Winner of the American Book Fest 2021 Best Book Award, Management and Leadership; Silver Medalist, 2021 Living Now Awards; Bronze Medalist, 2022 Axiom Business Book Awards for Success/Motivation/Coaching.
Use mindfulness to unleash your potential - without adopting spiritual beliefs
Mindfulness Without the Bells and Beads: Unlocking Exceptional Performance, Leadership, and Wellbeing for Working Professionals strips away the bells, beads, and hyperbole associated with mindfulness, and explains how you can take your performance and leadership to the next level in just eight weeks, without adopting any spiritual or new age beliefs.
Author Clif Smith, a US Army veteran, former diplomat, and CIA-trained former intelligence officer, serves as EY's Americas Mindfulness Leader and Global Mindfulness Network Leader and is internationally recognized for bringing mindfulness to tens of thousands of corporate and government leaders across the globe. In this book, Clif shares teachings and insights to help achieve the tangible benefits of practicing mindfulness as a fundamental part of our professional and personal lives. You'll discover how to:
- Enhance mental focus, resilience, and decision-making under pressure
- Increase the impact of your communication and leadership
- Transcend limiting beliefs, fear, and other psychological barriers to success
- Connect, understand, and interact with others more effectively
- Effectively incorporate self-care into a high-performance life
- Demystify the practice of mindfulness to make it ideal for a corporate setting
Perfect for corporate leaders, managers, and executives, and any working professional in a high-pressure or high-performance environment, Mindfulness Without the Bells and Beads also belongs on the bookshelves of anyone who works in a stressful environment and wants to achieve a higher level of success and a better quality of life.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Tal Goldhamer ix
Introduction: A Staggered Start xi
Part I My Journey With Mindfulness And An Introduction To The Fundamentals 1
Chapter 1 The Power of the Trained Mind 3
Three Skills That Changed My Life 5
The Three Skills Applied 9
Chapter 2 Why Mindfulness Now? 19
Chapter 3 (Some of) The Science of Mindfulness 31
Mindfulness Changes the Brain 32
Mindfulness Reduces the Size and Activity in the Amygdala 33
Mindfulness Increases Activity in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) 33
Mindfulness Increases the Size of Your Hippocampus 34
Mindfulness Increases the Size of Your Insula 35
Chapter 4 How Do Our Brains Work outside a Brain Scanner? 38
Chapter 5 Finding the Signal in the Mindfulness Noise 46
Chapter 6 The Fundamentals of Cultivating Mindfulness 54
Focused Attention Meditation 56
Open Awareness Meditation 65
Chapter 7 Your Journey 67
Part II Diving Deeper: An 8-Week Journey To Exceptional Performance, Leadership, and Well-Being 71
Chapter 8 Introducing the Course 73
Motivation 75
What Do You Need to Give Up? 75
Establishing the Practice 76
Dealing with the Excuse-Making, Judging, and Controlling Mind 78
Chapter 9 Week 1: No Trivial Moments: Moving from Autopilot to Aware 80
Waking Up to Your Life 84
Mindfulness and the Body 87
Chapter 10 Week 2: The Mindset You Bring to Your Experience Matters 95
Nonjudging 97
Patience 98
Beginner’s Mind 99
Trust 99
Non-striving 100
Acceptance 101
Letting Go and Letting Be 101
Gratitude and Generosity 102
Shifting from Doing to Non-Doing, aka Being 103
Common Themes, Challenges, and Questions 104
Chapter 11 Week 3: Do You Have the Story or Does the Story Have You? 108
Mindfulness of Sounds, Thoughts, and Emotions 113
Common Themes, Challenges, and Questions 117
Chapter 12 Week 4: The Saber-Toothed Tiger of the Modern World: Everything 121
Stress and Our Stress Response 123
Common Themes, Challenges, and Questions 127
Chapter 13 Week 5: Delving into the Difficult 130
Responding versus Reacting 132
Common Themes, Challenges, and Questions 138
Chapter 14 Week 6: In the Same Boat 143
S.P.A.R.R.ing during Difficult Interactions 148
Common Themes, Challenges, and Questions 154
Chapter 15 Week 7: Who Watches (Out for) You? 158
Empathy 160
Compassion 162
Kindness 162
Cultivating Empathy, Compassion, and Kindness 163
Common Themes, Challenges, and Questions 167
Chapter 16 Week 8: Maintaining Momentum 170
A Mindful Day 173
Common Themes, Challenges, and Questions 177
Chapter 17 A Final Word 181
Acknowledgments 183
About the Author 187
Appendix 189
Notes 195
Index 201
