The biggest challenge for founders is often not winning the strategic game; it’s winning the mental game. For a master class in mastering your emotions, we turn to Sam Harris, author, neuroscientist, and philosopher. His podcast “Making Sense,” his app “Waking Up,” and his many books have drawn a devoted following among entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Leadership experts often talk about the importance of adding new skills to your metaphorical toolbox, but less attention is paid to the actual toolbox itself: your mind. Sam shares how you can manage your own emotions and master your own runaway thoughts to not only make it through the entrepreneurial journey but also learn more and scale faster along the way.
Being mindful
Learning to be mindful and present is crucial for mental wellbeing, especially for entrepreneurs who may feel isolated at the top. Disconnecting from ordinary distractions can lead to transformational experiences and deeper satisfaction.
Managing your emotions is vital for success in business, especially for entrepreneurs. It’s like using the right tool for the job in carpentry. Winning the mental game is just as important as winning the strategic game.
Your mind is the most rambling, chaotic, needling, insulting, insufferable person you will ever meet. It’s like having some maniac walk through the front door of your house and follow you from room to room and refuse to stop talking – and this happens every day of your life.
Detached observation
By developing the skill of detached observation through meditation, entrepreneurs can gain clarity and efficiency in decision-making, leading to improved focus and productivity for mental wellbeing and freedom.
Meditation can improve focus, reduce stress and negative thoughts, and help us lead effectively. Being present and aware of our minds is key to success in business and relationships.
Cultivating mindfulness to manage entrepreneurial stress
Managing stress is a key challenge for entrepreneurs, especially over time. Cultivating clarity through mindfulness can help you develop self-possession and cope with psychological suffering. Mindfulness doesn’t eliminate negative emotions, but it helps you observe your thoughts and emotions without getting carried away.
Committing to a regular practice is key to making progress in mindfulness. Just as with any positive habit, recommitting over and over again is necessary. By recognizing these landmarks on the path of mindfulness, entrepreneurs can develop resilience and grow their businesses more effectively.
Observe your thoughts
Mindfulness helps entrepreneurs observe thoughts and emotions without being overwhelmed by them, which can lead to increased clarity and self-possession. Regular practice and commitment can enhance resilience and business growth.
Audio instruction and guided meditation are more effective for mindfulness, and perseverance is necessary for turning an idea into a viable business. Mindfulness involves paying attention and recognizing the present moment.
Recommit with passion
The ability to recommit passionately is important for learning from failures and moving forward without becoming stuck. Honesty with oneself is also foundational in scaling ideas, as intellectual honesty should be the ground truth of conversations with one another.
By investing time in clarifying thinking and mastering emotions, entrepreneurs can rapidly learn and scale faster, ultimately achieving success.
Becoming a truth seeker
By practicing mindfulness, entrepreneurs can cultivate mental resilience, self-awareness, and transparency with themselves and others. This can lead to the ability to learn from failures, recommit passionately, and ultimately scale ideas more effectively towards success.
To become a truth-seeker, one must be open to having their mind changed, test their beliefs, and be honest about their endeavors. It is a journey of constant humbling and requires overcoming incentives that can push beliefs in a convenient direction.
The power of meditation for entrepreneurs
Meditation is not just about calming the mind or achieving a state of thoughtlessness. Rather, it is a tool for gaining insights into the nature of one’s thoughts and recognizing a more durable basis for mental wellbeing and freedom. By developing the ability to take a more detached view of one’s thoughts, entrepreneurs can see their situations with more clarity and make faster, more efficient decisions.
While it may not change external circumstances, meditation brings clarity and anti-fog goggles to the mind, allowing for better focus and productivity. The benefits of meditation go beyond changing brain structure; it is a skill worth mastering.
