MAX Mindfulness – Page 10

MAX Mindfulness: Personality is Not Heart

by Dave Wine, President & CEO

Instead of a mindful practice today, let me share something you might want to be ‘more mindful of’ in your life with others. Here it is: Personality is not Heart! Or you could, instead of heart, insert the words soul, inner being, spirit and get the same sense of what I’m writing about today.

Each of us has a very distinct and unique personality. Some of us are warm and others cool. Some outgoing, others reserved. Some smiling and outwardly happy, others more reflective. And our personality, being what it is, is attracted (and sometimes repelled) by other personalities. Without mindful attention, it can be pretty easy at times to dismiss or judge others based on their personalities (which again our own personality aligns with or not) and not on who they really are as persons. If we are naturally upbeat, happy, enthusiastic, etc. we will likely be attracted to personalities that feed those aspects of ourselves. And when other personalities don’t match or feed our own personality, we can judge them harshly as persons without even taking the time to understand what it is that is causing us to react the way we are. “That person is too flippant.” “That person is not a deep thinker.” “That person should be happier.” “That person needs to loosen up.” “I don’t like that person because…”. And on and on it goes.

Personality is only one aspect of us. More important than personality is who we are authentically as persons. That is a heart or inner issue. We might be all happy, bubbly and a person people like to be around, but our heart condition may not match our outward condition. Or we might be quiet, reserved and even come across to others as ‘a bit cool’ but our heart might be warm, affectionate, and supportive. Again, the key is to be mindful enough, and take the time, to appreciate each personality for who it is and its uniqueness, and remind ourselves that personality is not necessarily reflective of a person’s heart and soul. Heart and soul are discovered in getting to know a person, not in quick judgments. Yet far too many relationships are formed with those quick judgments in our world and in our workplaces today.

From one unique personality,

Dave

David Wine

David is the President and CEO of the MAX enterprise, having served in that capacity since its formation in 2001. He has forty plus years of leadership experience in the business and faith-based worlds, being an ordained minister, having been elected to the highest position in his denomination, and receiving numerous awards and recognition for his leadership in the insurance industry. He currently serves on numerous boards in the church and insurance sectors. His hobbies include hiking, biking, skiing and snowshoeing as well as being an avid reader. David and his wife, Sharon, have three daughters, a son, and four grandchildren.

MAX Mindfulness: Slow Down To Speed Up

by Dave Wine, President & CEO

Several of our staff have mentioned at times to me that they would love to do more mindfulness pauses at MAX if they just had more time. In many ways mindfulness at work (or at home) does seem kind of counter-intuitive. Why would you want to take more time out of your busy schedule to try and save time when there are so many phone calls to answer and make; emails to write; conversations to have; lists to cross things off; etc.

Yet brain studies do show that by stopping or slowing down, we can become more efficient, productive, happy and healthy. Consider sleep. Most of us need at least seven hours of sleep a night to function effectively. By stopping and slowing down (sleeping) we increase our effectiveness. The same works for the mini-pauses we take during the day via mindful breathing or slowing down and moving our focus away from all our tasks and ‘to-do’s’. Our brains will become even more efficient, focused, effective at communicating with others and learning new skills.

Our pauses, studies show, are just as important to wellness as walking and exercising, maybe even more important. And they lead to us making better decisions and actions. They really do slow us down to speed up. A mindful way of working which creates benefits for everyone.

David Wine

MAX Mindfulness: Let Go of the Externals

by David Wine, President & CEO

What mindfulness really comes down to is our ability and willingness to step outside of our usual daily patterns and world. It is moving from the externals we usually feel (telephones; email; meetings; conversations; tasks; demands; etc.) to the inner part of ourselves where we find peace and relieve the stresses of the externals. I like to say it feels divine and leads to the Divine!

Moving to this place is easy and hard at the same time. It requires only one thing from us- our willingness to take a few minutes (just a couple!) from time to time in our daily routines and move to a state of non-doing. That is why mindfulness teaches us breathing techniques or other things I have shared in my past writings. It is really for one goal- to help us get to a place of inner stillness and non-doing for brief periods in our day. It is at those times, when we reach inner stillness and let go of the externals, that we can find peace, calm, and relaxation. We get refocused and recharged.

