Steps to business success and wellbeing

Workplace stress and employee's burnout is known to cause additional costs of up to $190 billion a year to the US economy alone. As results show, the idea to squeeze enormous inner resources from workers to make your business more profitable is both cruel and ineffective. Nevertheless, we keep seeing headlines like the recent one: "Young bankers have an absurd work life". It's not just about the fact that some companies push employees in this way. Young entrepreneurs can get stuck in a draining lifestyle to present themselves in what is perceived as the best way to partners, employees and investors. It's not just about getting "used to it", but rather about the inevitable consequences of over-using and over-stretching ourselves.

It's an obsolete methodology that can indeed lead, in the short-term, to very high levels of performance, but which inevitably turns people out or burns them out. Instead, it's much more constructive to create a balanced and sustainable framework where we do our best because we feel at our best: after all, any form of true lasting performance must rely on our maximum energy and potential, whilst any form of success must be first defined by how we feel.

From an early age, society makes us somewhat unlearn to be mindful. Children are inherently self-mindful, perhaps at times even excessively. For example, usually, when they play a game they truly live in it, completely absorbed in that present moment and the feelings it generates.

Additionally, our consumer society promotes constant aspiration, which of course leads us away from the present and thus from the roots of being mindful. For example, it might mean that we envision being happy when we'll achieve a certain result or acquire a particular item … only to then too soon move our fulfilment idea towards the next desired result or future acquisition, in an endless cycle that makes us lose sight of what is in our present; which, let's not forget, is the only reality, as the past is just a memory and the future just an idea.

Don't think I suggest that you should refuse any aspirations. Mindfulness doesn't mean that you should enjoy living in a cave and never aspire to have a house if you live in a cave. To understand - and perhaps rejoice or be grateful about - who you are today, doesn't replace encouraging yourself to develop and grow, taking today, in the only reality of the present, the necessary steps towards that desired tomorrow.

Mindfulness is not happiness. Mindfulness is a clear awareness of who we are and what is happening within and around us; imagine a short-sighted person who put glasses on. Things become much clearer suddenly for them. Similarly, mindfulness means to see yourself, your surrounding and your state clearer.

Thus we come to our initial reflection: doing our best by actually feeling our best, rather than by depleting our resources to dangerously low levels. By becoming more mindful, we can understand very clearly our current wellbeing and true performance, rather than ignore mild symptoms until they become big problems, as well as become aware of which adjustments we need to make and how.

It won't necessarily solve all issues nor make you happier immediately. But it'll certainly help you to make better choices about yourself, which will likely lead to a happier life in the long term, one in which you will truly perform at your very best whilst simultaneously feeling your best … and exactly because of it.

Shaolin philosophy teaches us, among other things, how to be far more mindful and how to maximise our potential. In these applications I believe that it can be successfully implemented in most business contexts; it is what I called "Shaoness" in a book I co-authored, by combining the two terms.

I've been applying mindful strategies and tactics in many companies globally during the past fifteen years, ranging from very small teams to organisations with over one hundred thousands of employees.

Broadly speaking, what I've been observing is that in absolutely all cases of very high workloads and KPIs, a reduction of work time in favour of self-care time - sleep, fitness, nutrition, family and friends, hobbies and other fulfilling activities - after a brief adjustment period ultimately and inevitably resulted in equal or often higher work outputs and results than before, matched by much greater levels of well-being and happiness.

Our minds and bodies have a finite amount of energy: we should be mindful to always devote time and effort to recuperate it and ideally to also increase our overall energy potential. If today your overall energy potential is 80 and you are operating at 50% capacity, your maximum effort is 40; but if, with the right mindful self-care and habits, you just increase both overall potential and operating capacity by around 20%, something achievable by most people in only a few weeks, your "40 effort" would become almost 60 … that's nearly 50% more and better work - or anything else you will apply yourself to - whilst simultaneously feeling much better!

Of course, you will always have such days when you cannot be in ideal balance, when pressing tasks, travel or other life events will make it somewhat impossible to have the right mindful self-caring habits, but those are usually relatively short-term situations and even then a few little mindful adjustments can make a great difference. Remember, it's about quality and consistency rather than quantity and huge sporadic efforts.

