Unlock Your Potential: Master Mindful Leadership with Values-Based Practices

In addition to creating a culture keepers program to support the ins and out of crafting a values-aligned culture. It’s just as important that all the humans in your workplace are taking care of their own well-being and sense of personal alignment with mindful leadership. We all deserve to know about and build these skills so that we can live life on purpose. It’s not your job as the owner or leader in your company to personally evolve each of your team member’s sense of well-being. But it sure does send a powerful message when you embrace conscious, mindful leadership practices like these.

As my mentor, don Miguel Ruiz, often says in his apprenticeship teachings, “When we change our own world, we can change the world around us.”

• Activate conscious mindfulness. Mindfulness is the intentional act of curiously investigating the present moment. There’s no judgment or pain when you’re being mindful. You’re simply being more aware by observing what’s happening instead of being swept away by it. When you’re mindful, you’re not thinking about what didn’t get done yesterday or how much you need to complete for tomorrow. You’re just focusing on this present moment and are deeply tuned in to all that it has to offer.

Mindfulness also applies when planning for the future.

Whether it’s strategic planning, budgets, or even goal setting. We can activate mindful leadership in those future planning experiences by engaging in the process with intention. No texting or emailing while talking to your colleagues about the vision. Be fully there, and choose to be curious and active in observing what’s coming up along the way.

• Practice values-based mindfulness. After many years of living and teaching mindfulness leadership, I wondered why there weren’t mindfulness leadership practices specifically based on our values. Because there wasn’t a formal category for this type of practice, I created my own. Enter values-based mindfulness, which I define as “honoring one’s core truth by making conscious choices that ignite a personal sense of alignment.” Basically, what this entire book is about!

Living your values doesn’t typically happen by chance.

It happens when choosing your values with integrity over and over again. If you truly want to embrace your values in your daily habits, routines, and experiences. You must be mindful of whether you’re living in alignment with them. It’s a key to being a mindful leader.

Something as simple as a full body check (where your mind, gut, and heart say yes) combined with your values filter will give you the information you need to make choices that serve you. For example, you might be having a really off day and want to understand where you’re out of alignment with yourself.

Close your eyes; perhaps even put your hands on your heart. Take long, deep breaths to slow down, and simply ask yourself, “Which one of my values can serve me now? How can I activate it with ease and grace in this moment?”

Happiness doesn’t exist in the absence of our values.

It’s important to know how to tune in to understand how you can bring your values front and center into choosing your next steps. When we are honest with ourselves about what’s out of alignment with our mind, body, and spirit, as well as with our sense of well-being, we have a real chance of getting back in alignment.

In 2021, I launched my inaugural online values-based mindfulness cohort program, The Journey to Alignment.

It’s an eight-week quest of self-discovery to remember who you are at your core and to return to that place of personal alignment within. Through a combination of training modules and live group coaching. We explored what true core values alignment was when it came to managing emotional and physical energy as well as igniting healthy boundaries, habits, and routines that honor our heart’s wisdom.

It is a holistic approach to seeing life through the lens of our unique values and making choices that invite our values in and keep our frustrations out.

Watching these humans wake up to themselves has been one of the greatest honors of my life. I knew that these practices would serve them, but I didn’t realize how quickly they’d be able to take big steps forward in setting boundaries with themselves, loved ones, and colleagues. I was blown away by their vulnerability in learning new techniques to connect to their heart, soul, and inner wisdom.

And I was fueled with possibility when I heard story after story of how they felt new levels of peace, authenticity, and inner harmony as a result of intentionally choosing their values everyday. One person finally set boundaries with their mother, another with their fiancé, and a third with their workplace. They all shared stories of using the tools to return to themselves in times when they felt completely out of control and harnessing them to feel a sense of grounding, power, and peace.

Values-based mindfulness works, and you can access it anytime because, just like your breath, your values are always with you.

• Stop suffering. Eckhart Tolle says that there are two types of suffering: pain and fear. Pain is suffering from things that happened in the past. Fear is suffering from things that may or may not happen in the future.

At work, pain can show up from a presentation that didn’t go as well as you had hoped and during which one of your partners didn’t have your back when you needed their support. Or a colleague who made you the brunt of a joke in a client meeting, making you feel like you had to smile your way through the embarrassment. Fear can show up as being hit with a major attack of imposter syndrome while preparing for a big presentation. Or not knowing whether you’re going to lose your biggest client.

