Free Gift
What’s Mindfulness got to do with Your Business
Written by Virin Gomber

Our brain is one of the most powerful and crucial pieces of equipment we carry around doing our business as we use it non-stop when making decisions, or even when not making decisions. But how prudent are we in utilising our cognitive faculties to make rational decisions? Mindfulness offers a real solution.

According to Inc.com, a study at INSEAD Business School investigated the effects of mindfulness on a phenomenon known as sunk-cost bias. Sunk-cost bias occurs when you’ve invested so much into a hopeless project, you can’t bring yourself to stop for fear of losing all that was invested.

The research found that doing just 15 minutes of mindfulness-based meditation such as concentrating on breathing can lead to more rational thinking when making business decisions.
Now, most of our business stress emanates from our fears around something – a potential failure, loss of a deal, bad debt, financial losses – even though some of these events may not have happened yet. The study found that mindfulness reduced the tendency to allow prior unrecoverable costs to influence future business decisions.

How mindfulness helps?

What mindfulness does is to take the focus away from these imaginative fears and harmful thoughts, and into the present, which incidentally is the most potent moment to be utilised effectively as it affects what we can achieve now and in the future.

In the mentioned study, participants used mindfulness meditation to draw focus away from the past and future temporarily so they could make decisions based on information known in the current moment.

Results proved that this type of rational, present thinking improves and expedites decision-making. Consequently, better choices are made to deal with challenges.

Mindfulness is associated with helping leaders and employees to foster quality relationships in their professional and personal lives, improved efficiency, creativity and emotional quotient. It’s no rocket science to understand that this can eventually lead to better bottom lines for companies.

Some of the world’s leading organisations, including Google, Ford, Apple, Adobe and Aetna, are regularly using mindfulness to make the most of their human resource capabilities, considering the range of benefits it offers.

Mindfulness works equally well for organisations of all sizes and niches, as well as for individuals at any level of their career ladder. If you haven’t yet experienced the benefits of this technique, I’d highly recommend you take the first step towards discovering this valuable tool.

Virin Gomber

Virin Gomber is a Success Consultant, Mindfulness Trainer and Inspirational Speaker who is dedicated to helping people become top achievers. If you’re interested in turning your stress into success and optimal balance, then reach out and request a free strategy session today.