Mindfulness For Entrepreneurs

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31:21

Mindfulness For Entrepreneurs

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I am interviewed on the Positive Sparks Podcast on how entrepreneurs can benefit from mindfulness meditation and evolve into becoming an ultrapreneur.

Mindfulness Entrepreneurship Meditation Productivity Creativity Stress Relief Focus Health Luck Emotional Regulation Meditation For Stress Reduction Meditations For Emotional Regulation Meditations For Focus Meditations For Health Time Travel Meditations

Meet your Teacher

UK

Meet your Teacher

UK

Transcript

Hi, Welcome to Positively Sparking, A podcast on Internet Marketing, Online Productivity and Business. Today I'm with Tom Evans, A meditation master with an engineering background who mixes the holistic and scientific elements of meditation to help us not only relax, But also to find focus, Tune into creative ideas and get more done in the time we have. Hey Tom, Welcome to the show. Oh, It's great to be here. It's good to have you here too, Tom. And for those of us who don't know all about you, Let us know who you are and what you do. Well, I'm an author, An author's mentor, A meditation guide and a podcast host as well. So it's always an honor to be interviewed on other people's podcasts. It's also great for podcast people like me as well, Tom, Because you have a great mic and you've got great sound. It's too rigorous that you have to do this. And you can always tell when you've got someone as a podcaster just by the sound at the other end. And I need that, Of course, To create the meditations and give them gravitas and a lovely base and warmth to the sound of the meditations. Definitely so. Well, You're coming over loud, Clear and beautiful right now. Thank you. So Tom, Tell us about how you discovered meditation and mindfulness because you have a very different approach to it. Well, They both discovered me and meditation found me first and mindfulness found me second. I'll explain why. The first is I was I've been in high tech industries for 25 years. I started out in the broadcast industry and I was fascinated by the magic of TV when I left university, Got a great job at the BBC. And then as the Internet came about, I built a broadcast business up and then I built an Internet business up as the Internet came about. And I got pretty stressed out because I'd sold both businesses. I was pretty stressed. Someone said, You've got to learn to meditate. It really helped me. And I said, Well, Don't be stupid because one, My mind's too busy. I can never switch it off. And two, I'm too busy to spend the time meditating. But I persisted. And as I persisted with it, I found out on the days that I meditated, I had a better day. And if I didn't get around to it, I seemed to be pushing water up hill. And I started to look into it a bit more. And I was fascinated by this magic of TV. So I started to switch my attention to the magic of the mind. And as an engineer, I found out there's loads of things you can do with meditation other than just chill out. And I guess it was about a year after meditating, I wrote my first book, Kind of by accident. And then people started approaching me saying, You've written a book, Tom, Can you help me write a book too? And I found this new career just arrived on my door. So that's how meditation sort of found me. And I use meditation to help people get into the zone and to write their books and that kind of thing. And wrote a few books about it and recorded a few meditations about it. And it was probably about eight years after that, That this app called Insight Timer discovered me and said, Would you upload one of your meditations to our app? And I said, Sure. Because I found meditation was a gift to me. So I love giving that gift back to people. I put the meditation up there and then it just went ballistic. And I discovered there was this term called mindfulness. And everyone started saying that you're a wonderful mindfulness teacher, Which is amazing because I've been on a mindfulness course myself. And so meditation found me and mindfulness found me. And I only call myself things that other people call me, If you know what I mean. So I've been called the wizard of light bulb moments and a temporal alchemist and all sorts of weird and wonderful things, But only because other people call me that. And if people say, Yes, You're a great meditation teacher, Who am I to argue really? Definitely so. Lots of great things in there, Tom. So from an engineering background, Which is very much a matter of fact industry, Perhaps you find yourself now in a very holistic world, Helping people do what you did and feel better every day and enjoy what they do be more and get into that focused moment a bit better. So just kind of go back to that one sentence you used about you stated that when a friend said you should learn to meditate, You said, Don't be tough. My mind's too busy. I can I could never do that. I can't switch my mind off. That's a very common thing for people to say. So what would you say to people now who say that to you? Well, The engineering me didn't just learn the practice of meditation. I also researched the neuroscience