These are debilitating feelings that we’re often hiding, and therefore we double down on suffering in silence.

Through the following highlights. You’ll learn powerful mindful leadership tools and tangible techniques to help you return to the present moment and end your suffering.

• Practice breath work. When you find yourself in a situation where you’ve allowed your mind to take the wheel to pain and fear. Go to your breath. You can only breathe right now—not in the past or in the future. When you can ground yourself in your breath, you are also grounding yourself in the present moment. And when you’re mindfully in the present moment, suffering melts away. That can be as simple as paying attention to your breath. 

Start by focusing on the intricacies of your breath (like the feeling of it going in and out of your nostrils, whether it is shallow or deep, the pace of it). This forces your mind to shut down the racket and be here now. You might even try imagining that there’s a light following your breath through the nostrils and down to the belly. Closing your eyes and watching your breath go in and out can be incredibly peaceful. As can repeating the mantras “I breathe in peace” on your inhale and “I breathe out stress” on the exhale. Just a few rounds of that repetition can make a massive shift in your inner grounding.

Finally, I recommend box breathing. This is also known as Navy SEAL breathing or tactical breathing because it’s the technique they use when in high-stakes situations. It’s exactly as it sounds. You create a box with your breath: inhaling for four counts, holding your breath for four counts, exhaling for four counts, and holding for four counts. Simply repeat that pattern for one to two minutes. Then see how much clearer your mind becomes and how your body eases.

Check out my FREE box breathing guided practice here.

• Embrace meditation. This practice is (thankfully) becoming more widespread. Study after study has proven its effect on people’s well-being, focus, productivity, and relationships, to name a few areas.

– A Detroit study looked at how meditation improved productivity in the workplace. It was found that absenteeism fell by 85 percent, productivity rose by 120 percent, and injuries dropped by 70 percent.

– Researchers at Boston University found that meditation programs could reduce anxiety and depression, making workers more optimistic and increasing their satisfaction with their careers.

– In a Harvard study, participants went through an eight-week mindfulness training program to determine the effects it had on focus. It was shown that meditation helped the subjects make faster and more attention-based adjustments, an ability that is very valuable in the workplace.

– Health-care company Aetna conducted a study with Duke to determine the return on investment of its mindfulness programming. Aetna figures that the productivity gains alone amounted to $3,000 per employee, an eleven-to-one return on its investment.

– Organizations that introduce mindfulness programs see up to a 200 percent return on investment.

Creating a daily meditation practice, if only for five minutes a day, will have a transformative influence on your life and mindful leadership skills.

I’ve had so many people tell me that they tried to meditate but that they didn’t do it right because they had thoughts come up.

Michael Bernard Beckwith taught me that meditation is like a washing machine. You know how in the beginning of the wash cycle, the machine has to rumble your clothes in a way that releases the dirt from them? Well, the beginning process of meditation is the agitation cycle. All your thoughts (that “dirt”) need to come up in order for them to ultimately be rinsed and released. Then after that agitation is complete, it’s time for the rinse and clean stages. The key is to make it through the agitation to get there. This is precisely how meditation works.

The best teachers in meditation say if you have lots of thoughts, you’re doing some of the greatest work, because you’re allowing the space for them to be released.

There are loads of free apps, online trainings, and videos that are such great ways to start your practice.

I highly recommend Insight Timer’s Seven-Day Learn to Meditate free course to walk you through the basics of adopting your own practice for your mindful leadership journey.

• Use the “Just this” mantra. Mantras are words or short phrases that can be used repeatedly to help you focus on your intention. The mantra “Just this” is a wonderful tool to help you close down the multitasking and focus in on just what you have in front of you. Even while writing this book, I’d find myself going off on tangents in my mind. I’d bring myself back to the work at hand by repeating to myself in my mind, “Just this.” What might be possible in your life if you focused on just this?
• Set intentions. You’ve already heard me talk about intentions throughout the book. When it comes to our own intentions (versus the intentions of a whole team). The opportunity becomes so much more personal. Consider setting intentions for your day, your meetings, your interactions, and your choices.

Before the start of an important meeting and especially on days with loads of meetings where I desire to stay grounded in the face of anxiety and chaos, I ring my energy chime.