It is also moving to the present moment. Our minds love to worry about the future and spend time regretting the past. Those fears and regrets sneak up on us all the time in both our conscious and subconscious. Letting go for just two minutes, doing nothing, trying to think nothing, is one of the most restful and relaxing times we can have and it is one of the greatest favors we can do for our physical, mental and emotional wellness. And that is wholeness! At MAX, when our team creates wholeness for ourselves, that in turn creates wholeness throughout the company, which creates even more wholeness as our team interacts with each other and our agents, brokers, and members in a relaxed, loving, affirming way.

When you step out of this world it creates a new pattern and this new pattern is called mindfulness. So I encourage you to take some time to do nothing in the coming week! In doing nothing, you are doing something really important – for yourself!

David Wine

MAX Mindfulness: Fear or Love

by David Wine, President & CEO

I have shared before that there are really just two emotions in our world – fear or love. And that impacts everything in our lives in big, big ways! We perceive our world and our relationships through whatever emotion we are feeling at the time. Lead with love and we trust others, feel their support, and understand our relationship with them in helpful, healthy ways. Lead with fear, and we distrust others, feel division and a sense that someone is “out to get us”, and our relationships can easily fall apart. This is as true of team life in businesses as it is with our families and other relationships. That is why I write on mindfulness – at MAX we are about personal growth (as one of our values)- but it is also good for MAX when our team is built on trust and supportive relationships. It leads to a productive and fun environment. (And, I am so very appreciative of the ways I see this happening so often at MAX!).

I could write a tome on this subject – thankfully for you, I won’t! So I’ll make this very simple and tie it to our mindfulness theme. One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is to watch our emotions and our feelings. And through that mindful attention, we can begin to ask ourselves a very important question, “Am I right now leading with love or leading with fear?” “Am I leading with trust or distrust?” “Am I accepting responsibility for my own life and results (loving ourselves) or am I blaming outside people and externals (disliking ourselves)?”

The first step, always the hardest one, in leading with love is recognizing all those times when we are not and paying attention to the emotions that are driving perceptions of ourselves, others and our world. That is why mindfulness is so important to our personal growth and development. We have to pay attention to our emotions and feelings to get a sense of how responsible we really are for what we are creating in our lives. If indeed we are our thoughts, we are, indeed, the only ones who can change them. Leading with love leads to wholeness! Leading with fear fragments! Hmmm….that sounds like a MAX theme!

David Wine

MAX Mindfulness: Change Begins with the Mind

by David Wine, President & CEO

All change begins with the mind and all acceptance of change begins with the mind. Everything we do and become is first of the mind. Too often we confuse our mind change with external change.

For example, we want to begin to eat more healthy. So we shop for healthy foods, we plan our meals, we read cookbooks on healthy eating, etc. But unless we change our minds and really WANT to and FOCUS on eating more healthy, our change will be short-lived because we have done nothing to change our mind. Or we decide we are going to enjoy our work more. Business books will tell you to organize your files; clean your desk; put up pictures you love; listen to music; etc. Those are enablers for context. But unless we decide in our minds we WANT to enjoy our work, none of those externals will create enjoyment for us. Or, we decide we are going to love our neighbors more who have that barking dog. So we send them a note of best wishes; we say “hi” to them in their yard; etc. But unless we change our minds and WANT to love and let go of our issues with them, none of our external doing will work. Far too many “self-help” books and articles speak of external changes to make for internal happiness. It is the other way around.

That is why we spend so much time at MAX talking about mindfulness. Change, and the acceptance of change, is in our minds, not in externals. As humans we usually try to fill our needs with those externals. We spend all kinds of time taking care of our bodies; shopping for things to make us happy; looking for ways to empower ourselves; and so on. What we spend little time on is our mind focus and attention which is where our real power lies. It is the key to changing our lives. Our greatest power lies in our minds, not in externals.

So at MAX, where we value wholeness, mindfulness becomes an important habit to cultivate, wherein we learn the point of power in our lives as individuals and organizationally.

David Wine