behind it. And I got I started reading books on metaphysics, But also books on neurology. And there's a fantastic book by a guy called Ian McGilchrist called The Master and His Emissary about how the left and right brain really work. And it's an urban myth that the left brain is logical and the right brain is creative. It's more accurate now to think of the left brain as sitting inside space and time and the right brain sitting outside space and time. But one wonderful thing that came from that book, Which I didn't really realize, And actually I'd read it somewhere else, But it crystallized more of that book, Is that the normal human mind can only have one thought at a time. So you're thinking about what you're thinking about. The thought that you're now having replaces the thought you were having. You might want to just think about that. And this is used in meditation all the time. So what you do in meditation is you focus on something else other than your thought, Like a candle or the breath or a sound or a mantra. And then your thoughts go quiet. So it's a very basic principle is just think about something else other than what you're thinking about. It's a bit like counting sheep at night. You know what I mean? As you count the sheep at night, You can't, Your mind wanders off in a different direction. And that's the main basis of all meditation. So once you know that, Then it's very easy to create meditations that take people's mind off what it was they were thinking about. You mentioned insight time with that Tom. Yeah. And the meditation where I first heard you speak and then be who you are on insight time it was about that very concept about you can only think about one thought at a time. So I think what you're saying is in effect, We are in control of what we think. Yeah. And as you think about it, If you think about it, Sorry about it, You think about it. So as we're in a normal day, You're working on something and then your mind wanders off, Doesn't it, To what you're doing that evening. Or sometimes it gets, It goes back to a conversation that you had yesterday that maybe didn't go so well. Or if you're doing a podcast, You might be thinking about the questions or the answer of the questions you're going to put as the podcast host or the answers you're going to give as the podcast guest. And if you do that, You lose focus on the now and that's the real key of all meditation working in the now. And as a result of our mind's ability to wander naturally, It does it all by itself. You know, Most people are about 33% efficient. And that's the first thing I noticed. As soon as you get in the meditative state and you meditate every morning, And then as a writer, I'd stay in the meditative state and just move straight into writing. I found I got more done in less time and that became the thesis that I've really been working on since that time is how can we get more things done in less time by counter intuitively taking 10 or 20 minutes out every day. Isn't that an amazing thought? We get more done by taking more time out. Exactly. And you become less stressed and your blood pressure goes down. And in theory, You live well for longer. So the benefits are just just amazing. My next question to you talking about podcast host thinking about the next question was going to be what benefits do we gain from being mindful? And I was going to ask you to give that particular attention to on and offline entrepreneurs, The kind of people who are listening to this podcast. And you mentioned two big ones there, Productivity and health, Both of which are hugely important to everything we do every day. So what else have you found, Tom, That you've you've experienced come into your life because of meditation? Well, I call entrepreneurs who meditate, Entrepreneurs. And the reason for that is by far and away, The biggest benefit, The real, Real benefit of meditating is you become luckier. And the reason you become luckier is when opportunities bypass other people because you have a quiet mind and if you keep this quiet mind quiet, Not just in the meditation in the morning, But throughout the day, You spot serendipity, You spot opportunities. Also you see adversity as an opportunity. So someone suffering and as an entrepreneur, You can do something to alleviate that suffering. You've got yourself a fantastic product or service. So I think one of the best benefits to anyone that meditates is just becoming luckier and landing on their feet all the time. And not only do you get more things done in less time, But things just seem to arrive just at the right time. I love that word, Tom, Entrepreneurs. And then the explanation you've given around that just finding luck and serendipity in more places because we have the quiet space in our minds to see it. Yeah. And there's something a bit deeper than that as well, Which I discovered is that the is now known by neuroscientists that our gut has got more neurons than a cat's brain. And it actually is an active mind center. And when you say, I really wish I trusted my gut on that or I wish I'd followed my heart and the heart is an active mind center as well, Then you make decisions and good decisions all the time, Which is another trait of what I call this