[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Sudddhart here aka the focus b. And on this show, I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness, and leadership.

[00:21] So if you want to take your.

[00:22] Performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.

[00:41] I'm really excited to announce that in the upcoming weeks, I am launching my new program to help you to optimize your time and your energy to reach the results and impact you want in your business and in your life. If you want to find out more about my new program, check out thefocusbeat.com program. In the last episode, we went through mindfulness and why mindfulness matters and how to be more present in your life, in your work. Today I want to cover the topic of meditation. Maybe you know the difference between meditation and mindfulness, maybe you don't. Brief, brief explanation. Mindfulness is being fully present with what you're doing. And this could be being mindful in your work, being mindful when you eat, being mindful when you're speaking with your friends, being mindful as you walk. Meditation is the practice of refocusing on your breath generally. It can be other things. It's often on your breath or a mantra, and it's a practice. And what meditation does is it actually strengthens your attention. So how could I do a whole series on attention and focus when this is literally the equivalent of going to the gym? If you're working on being strong physically, if you want to be more focused, have greater levels of attention, be able to stay focused for several hours, and also be more mindful, then meditation is the magic tool to get you there. If you already have practice of meditation, then that's fantastic. Continue. You're doing great job, and maybe you will enjoy today's episode, but maybe you won't learn anything you don't know. But if you don't practice meditation, maybe today is the day where you can think about it differently, maybe open up your mind very slightly enough to try it. First of all, let's break this misconception that meditation is only for monks or hippies. Yes, there are monks and also hippies that meditate, but there's also a ton of executives, athletes, high performers. There's an entire world out there of people who meditate literally just for focus, attention, and high performance. So if you suddenly start meditating, you're not joining the club of monks unless you want to, and that's fine. Then you can do meditation that's geared towards monk training. But if you're a high level executive or business owner, that's okay. Meditation is great for you too. I just often feel there's so many connotations around meditation that really don't need to be there. The thing is that meditation literally can just be closing your eyes, counting to ten inhale one exhale, two inhale three exhale, four all the way to ten and starting again. That's it. That already can count as meditation in more spiritual practices, maybe they add some mantras, maybe they add different types of sort of prayers and this sort of thing, or maybe compassion, gratitude. You can do all of these things too. If you want to practice heart type meditation and show compassion to yourself and the world, these are heart centered meditations. You can do all of this and they're great too. But if you literally just want to have meditation as a way of being higher performer and greater leader, you don't even need to do that. Other type of meditation, you can just focus on the regular counting and breathing. So why is it that meditation strengthens your attention and focus? Because so far, you've me say, it's a magic tool, it's a must. If you want to be a high performer, you need this, that's great. But you may be thinking, okay, why does it make any difference? Because focus, as I've mentioned before, and mindfulness, is the ability to bring your attention back to your task or to the moment. In the case of focus, you're bringing your attention, that part of your brain back to what you're doing. And in meditation, you're doing this with your breath or you're counting, kind of both. You're bringing your attention constantly back to your breath. So you're practicing, you're strengthening that tool that says, wait a minute, we're going in the wrong direction. Let's come back, let's come back to the present moment, let's come back to what we're doing. So you're strengthening this over and over and over and over and over again, so that in other circumstances, such as being mindful when you're walking or being focused on a conversation you're having, it's made so much easier because you've strengthened it in meditation. Also, the reason it's so powerful is because technically, just focusing on your breath or counting isn't super interesting. It doesn't give you a ton of dopamine, so it's harder to do. Hence probably why you're feeling reluctant, unless you're one of the listeners who's already a meditator. But the reason people feel reluctant to meditation is because they think it's boring just sitting down, counting your breath in and out. But guess what? If you can do that with your breath, how much easier will it be to get your attention back to a report or conversation? Because that's more dopamine inducing, that's more exciting. So it's a bit like if you practice climbing up 20 flights of stairs every day, all the time, then climbing up one flight of stairs will be easy. It's kind of the same. If you practice just focusing on your breath all the time, then focusing on a report or conversation is easier because