Meditate Your Way to Better Product Management
The Meditation Retreat That Transformed My Life (and made me a better Product Manager)For ten days of silence – yes, I attended a silent meditation retreat!
– I sat for twelve hours a day, cross-legged with my eyes closed, completely still, and I focused.
Immersion
Vipassana is a meditation technique that helps you “explore the nature of reality”
- We can only truly know through experience
- The power of doing allows us to go beyond conceptualizing to a much deeper, more impactful level, ingraining ideas in our mind
Focus
The experience was really a boot camp for a muscle that had gone to mush
- After ten days, the focus muscle was stronger than ever; more able to find clarity within the fog
- This kind of deep thought work is crucial to the Product Manager mindset
- Multiple iterations and approaches must be thought through
Perspective
Observing thoughts, memories, emotions, or situations – whether retrospectively or in the moment – gives us the ability to understand and empathize with our customers more deeply and to be kinder to ourselves
- Stepping back is a practice we can take for granted.
Impermanence
As Product Managers, it can be easy to get caught up in success or wallow in failures
- Our products have little momentum of their own
- By recognizing the impermanence of our products, we can be more pro-active in ensuring they continue performing