entrepreneur. The issue with the gut and the heart mind is they don't speak in language. The gut only speaks in a yes or a no, A no or a no go and the heart speaks in a level. So you're either cold about something, Lukewarm about something or boiling hot about it. And so what I do is I've got loads of meditations that quieten the mind. And as you quieten what they call the monkey mind, This commentary and critic that fires up in the morning without you doing anything, You're better able to tune into the subtle signals from your heart mind than your gut mind. That's another great concept, Tom. So we've got three minds in our being. Oh, More than that. Sorry, That's the three main. You actually got a left and right brain and they have different functions. You got a gut mind, A heart mind, But you got other minds. You got minds in the tips of your fingers. If you play guitar or piano, You think that the memory of the music is actually in your fingers. The head is just the director. Yeah, Absolutely. I'm a bit of a guitarist myself. So I know exactly what you're saying. So Tom, One thing I noticed on your website, Which as an entrepreneur, Not yet an entrepreneur that you described there, Was how you have a course that tunes into light bulb moments. So tell us a bit about that. I think as entrepreneurs, We're sort of educated to look for those light bulb moments. Yeah, I started to research when I started to write. My first book was fiction, Funny, I have a book of poetry. I wrote a book about blocks and what blocks us. And then my third book was about light bulb moments. And it's in two halves. It's called The Art and Science of Light Bulb Moments. So one, The first half is the art. How do we get into the artful state where light bulb moments arrive? And I'm sure like me, You've met loads of people that have had great ideas, But they never do anything with it. So the second half of the book is how you ground the idea to make sure it actually happens. And so light bulb moments only occur when your mind is quiet. So most people get them, They think they're random. So you might get them when you're out walking. Some people get them in the shower and there's a metaphysical reason for why you get them in a shower or when walking near water. But if your mind is busy, You miss the light bulb moment. And the light bulb moment can be induced by entering a very specific meditative state where you don't meditate on the breath or mantra or a sound. You meditate on thought itself. And you move your consciousness away from the frontal lobe where most of our conscious mind chatter really occurs into the center of the brain, A place called the pineal gland. And that's actually connected to what's known as the collective consciousness, This place where Leonardo da Vinci tapped into the future and started drawing pictures of helicopters. And just in case the helicopter failed, He drew pictures of people in parachutes as well. And so there's lots of people that have theorized, Lots of metaphysicians have theorized about this idea of the collective consciousness. And that's what I think you tap into when you get a light bulb moment. And you tap into it by making your mind go quiet. And again, Another great benefit for entrepreneurs who've become entrepreneurs to learn how to do that. I can imagine so. So Tom, A lot of the concepts there that you've spoken about were very deep and very different to how we are brought up to believe human life is. So the collective consciousness is something which you encounter by watching things like the Da Vinci Code, For example, As a film. Or you might read it in a book that is from a different practice than Western society might focus on. So how has all of this changed you as a person? I'm just thinking of the difference between the engineer that started out and the internet entrepreneur and who you are now. Well, In my latest book, My 13th book, It says at the end, Tom still doesn't know what he wants to do when he grows up. But the essence of what I like to do is to take things apart and put them back together again. That's what I used to do when I was in the BBC is, You know, Cameras would be broken and I'd work out what's going wrong and I'd fix them. And we know became known as the camera guru. And I like doing that with the mind. I like to see what's possible with the with the human mind. And I should say as well is that some very open minded scientists and a lot of whom I have on the on the zone show are really open to the idea is that we're just tapping into a new level of consciousness and that the the missing dark matter and the missing dark energy that the the quantum physicists and the cosmologists have detected is the very same thing as the as a collective consciousness that the metaphysicians have been talking about for many, Many thousands of years. And so to me, In this century, What's going to happen is that this metaphysical research and these people that didn't really have the language or the mathematics to describe things, But just experienced kind of weird things going on and the scientists who've got equations that don't add up, They will meet in the middle and will come into a new phase of human evolution where we we start to direct the the the