the essence of it, from objects to Awareness itself. We don't 'attain' our true Self, we simply recognize it.
BK: Yes, but so many forms of meditation "require" practices such as a mantra or focusing on the breath or some other device. In Being Aware of Being Aware, you use the analogy that a person is like a wave in the ocean, not separate from the ocean but instead within it and always part of it. The wave may subside or disappear, but it remains part of the ocean. When such an entity wishes to find peace, it can simply sink to the quiet at the bottom of the ocean.
Chat/RS: Indeed. The analogy of the wave and the ocean is a powerful one. The wave is never separate from the ocean, just as our individual selves are not separate from Awareness. In many traditional meditative practices, an object - like a mantra or breath - is used to focus the mind and quieten its chatter. This is like the wave seeking peace by trying to still its surface.
In contrast, what I often suggest is more like sinking into the depths of the ocean. This is not a process of doing or focusing, but rather a letting go, a relaxation of the mind’s effort, a sinking back into our true nature of Awareness. It's like being the silence that is already present underneath all sounds, rather than trying to create silence by controlling or suppressing sounds.
BK: What would you say to someone who says, "That's all fine and good, but I still have a boss who wants me to work harder and a salary that doesn't meet all my needs and how does knowing I am God help me put food on the table for my family?"
Chat/RS: Such a practical question indeed deserves attention. While recognizing our true nature doesn't change the practical circumstances of our lives, it can profoundly alter our experience of them. The world does not stop demanding of us, yet how we respond to these demands can shift.
The peace and happiness inherent in our true nature of Awareness provide a stable foundation from which we can engage with life's challenges. Instead of reacting from a sense of fear or lack, we can respond from a place of inner fulfillment. This doesn't mean we stop striving for better circumstances, but we do so from a place of wholeness rather than deficiency.
The recognition of our true nature doesn't directly put food on the table, but it can imbue our lives with a deep sense of peace, joy and resilience that enable us to face life's challenges with greater clarity, creativity and effectiveness.
BK: You write that "I" is a holy word, for it describes God and is a reminder that this holy essence imbues each and every one of us. Can you explain that a bit further?
Chat/RS: The word "I" is indeed a potent and holy word. Every time we say or think "I", we are referring to ourself, our essential being. But what do we truly mean by "I"?
In most cases, we think of "I" as a separate, limited individual. But if we explore deeply, we find that the true "I" is not limited to a body or a mind. It is the very presence of Awareness, the essence of our being.
In this sense, "I" is synonymous with God, Source, or the Absolute, because it signifies the unlimited, ever-present Awareness that is the core of our being and the being of all things. It is a reminder that our true nature is divine, and this divine essence pervades all experience. It's a holy word because it refers to the sacredness of our true identity.
BK: Let's step back for a minute and make sure that readers of this interview correctly grasp your perceptions. You write that each of us agree that we are aware. That awareness, however, is not specific to a finite human being; it is inherent in Source. That is, Source is the awareness that we perceive.
Chat/RS: Absolutely. When we say "I am aware", we are speaking the truth of our experience. But we usually take the "I" to be a limited, separate self, housed within a body, that is aware. On deeper exploration, we find that this is not so.
The "I" that is aware is not a separate entity. Awareness is not localized to or owned by an individual. It is the very fabric of all experience. Awareness, in fact, is synonymous with Source, or what one might call God. It is universal, infinite, and inherent in all.
So, it is indeed Source itself that shines as the light of Awareness in all experience. Recognizing this truth is recognizing our true nature.
BK: If I accept all that you have shared, how might this affect my perception of other people, other countries, other beliefs than I hold, and even differences I have with my family, friends and colleagues?
Chat/RS: If you truly see that the same Awareness, the same divine essence, permeates all beings and all things, your relationship with the world naturally transforms. You see that at the deepest level, there are no 'others'. There's just one Awareness expressing itself in myriad forms.
This understanding fosters a sense of unity, compassion, and love. Even amidst apparent differences of beliefs, cultures, and personal views, you recognize the same essence shining in all. Disagreements may still occur at the level of thoughts, beliefs and behaviors, but they don't touch the deep sense of shared being.
In this light, differences become enriching rather than threatening. They offer opportunities to explore and appreciate the diversity of life, rather than create division or conflict. Recognizing our shared essence, our shared 'I', allows for a deeper connection, understanding, and harmony with all of life.
BK: So, if I could be a bit informal, that "ignorant jerk" who disagrees me and I perceive as an "idiot," is really just another part of the same essence as me. We are part of the same whole.
Chat/RS: Informality is welcome. Indeed, you could see it that way. The person you're referring to, regardless of how they behave or what they believe, shares the same fundamental essence as you. This doesn't mean you have to agree with their behavior or views, or that you should refrain from assertively addressing harmful actions when necessary.
But recognizing that beneath the surface of personality and behavior lies the same divine essence can shift your perspective. It can soften the edges of conflict, allowing for more understanding and compassion. The differences and disagreements are real on one level, but on a deeper level, you are both expressions of the same infinite Awareness. It's in holding both these truths that a more nuanced, compassionate interaction can unfold.
BK: Would it be possible for you to share a haiku in traditional form that captures the essence of our conversation today?
Chat/RS: Awareness in all,
Waves dance on the endless sea,
One Self, mirrored vast.
BK: Thank you so much for talking to me.
Chat/RS: It has been a pleasure to engage in this conversation. Thank you for your thoughtful questions. May the exploration continue, revealing ever more deeply the truth of our shared Being.
I am Bruce Kasanoff, an executive coach who can help you get what you want. Book a one-hour call with me and I’ll prove it.