With one ding of the bell, I close my eyes and take deep breaths while reminding myself of why this meeting matters and what I intend to feel as a result of it. For example, I may say to myself in my mind, “This meeting matters because it’s a chance for me to get on the same page with my team members after being away on vacation. I will feel reconnected and rejuvenated as a result.” An energy chime is a simple tool that you can find easily online. Personally, I ring one that vibrates at a frequency that activates the heart chakra so that I can feel that heart connection in the process of choosing consciousness.

There’s also a wonderful tool called the Five-Minute Journal (available in both app and hard copy form). It has a daily system for putting your top three intentions for the day. The developers frame it as “What will I do to make today great?” These are intentions, my friends!

The more you can be precise and clear about what you want to experience, the more likely you will experience it.

• Conduct a body scan. Our bodies are the keepers of our souls, and they are constantly giving us powerful messages about what is OK and what is not. When we can make a deliberate effort to listen to our bodies and respond from a place of self-care, we can begin to be one with our mind, body, and spirit. There’s a powerful Cherokee proverb that says, “If you listen to your body when it whispers, you won’t have to hear it scream.”

I can’t tell you how many years I numbed out the whispers, ignored the signs, and popped a pill to get through. Today, when I notice my neck feeling stiff or have a headache coming on, I stop and check in with myself to see what I can do to tell my body that I heard it, that it matters, and that I will take care of it.

A body scan is an excellent tool for doing just that.

It’s the simple practice of closing your eyes (if you want) and slowly scanning your body from your head to your toes to see how it’s doing. You can notice where you’re tight, where you’re feeling well, and then be intentional about giving yourself loving attention wherever your body could use it. A stretch, a walk, perhaps even a nap are great ways to start to build a kinder relationship with your body’s whispers.

I have coached people with histories of migraines, massive shingles outbreaks, and even heart attacks who had been muscling their way through stress instead of slowing down and listening to what they needed to do to be healthy. One of my clients had her appendix burst and become infected in her body because she chose to ignore the pain and push on to meet her deadlines. Then after having emergency life-saving surgery, she came back to consciousness with her laptop, ready to get back to work from the hospital bed. You are not meant to just pay the bills and die.

Don’t let your work take over your ability to truly live a healthy and fulfilling life.

• Take a technology detox. We must disconnect from technology to reconnect to our humanity to become a mindful leader. Truly. We’re not built to be staring at computer screens for extended periods of time. We’re not built to be on Zoom all day long or scrolling on social media for hours on end, comparing ourselves to others. We must draw a hard line in the sand to determine what we need as individuals to be well and not consumed by technology. Perhaps you want to find a quitting time each day, where tech is off at 5:30 p.m., no exceptions! And especially not work emails when they are truly not an emergency. Or maybe you don’t start to look at your phone until after you’ve been awake and taken care of your own needs for an hour.

Maybe you’d want to take it a step further and take retreats or vacations where you commit to divorcing from your tech while you’re away.

I often choose to go on retreats into the beautiful mountains of Idaho where I’m off the grid so that I can’t cheat and check in when my ego starts to nag me to see what else is going on in the world.

• Spend time in nature. As humans, we are an expression of nature. Being one with nature is innate to us, yet many of us have become completely disconnected from that truth—especially when we live in places like bustling cities that don’t have a lot of accessible nature nearby. Many people think that they’re too busy to prioritize time in nature, or maybe they don’t think they like it. If you happen to fall into those categories, know that nothing is wrong with you. Meet yourself where you are, and take baby steps to see what you might like and benefit from. Perhaps you’d consider an outdoor walking meeting instead of the usual office space? Or maybe you can take your lunch to a park and eat there by yourself or with others—it’s always your choice how you use your breaks.

I have a really fun if-then policy. If a meeting gets canceled, then I go spend time in nature.

Because I live in the city, that is usually a walk to my nearby park and back. While I’m there, I make a point to admire the trees and critters running around, take in the fresh air, and sometimes even take my shoes off and plant my feet in the earth for some grounding. So if an hour-long meeting gets canceled. I take a fifteen-minute walk in nature and still have forty-five more minutes to get back to work with greater clarity and focus after connecting with the wisdom of Mother Nature.

A simple thing like watching a bird take off and land on the very tip of a twig, the wind rustle the branches of the trees, bending them back but not breaking them, or even a bug carrying a huge chip on its back to feed its colony can be inspiriting and ignite new ideas, thinking, and possibilities for how to go about solving your own problems. There is a scientific process around this idea called biomimicry—which is a practice that learns from and mimics the strategies found in nature to solve human design challenges and find hope along the way.