The memories of the past are deeply valuable when you mindfully apply their lessons in the present. The ideas of the future are potentially achievable when you take small steps - or big leaps - towards them in the present.

The present is the only reality and in that reality, usually, fortunately, for most of us, there are few anxieties: most anxieties are connected to the "should haves" in the past, or to the "what ifs" in the future.

Such approach is not just about shifting focus or being grounded and grateful, nor about immediate vs delayed rewards, but rather about optimising as well as enjoying most of the journey and not only some occasional coveted destinations we might momentarily reach … until we realise that, in all aspects of life and therefore also in business, the journey IS, in fact, itself the destination.

In all journeys, there will, of course, be many events partially or completely outside of our perceived control (I say perceived because much philosophical digressing can be made about this, but it's not for this article). Such is life! From these events, we will learn important lessons, we will gradually understand ourselves, we will overcome apparently insurmountable challenges, and we will discover new surprising opportunities, we will accept acceptance, and from it, we will perhaps grow wiser or at least more resilient… we might fall down seven times, but we can stand up eight.

As we already saw, most people in high-pace environments are led to believe that the faster they go and the more energy they expend, the more they will deliver and achieve. That might be true for a highly subjective length of time, but it will eventually and inevitably lead to declining performance, declining wellbeing and declining happiness or life fulfilment.

People forget that in most cases - exceptions don't make the rule - their condition will define their result. The only constant in your life is you; the only resources that always must work towards all of your results, personal and professional, are your body and your mind (I omit to add also "spirit" from this article as its mention would require a much broader explanation and contextualisation).

When you become mindful, self-care becomes a part of you and a natural integral part of your day. There are no longer boundaries between other tasks or behaviours and self-care tasks or behaviours. Work is no longer the opposite of self-care. You can sit hunched all day or sit straight and stand up regularly. You can read lying on the couch or whilst stretching on a mat. You can choose to eat something unhealthy or healthy during the same short lunch break. You can take the elevator or use the stairs. You can scroll on your device at night, or you can do a little meditation and go to sleep serenely. You can focus on problems or focus on solutions. This approach you can apply to absolutely everything in life, and in time eventually, the mindful choice will become absolutely natural and spontaneous.

We tend to focus on big leaps in our desire to make big changes, but big changes are difficult to make and thus we often don't make much progress. So instead focus on taking small but consistent steps. For example, regardless of your ambition is to train several hours daily and achieve an incredible level of fitness, start with just 20 minutes of exercise, something which is manageable by almost anyone both in terms of time commitment and effort. When that becomes a natural, easy and enjoyable part of your life, increase it to 30 minutes. Then 40, 50 … and who knows, you might eventually train several hours daily as you wished. But you would likely have never been able to start with even one hour per day: not enough time, not enough energy, not enough discipline. New habits require small increments in commitment to avoid the great probability of early failure.

Almost two decades ago, after completing my monastic studies, I changed my corporate and C-level career and lifestyle entirely to focus solely on sharing what I call "ancient wisdom for the modern times".

At that time, many people didn't know about mindfulness and considered meditation techniques some kind of new age "hippy" practices, the antithesis of what is needed or simply considered serious in the business world. Furthermore, the idea of applying philosophy and mindfulness towards improving strategies, tactics, effectiveness, performance, human resources development or customer behaviour understanding was simply ignored by most.

However, much has changed in recent years. These disciplines and approaches have now been clearly proven to be highly effective and are, in various forms, present in most organisations, especially those more forward-looking.

We are collectively becoming more deeply self-aware; I believe that the pandemic has accelerated this process, as generalised uncertainty, fear and isolation led many people to look more profoundly at themselves and life, searching for answers … and mindfulness is a powerful aid in forming and then answering such questions.

With such a widespread increase in self-awareness and self-care, inevitably, the focus on wellbeing and mindfulness practices will continue to grow exponentially in the coming years, becoming more and more intertwined with health and fitness, towards healthier and happier bodies, minds and lives.

Technology has become capable of providing people with ever more powerful tools and solutions; we are approaching the time when technology will be incredibly effective at supporting all of our wellbeing needs, delivering real-time inputs and advice which will facilitate the ideal mindful behaviours in all desired aspect of our personal and professional lives, to feel our best and truly achieve our full potential.

That's what we're working on at Palta, supporting millions of people to be healthier and happier every day!