abilities, I call them super sensibilities, Not psychicness. They're just amazing abilities that each of us has to be more creative, To be more productive. And even if this is your bag to also heal as well, Because each of us is an intrinsic healer. Amazing stuff, Tom. That sounds like a great new age. It is. Yeah. And I even wrote a book about it. New magic for a new era. Fantastic. Great stuff. One of the things you mentioned there about your podcast is, Is the scientists and the the people who come on the show who are from. I'm trying to think of the word to describe it. A more a more conventional part of society, You might say. So many meditation people kind of focus on what they're doing from that holistic well-being point of view. But your focus is very different with that engineering background. You do open it up to science. You do open it up to business. These things that exist in our everyday world that we think of as being different to that holistic world. Just tell us a bit about that point of view that you come from. Well, I feel very privileged in a way because you can't design a career like the one that I've been blessed with. It can only turn up at your doorstep. And I had I did a degree in electronics and I worked in high tech for many, Many years. So I have a very deep understanding of how things work. So this Skype conversation that we're having right now, I understand how the light is hitting my camera, Getting encoded, Being sent down the down the lines and being picked up by you and how the sound is being picked up by the microphone. I understand the physics, Electronics and mathematics about all that stuff and how compression algorithms work. And I've got this nerdy character, Which is which is wonderful. But then by chance, This other career arrived when I went. Now, This is a bit weird. Something weird has just happened. You know, I just I got into this state and and I did this workshop and I got these people into the state and everyone started having light for moments just off the bat. And then that was an empirical observation. And again, Which is part of being an ultra you notice things and I went, Oh, That's weird. It's not just me that can do this. I can actually induce this in other people, Too, Fairly easily. And then I go back to the sort of science and the metaphysics of it and then research what's going on. It makes me more able to then induce it in other people later on. And so it's really is a kind of one plus one equals three existence. But the main thing to answer your question is I'm just having a lot of fun right now and I'm just finding the whole thing enthralling and captivating. And that's the most beautiful reason of all that you're having so much fun and enjoying helping people. You know, So there's no strategy, No kind of consumer feedback, Which you're responding to. This is you all the norm. It is an insight timer. They're they're they're absolutely free app. All my meditations on there are free to listen to. I feel that meditation has been a gift to me and and meditations are on there because I think we can get the whole world meditating for 10 minutes every day. We're going to be living in a nicer in a nicer world. And so I'm not doing this for any monetary gain. I always have enough cash coming in for various sources, Which is another nice thing about living a mindful existence. You're going to be stressed out about where your next client's coming from. They just turn up when you need some more cash, Which is which is lovely. And and to me, It's it does lead us to a new age where we're less frenetic, We're less worried, We're less ill because this is comes from a lack of ease. And I mean, And what's not to like about that? What's not to like? Indeed, Tom, It sounds a beautiful world. It does. Yeah. So I just want to go back to the concept of being mindful. And you said some great things about, You know, Where you believe society will progress to and humanity will reach. So I was going to ask you if you believe being mindful is a true human state. But I think we've answered that in many ways with your your answers to date. So why is it so hard to achieve? Why do you think that disease or that kind of that distance from what might be the true human state is there? I think it was a you know, That's a really deep and long question because been half an hour and there's two reasons. One is I think that classically, Some people in the mindfulness fraternity create a mystique around it and a kind of pseudo religious framework around it that might pull a lot of people off and make out like you're doing it wrong. I always say to people, You know, And they say like, Breathe in and out seven times and this sort of stuff. And at the end of it, I say, Did you lose count? Well, Actually, It wasn't you doing it wrong. You lost count. It's actually meant it's working. You know, So I give people confidence there's no right or wrong in mindfulness. If you just go for a walk at lunchtime for 10 minutes, You are doing something mindful and mindfulness isn't that 10 minutes every day. Anyway, It's about everything you do throughout the day. So if you're more mindful about how you go about your day, Then I wrote this other book called