• Check your mindset. There are two types of mindsets: abundance and scarcity. An abundance mindset is one that is rooted in love, believes in possibility, and is willing to see everything as a chance to grow, learn, and thrive. A scarcity mindset is one that is rooted in fear, believes there’s not enough to go around, and is willing to give up when the going gets tough because there’s too much to risk.

In the workplace, this can often be seen with competition.

Let’s say that you roll out a brand-new badass product that your team has spent an entire year developing. Then a few days later, you learn that a company, very similar to yours, just released its version of the same product.

What are you telling yourself about the current situation? Are you saying that it is impossible to be successful now? Or are you saying that it is a great opportunity for the market? If you’re telling yourself it’s impossible, then you’ll get an impossible experience. But if you’re telling yourself it’s a great opportunity. Then you’ll be willing to roll up your sleeves and do the work that’s required for that incredible opportunity that lives on the other side of it. The same goes for internal issues. If you have a top-performing team member who isn’t seeing eye-to-eye with their supervisor. Do you automatically huff and puff about how annoying people’s issues are? Or do you see it as a chance to get to understand their perspectives and viewpoint more accurately?

• Reframing. Reframing is a technique used to help create a different way of looking at a situation, person, or relationship by changing its meaning. It is a transformative tool in every aspect of life.

One of the most powerful reframes I ever experienced was outside the workplace, with my grandma.

She and my grandfather, Poppi, were in an assisted living facility in which people would move to different parts of the building depending on the level of care needed. There was an on-site medical area in which residents who were being treated stayed. It was also a place where many of the patients passed away. Poppi had passed away just a few weeks before my grandma had to be moved into that section of the facility.

When I went to visit her, she was really overwhelmed and frightened because they had put her in the exact same section, room, and bed where her husband had just died. She was not OK. And then my aunt said to her, “Maybe this is Dad’s way of keeping you close to him. Maybe this is how he’s able to be in bed with you now as you heal.” In an instant, her entire demeanor changed. She believed in that possibility and felt a new level of closeness to him, rather than fear. And quite frankly, it was what I needed to hear and believe in order to not file a complaint with management there. The ripple effects of a grounded reframe are significant.

At work, we might reframe failure as an opportunity for growth.

A bad hire draining everyone of their sanity was what was needed to home in on the qualities that mattered most for that position. A lost client that you thought would be with you forever is an opportunity to learn where things need to improve for future clients. An embarrassing flub addressing your team can be exactly what you needed to show others that you’re human, too, and can own your mistakes with grace. There is always a chance to reframe what you’re experiencing in order to find the peace in the possibility on the other side of it.

This mindset work is about the vision, where we’re headed—not being naive, with our heads in the sand, blinders on, embracing toxic positivity, but rather having a healthy frame to work toward the future from the lens of possibility.

• Limiting Beliefs. We are all served when we take the time to reflect on and identify our limiting beliefs. Any thought or idea that is holding you back from your potential is a limiting belief. In work, they often sound like this: “We’re never going to be able to increase our profit this year.” “Our staff is so needy.” “This project will take forever.” “There’s not enough time for us to meet our goals.” “Our culture will always be an issue.”

Once you know your limiting beliefs, you can reframe your mindset and help others with theirs.

It is a great way to be a mindful leader. If you happen to be in a conversation where people start to go down a path of negativity and lack, whether it’s at work or anywhere else in your life, here are a few phrases you can try: 

– “OK, so what’s the possibility that lies within that opportunity?”

– “I’m curious about that, and I would love to continue that conversation at another time so that we can stay on track right now.”

– “It feels like we’re getting stuck in the weeds; let’s reset together.”

– “Now that I know why you think it won’t work, give me three reasons why it might work.”

– “I hear you and can relate. Let’s recognize that as a challenge and build from it so that we don’t get trapped there.”

Another great way to work with your limiting beliefs is by finding evidence that it’s possible to prove to yourself that what you’ve been telling yourself is not true.

Say you have a limiting belief that it’s not possible to be a CEO of a thriving business and also take vacation. That may feel very real to you right now at this moment when you look at everything that’s stacked against you for truly getting time away. If you want to transform that limiting belief, you could actively seek out successful business leaders who share your values and who have mastered the art of vacationing. Get curious, ask questions, and be open to learning what they did to create that reality in their lives. Do whatever you can to acquire evidence that vacation is possible as a successful leader. Take action with what resonates with you as a mindful leader.

