Horst Rechelbacher, the founder of personal care product maker Aveda, has a great way of leveraging meditation to sharpen his business effectiveness.
At the end of each day, he spends a few minutes recollecting his day’s activities and accomplishments. He puts himself in a quiet space, closes his eyes and plays back the day’s game tapes in his open mind. He calls this practice “rehearsing the future.” It gives him a sense of accomplishment and helps him set priorities for the next day. He believes that when you internally account for a day’s activities it enhances your ability to be more mindful in the future.
This practice is the opposite of how most of us finish each day. We typically hack and crack away at our task list and inbox, and at the end of the day, we grab our keys and rush out the door. On the way home, we have a faint sense of dread that we didn’t get to everything like we should have. The next morning we scurry back to work with a sense of blind urgency. Horst has a better way. Why? Because he’s able to keep a perspective about his work that’s removed from the frantic pace of real business life. He’s made hundreds of millions of dollars as an entrepreneur and innovated an entire industry (hair care products). I believe that he did so because he was more self-aware than his competitors, who either lived in the 90 day box or let others tell them what they were doing wrong or needed to do. Try this out tonight and change your life.