Mindful, Timeful, Kindful, Where you end up with more time. So you become timeful. And then when you've got more time, You've got more time to be kind to yourself and kind to other people. And then what happens? Everything goes full circle and the world becomes back to you and is kind of back to you. So that's kind of, If you like, It's not hard to be mindful. I think it might be hard to meditate because some people have maybe studied with people that try and make it into something that it's not or something that could be, You know, And if you take, If you get on some of the strict mindfulness paths, Then you have to do years and years and years, But before you're considered to be any good at it. And my approach is, Well, If you just do 10 minutes every day, Who's to judge whether you're doing it right or wrong anyway. And as long as you don't go around being nasty to people, Then in my books, It's working. Great stuff. So Tom, This world that you're describing, These, These kind of extra gifts that will come into life and this enhanced health that we experience, It, It sounds to me like something that everybody who hears this interview will want. So what, What tips could you give for someone brand new to meditation? Where would you suggest they start? I suggest they start by downloading the free insight time app, Listening to some of my meditations and some of the other great meditations from other meditation teachers around the world. And there's a lovely lady in, In America, Bethany, Oriel Hagan, There's a lovely Irish guy called Tony Brady, Who is amazing. And I listened to some of the meditations in Finnish and Swedish and Czech that you don't understand the words off and they just get you into a really deep, Meditative state. And I just have a lot of fun with it. Some great ambient music on there as well. There's a great composer called Andy Hofton, Who has been on my podcast, Another composer called Eternal, Pablo Aureliano and Gunter from Austria. So there's some really nice chill out music. So if one of your concerns is I can't, Haven't got time to go to a meditation class or it costs money, This is free. It always will be free. And there's fantastic resources on there. You can find people that you like. And also this is a great sense of community on there as well. They're doing this thing called a 365 day meditation challenge. There's loads of groups on there so you can meet other like-minded people. I've had two fantastic business opportunities that come from it as well. I got approached by a company in the States, A wellness company in the States saying, Could we have your meditations for our wellness program? And I said, Well, You can, But tell me about your wellness program. It's all about weight loss. So I actually wrote and created seven new weight loss meditations in collaboration with them and that came purely out of that, That community, Some wonderful people in there. So that's where I start. It's free, It's cheap, It's available. You've got, If you've got an Android phone or an iPhone, You've got access to some wonderful meditation teachers all over the globe. Fantastic. And it is a great app. I can totally agree with you on that. It's by far the best meditation app that I discovered because of that community side. You know, One of the things I like is where it tells you who's been meditating with you for the, For whatever amount of time you spent on it. And you can see who's nearby to you and who's meditating at the same time across the world. It's sort of connects me. And the ethos behind the app. Yeah, The ethos behind the app, Sorry to cut in there, Is to get the whole world meditating one person at a time to make the world a better place. And isn't that a wonderful thing? It's a really beautiful thing, Without a doubt. So Tom, I'm sure many people must say to you, Well, All that's great, Tom, And that sounds a fantastic app, But I'm just too busy. So what would you say to people who say, Too busy in my daytime to do any meditation? Well, If you're too busy to meditate, What one of the things is that if you're too busy to meditate for 10 minutes a day, You really need to meditate for an hour a day. And so you get the time back easily. And you know, If you just meditate for about a week, 10 minutes a day or whatever, Then you'll find you get the time back easily and you become luckier. And it costs nothing to try. Tom, Can I ask how long you meditate for every day? About 24 hours. Because you're mindful all the time. Yeah. So what happens after a while, You go and you transcend to a new place. So what happens is you end up in the meditative state all the time. Sure. So I'm in that state right now. And ironically, What happens when you're in that state is that that adage where you can only have one thought a time changes. Well, I met a shaman who taught me to have multiple thought streams at the same time. So you learn some new tricks that the human mind is capable of, Which is quite amazing, Which is great when you're being creative in writing, Because you can channel in all sorts of wonderful things for your books and your creative projects. And so if you ask me about any of my meditations, I'm just recording a new set of meditations now to create a 21 day meditation