This is the same concept as when the four-minute mile record was broken. Before it happened, everyone thought it was impossible to run that fast. After it happened, it was only a matter of time before it was regularly broken because athletes knew that it was humanly possible.

• Move from your head to your heart. The majority of culture work is heart work, not head work. Most of us live in our heads and get stuck there all day long.

We can’t find solutions in the same headspace they were created.

When you have created a culture problem using your thinking mind, you may need to shift to your feeling heart in order to find a solution with mindful leadership.

We get stuck in our heads. We’re taught to work harder, do more research, or think more deeply on it. What may be needed is for us to work at a slower pace, check in with ourselves and others more often, and feel more deeply. There’s a groundbreaking organization called HeartMath that has done extensive research on heart intelligence. I highly recommend that you check them out. Especially if data and science jazz you to prove that it’s important for us to listen to our hearts. They provide several skill-building techniques to help people move from their heads to their hearts quickly.

One of them is through a Quick Coherence Technique, which goes as follows:

• Step 1: Heart-focused breathing. Focus your attention in the area of the heart. Imagine that your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area. Breathe a little slower and deeper than usual.
• Step 2: Activate a positive feeling. Make a sincere attempt to experience a regenerative feeling, such as appreciation or care, for something or someone in your life.

This can take a minute or less and can have a massive transformative effect on your well-being and mindful leadership skills.

You may choose to do it publicly with your eyes closed and ask others to join you. Or do it anywhere you want without anyone being aware of what you’re doing. While I was giving a keynote address, an audience member slung a question my way that completely undermined and demeaned what I had presented during the previous forty-five minutes.

In the past, that would have been a jarring experience that made me put on a mask to be someone I wasn’t in order to stay professional. Not wanting to shut them down completely in their tracks. Instead, I was able to feel their energy coming my way and connect deeply with my heart at the very same time. Then, I envisioned that my heart was connecting and beating with theirs. That we were both humans who mattered and that what they were saying wasn’t personal. In the end, they stayed after the talk to meet me, take a picture together, and thank me for hearing them and supporting their needs.

Slowing down to reconnect with your heart is an incredibly powerful way to honor the wisdom that it carries. The wisdom that we all carry as a human race.

Reconnecting with your heart and the hearts of your team members can change the entire way you run your business for the better.

When I am working with teams of highly analytical and data-driven people. There can be a hesitation with these types of exercises. They don’t want me to facilitate something that might make people feel uncomfortable, which I get. But what’s unfortunate is that they’re also unwilling to see what might be possible for their people when they try. I’ve done heart-centering practices with firefighters, cybersecurity teams, engineers, computer programmers, and doctors across practically all generations. I’m always hopeful when they openly share how close-minded they were at first and how much better they felt when they tried the mindfulness leadership exercises.

The point here is to nurture the values-based practices you’ve worked hard to build up. Whether through a culture keepers program or mindful leadership practices.

Every ounce of energy spent on slowing down to see where you’re mindful or practicing mindfulness leadership will ultimately get you further ahead in activating a whole team of people who can do the same. For value promises to seep into the very sinew of your organization. You must engage the body, and the heart in particular, as well as the mind through your values work.

Your culture keepers programs, mindful leadership and team members will be there to ignite that embodiment with purpose. You’ll link arms and step forward together into the horizon of potential. Knowing that you’ll keep one another lovingly accountable to behaving in alignment with your shared company core values. You’re not alone, and you’re better together.

If you’re someone who’s hesitant about this kind of work. Try it out in your own life and lean on your fellow culture keepers to celebrate wins, talk through sticking points, and get curious with your questions. Take one mindful leadership practice at a time. Give it a genuine shot, then decide if it’s something that will make its way into your personal tool kit. It’s easy for me to advocate for these things because of the tremendous effect they’ve had on my own life and the lives of those I’ve worked with. At the same time, one size does not fit all. The point is that you keep adding to your tool kit, swapping tools out and sharing them with others who could benefit from their power.

Want to become a more mindful leader?

This was an excerpt from MaryBeth’s book – Permission to Be Human: The Conscious Leaders Guide to Creating a Values-Driven Culture. 

Learn more from this minful leadership book.