on — but by doing the meditation, I free my mind from fear and allow it to access solutions. It is the only method I know that helps.
There are many kinds of meditation techniques, and just like different forms of physical training in sports, they are used for different purposes and outcomes. Here, I offer one simple meditation technique that is intended to increase the frequency of great ideas.
Taking Quiet Time
I call this meditation technique “taking quiet time” (or TQT), and the whole thing takes about twenty minutes. It requires no skill or experience, and there are no advanced levels. It is a variation of a meditation technique that can be found in most spiritual practices.
The goal is to sit quietly, clear the mind, and for a few minutes think of nothing, which sounds simple but is actually very hard. It is contrary to the media-filled distractions of modern life and to how most of us have learned to behave. Yet to me, taking quiet time is the number-one business-growth tool in your arsenal.
Just like any sport, or any particular meditation technique, taking quiet time can be explained in simple or intricate terms, in four or four hundred steps. But if I want someone who has never played soccer to get excited about the sport, I will simply take them to a park and kick a ball around. If I first subjected the person to a step-by-step soccer lesson and explained every rule and technique, they would be bored to death. I want you to be excited about taking quiet time, so here is the four-step version. Kick it around for a while. If you want to know the intricacies of meditation, you can go as deep down that rabbit hole as you like (and a good place to start is my website, www.trevorgblake.com). But if you have never experienced the amazing benefits of meditation before, just try this simple process.
1.Get up thirty minutes earlier than your normal wakeup time.
2.Go to a quiet part of your home.
3.Sit upright in a chair, feet on the floor, hands overlapped.
4.Do nothing for twenty minutes. Try to think of nothing. Focus on your gentle breathing through each inhalation and exhalation. When the mind chatter kicks in — as it always does, even for expert meditators — smile and imagine the words floating out a window. Then start again and focus on breathing.
That is all there is to it. I never time myself because somehow I always know when twenty minutes are up, but you might want to set a timer at first, in case you fall asleep — and there is nothing wrong with falling asleep.
Your Intuition Needs a Distracted Brain
Meditating and taking quiet time work in ways we don’t fully understand. It seems counterintuitive that thinking of nothing could help improve intuition and inspiration, but it does. Not only that, it’s been proven to aid concentration, creativity, self-confidence, problem-solving, analytical ability, and brain functioning.
The best way to find the brilliant solution we seek for our winning business idea is sometimes not to seek it. Instead, we consciously and deliberately empty ourselves of all distractions to make room for the kind of new inspiration that makes our stomachs flutter with excitement.
Why first thing in the morning? In a half-awake state, your brain is not as good at filtering out distractions and focusing on a particular task. It’s also a lot less efficient at remembering connections between ideas or concepts. These are both good things when it comes to creative work, since this kind of work requires us to make new connections, to be open to new ideas, and to think in new ways. So, a tired, fuzzy brain is of much more use to us when working on creative projects like finding solutions to a winning idea.
In 2012, a Scientific American article described how distractions can actually be a good thing for creative thinking: Insight problems involve thinking outside the box. This is where susceptibility to “distraction” can be of benefit. At off-peak times, we are less focused, and we may consider a broader range of information. This wider scope gives us access to more alternatives and diverse interpretations, thus fostering innovation and insight. It is also noteworthy that when, for whatever reason, I skip my early-morning meditation session, sometime later that day Lyn will invariably say, “You didn’t take quiet time today, did you?” When I don’t, she says my self-confidence vibe is “off.”
Connect to Nature: Expanding the Mind
As I read the biographies of successful businesspeople and entrepreneurs, another character trait that jumped out at me was their affiliation with nature. All of them turned to nature in times of stress or when big decisions needed to be made. Today, what I’ve found is that connecting to nature is a companion activity to meditation: It decreases stress, improves health, and sharpens the mind. To improve intuition and invite inspiration as you develop your winning business idea, take a walk in the woods.
This has been my approach in all of my businesses. I split my day up so that I have dedicated work times and dedicated distraction times. It is always when I close my office door and go for a thirty-minute walk in nature that the great ideas arrive. I notice, however, that if I skip my meditation in the morning, it doesn’t matter how many nature walks I take. No great ideas come to me. The two are definitely bedfellows. Meditate, do some work, go for a walk: I’ve found this to be a pretty powerful prescription.
Henry Ford was passionate about walking in the country and reconnecting to nature. He encouraged workers to exercise in their off-hours and believed that, next to work, a person’s duty was to think. Ford retreated to an old farmhouse near the family dairy in Dearborn. He sat on the ground when it was dry and in an old rocking chair when it was wet and simply let thoughts come to him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was another who attributed his success, and his sense of tranquility, to being at one with nature. He spent as much time walking in a forest as working in an office because that is where he found his inspiration. Emerson described being in nature as “a high discourse; the voice of the speaker seems to breathe as much from the landscape as from his own breast; it is Nature communing with the seer.”
To channel his restlessness, Cornelius Vanderbilt’s mother paid him to clear and plant an eight-acre field. In that solitude, he came up with the ideas that made him a billionaire. I read that it worked for them, so I tried it and discovered that it worked for me. Kick it around. What do you have to lose? To enhance the benefits of taking quiet time, plug into nature and access its expanded reservoir of knowledge, just as a single computer plugs into the World Wide Web.
Here is my four-point nature prescription:
1.Reconnect with nature daily. No excuses. I consider this a necessity, as vital as eating, drinking, and working.
2.Keep reconnecting simple: Observe a flower and silently compliment it on its beauty, say hello to a bird, relocate an insect outdoors and wish it a safe journey, admire the landscape, stand barefoot on grass and experience the sheer joy of its coolness. You don’t have to climb Mount Everest and sit on a pointy rock in a vow of silence. Nature is connectivity; being in it, you become part of its matrix. It will teach you. Just relax and listen.
3.Observe mostly in silence without doing anything else. If you take a stroll with someone and chat the whole time, you will miss the point and the benefit. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen dolphins or whales while the people around me miss them because they are gossiping, complaining, or exercising so intensely they aren’t observing. Leave the phone behind; don’t let calls or texts interrupt.
4.If you live in a concrete jungle, you may have to work harder to find nature, but she is all around: in the clouds, in window boxes, in grassy sidewalks. There is no difference or separation