retreat. And I can't remember any of my meditations because I kind of was in a meditative state while I was doing them. So I had to listen to my own meditations back. Some people say to me, Oh, I love that point in your meditation. I want really? I can't remember it. And so I stay in the meditative state pretty much 24 hours. And that includes sleeping as well, Because I've got meditations and techniques that show you how to be creative while you're asleep, Which again is a brilliant tip for entrepreneurs. If you've got a problem that you need some resolution on, I'll give you the trick now. I can't you write it down on a post-it note, Put it underneath your pillow and you'll dream the answer to it while you're asleep, Which is just great. So you can be productive while you're sleeping. I'm going to try that, Tom. That sounds so simple. But I'm guessing that the fact that you write it down before you go to sleep is a key factor. It is, And the unconscious mind, When the conscious mind is quiet while you're asleep, The unconscious mind processes it for you. And you either get the answer in your dream, Literally, Or in metaphor, Or the answer turns up at your doorstep the next day sometime. Great stuff. There's a wonderful tip for us all. I'm going to give that a go tonight. Please. So Tom, You've mentioned some great things there about your own meditations. You're on your, Was it your 12th book that you're writing right now? 13th book I've written. And a new set of meditations. So tell us about what's going on with your business. What are you going to do? You do many things next by the sound of it. Yeah, I've just created a new program called Mindfulness-Based Time Management, MBTM, And it's an eight-week program that completely changes your relationship with time. And I mean that at a fundamental level. Not only does it show you how to get into the meditative state all the time, So you get more things done with less time, But also how to tune into natural time. The man-made calendar is brilliant because without the man-made calendar, We wouldn't have turned up at the right time to do this interview. So it's really good. We don't want all our planes landing at Heathrow at the same time. But the man-made calendar is exactly that. It is man-made. It's a false time system. We don't, There's no such thing as weeks. There's no such thing as months with unequal lengths in them. There's no such thing as seconds, Minutes, And hours. We've made them up so we can run our modern world. And some of us have become ensnared and entrapped by that time. So when you jump outside time from a psychological and neurological perspective, And once you get back into the natural cycles again, You find that you can get more things done with less time. And not only does that happen, But you get everything turning up just at the right time, Which is lovely. So that's just been launched right now. And at the end of the eight weeks, I then get people into this 21-day meditation retreat, Which it says 21 days forms a habit. So you do the course, And then in 21 days you get a recap on the course, But also you get into the practice of meditation. So that's the big thing I'm doing this year. But I'm also writing my 14th book, Which is a novel I started about 12 years ago that I never finished. All these other books got in the way, And I've committed myself to publishing this novel by my next birthday. Great stuff, Tom. There's so much there for people to look out and consider. We need to know where to find you online next. Easiest place is my main website, Www. Tomevans. Co. That's just. Co. Wonderful stuff. And having had a look at that site, I can recommend it to people. There's all kinds of good tips on there and more insights into mindfulness and meditation. So Tom, This has been one of my favorite podcasts for a good while. You're giving some great things. You're very unique. Is there any final message you'd like to give everybody? Yeah. If someone makes your blood boil, And you know, It happens to me, I'm not perfect, I'm mortal and human. If someone makes your blood boil, Well, Before you react, Just take three deep in and out breaths. And it'll just give you that time to slow down, Not react in the way that you would have done, And actually be calmer about how you go forward in life. A wonderful tip to end with. Great stuff. Well, Tom, Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been such great insights from you today. I'm sure everyone's going to go and try at least one thing that you've suggested. And I'll let you know how that little tip under the pillar goes for myself. Thank you so much. And thanks for asking all the right questions in the right order. My pleasure, Tom. Cheers. My name is Fullburn and I'd like to thank you so much for listening today. I hope you got something really good to take away from this week's episode for you or your business. And you know what? I'd like to give you something more. In fact, I'd like to give you a whole free web marketing pack full of all my latest and best ideas and how you can take your business forward positively online. Download your pack at positivesparks. Co. Uk forward slash pack. And most of all, Guys, Look forward to seeing you again next week.