By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you think more clearly. Reading time 2:31.

There’s no place like “om” when a leader needs to think through contradictory issues.

Om is the centuries-old meditation mantra where the incantation of the voice hums the body’s muscles into a state of relaxation. Ommmmmmm!

Om slows down the heart beat. Ommmmmmm!

Om channels the mind to focus on the important no matter how demanding the urgent. Ommmmmmm!

Om turns solitude into a catalyst for breakthrough ideas. Ommmmmmm!

Thomas Edison felt at “om” in his solitude. The inventor of the light bulb and owner of nearly 1200 patents fomented his creative zeal in silence: “To do much clear thinking a man must arrange for regular periods of solitude when he can concentrate and indulge his imagination without distraction.” Ommmmmmm!

Billionaire J. Paul Getty would sit alone in his library for an hour or two each day. Thinking. Not reading. Not writing. Just thinking. Ommmmmmm! Then he would make a phone call or two that would generate additional millions of dollars into his oil empire.

No, you don’t have to practice yoga or meditate in a very disciplined way every day to enjoy the fruits of solitude. Effective leaders simply set some time each day to schedule a meeting with themselves. Alone. Just you listening to you.

Mohandas Gandhi took off one day each week to “listen to my inner voice.”Ommmmmmm! Jesus scheduled a meeting with himself in the desert. Ommmmmmm! Mohammed scheduled his meeting with himself in the mountains. Ommmmmmm! And Saint Benedict scheduled a meeting with himself in a cave. Ommmmmmm!

Solitude fosters insight. Historian Thomas Carlyle saw the birth of creativity in silence, saying that “Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves. Maybe that’s why:

• Beethoven heard symphonies in his head while taking long walks in silence the country. Ommmmmmm!
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart said he got his best ideas in the silence of the night when he was alone. Ommmmmmm!
• Rene Descartes made his mathematical discoveries in silence lying in bed in the early morning. Ommmmmmm!

As a magazine editor once observed :“No great thought ever came out of a cabaret. No one expects wisdom from a parrot. Silence stimulates the imagination.” Especially when it’s warm and cozy. In its own ommmmmm. Ommmmmmm!

Today’s ImproveMINT

Schedule time to think to keep your leadership thinking in mint condition.

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