Much like the well-meaning father’s friend in the movie Graduate, almost everyone has advice for startup founders. Never mind that such advice ranges from “Unlike your brother, I hope you find a good job” to “Never give up, follow your passion.” I haven’t been averse to handing out such platitudes myself at times. And such advice, like a broken clock, will be occasionally true.
But is there advice, actionable and useful, that is applicable regardless of your startup’s life stage or your own for that matter. I’d argue yes!
Meditate!
That would be my one word advice to founders (and leaders) everywhere. It’s also a sneaky way of saying Take care of your mind which in turn will necessitate taking care of your body as well.
There’s a great deal of formal studies on the advantages of meditation – from how it can make you happier, make better decisions and how it helps the US Marines do better by bouncing back faster! More importantly there’s plenty of useful and actionable advice on what meditation is, how to start meditating, how long a session should be and when can you expect results.
Get started My two favorite resources are Eknath Easwaran’s meditation method – and the formal medical world, here represented by the Mayo Clinic’s Elements of Meditation.
Start today with 5 or 10 minutes set aside for meditation. Preferably first thing in the morning. Work up to doing 30 minutes of meditation a day, and once you get there, keep at it. I suspect, you will find it so much easier to handle, life and everything it throws at you.
If you liked this article, sign up below to receive a short update once a week on tools and techniques for staying healthy, being more productive and building habits for success.