it's more stimulating. Now, if you look at my analogy or metaphor, if you're taking the lift every day, all the time, maybe just one flight of stairs feels difficult. The same you're just strengthening that muscle. Meditation also does a bunch of amazing things in terms of managing your emotions, which play a huge part on focus, as I mentioned in the episode on managing distractions. Distractions come from all these emotions. So guess what? Meditation doesn't only strengthen our ability to be focused, it also helps us to manage our emotions, which could make us distracted. So it really is the super tool, the super combo. And yes, it helps us to manage our emotions to reduce stress. It also happens to boost the immune system because you're feeling calmer, you have less cortisol in your body and the list goes on. It helps with your memory, it boosts the hypothalamus side of your brain, so your memory is increased, your concentration, as we know, is improved, and the list goes on and on and on. I mean, the benefits of meditation have been proven, have been measured by different series and experiments and just google it. Benefits of meditation. There's lists and lists and lists and this isn't really the point. This episode was really around how meditation can support you to have better focus. If you want to look at how meditation can support you with emotions or with other aspects, that's fantastic too. But really it's the same tool. So once you start practicing it, it will help in all directions. Let's address this reluctance. So you might feel reluctant because you find it boring or because it takes up time that you feel you don't have. Meditation creates time in your life because you'll be more focused and manage your emotions better, therefore things will take up less time. So just meditating. Five minutes can support you in having a higher performance and being more efficient. You need to experience this to know that I'm saying the truth. But I am saying the truth. And in terms of it being boring, you'll notice that it's actually pretty challenging and that when you're doing it because it's challenging, you will want to bring it back your attention to your breath and to counting. And you might even end up in flow. There have been several meditations where 20 minutes have gone by so quickly and you're actually in flow just counting your breath. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. So it's not as boring as you think. It is challenging. And one of the fundamentals of meditation is to make sure that you're not judgmental, you're not annoyed with yourself or frustrated because you've been thinking the whole time, instead of bringing your focus back to counting or breathing. And that's okay. The first few meditations, maybe you'll thip pause the alarm on for five minutes and then realize you just thought the whole time about your work and you weren't at all focusing on your breath. Never mind. Next one. Next one. It's training. It really is just training. And then you'll bring your attention back more often, and then more often, and you'll have some days that are better where you almost feel you focus on your breath the whole time and some days where you've gone off track the whole time. And that's okay. There really is no good or bad. The idea is just that you're strengthening this muscle. This is why it's so fundamental. And I can literally guarantee guarantee this has been proven scientifically that if you start meditating regularly, daily ideally, and you want to aim for about ten minutes, start off with 2345 minutes but you want to aim for at least 1015 in the long run. And if you do this every single day, it will help you to be more focused. You will be more focused during the day. You'll notice your energy levels, you notice when you get distracted, you'll be able to concentrate for longer amount of times. It really is the most effective tool to strengthen your focus. So if this is something you're working on, I can't recommend meditation highly enough. Hope you've enjoyed today's episode. Absolutely love meditation. Changed my life from A to Z. Become a lot calmer, a lot more grounded, a lot more focused. I used to be almost borderline ADHD hyper hyperactive and I'm so much calmer, so much more grounded and able to focus for such a long time. So yes, changes lives. Not only mine. Gazillion other people out there try it, try it, practice it, practice it. And if you're already a meditator, continue. You're doing great. Fantastic. And also yes, the app Inside Timer is great. They're not promoting this episode. It's just the app I use. They have free version. You can use it as a timer. And if you want, you can use their guided meditations. If you do meditations without being guided, this will strengthen your muscle a bit more because you need to bring your attention back. But even guided meditations are great to start off with. They'll help you feel more calm, more relaxed, and they'll also help you to train your focus. So it's all great. It's all good stuff. Thank you for being here today. If you enjoyed this episode, please take one moment to write a short review. This would mean so much for me and it helps other listeners to find the podcast. Thank you for being here today. Wishing you a wonderful day ahead.

[12:47] Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Be Show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback. So let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you. And feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead.