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How to Refresh Your Brain in 10 Minutes

When you go from one task to the next--all day long--your mind constantly races to catch up. Hit the reset button with this underrated trick.

 

Andy Puddicombe is a former Buddhist monk and co-founder of Headspace, an entrepreneurial venture designed to demystify meditation and make it easily accessible to all audiences. Puddicombe promotes an idea that almost sounds too easy to be true: refresh your mind in just 10 minutes a day and you might be happier at work.  Puddicombe seeks to provide “meditation for the modern world,” eliminating stereotypes of incense and cross-legged monks. And he might just be on to something.

Here are two problems that plague modern-day workers--and how Headspace’s bite-sized meditation plan can help.

Problem #1: Inability to Focus  “The average office worker changes windows [on her computer] 37 times an hour,” Headspace’s head of research Nick Begley says in a meditation tutorial.  According to Begley, when your mind changes gears that rapidly, part of your brain is still engaged in the previous task and you don’t have all of the attention and resources necessary to concentrate on the current task. This slows down productivity and reduces your ability to filter relevant information from irrelevant information.

Problem #2: Stress When people get stressed, there is a part of the brain called the amygdala that fires up the “fight or flight” part of the nervous system that helps you make quick, impulsive decisions.  “It signals to our hormonal system to secrete adrenaline and cortisol and increases our heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure, so we can escape this immediate physical danger,” says Begley.  The problem arises when there is no immediate physical danger--when, say, you’ve forgotten to hit “save” on an important document and your computer crashes, or you arrive unprepared for an important business meeting. The “fight or flight” impulse is not actually helpful in those situations and merely puts undue stress on the body, Begley explains. 

The Solution  Refreshing your brain is easier than you think. Here's the first and only step: Do nothing.
Puddicombe recommends simply setting aside 10 minutes each day to quiet your mind. Practice observing thoughts and anxieties without passing judgment--simply experience them. Focus on the present moment and nothing else.

We can’t change every little thing that happens to us, but we can change how we experience it.

Thanks to Francesca Louise Fenzi | Inc.com for this article

6 Things Every Customer Wants

Contrary to popular belief, customers are less interested in price than in these six things.

All customers want the highest quality at the lowest price, right? Well, sort of. That stuff is important but, surprisingly, the quality vs. price formula is not usually on the top of the customer's list of concerns, especially when it comes to selling B2B.

According to numerous surveys, B2B customers want the following six things from the people who sell to them:

1. Preparation

Customers want you to do your homework before talking with them. They resent it when you ask questions that can easily be answered by a few minutes on the Web.

• Wrong: "And your VP of manufacturing is who?"
• Right: "How are purchasing decisions made between the manufacturing and engineering group?"

2. Simplicity

Customers, like everyone else, must cope with the complexities of business. They want you to make what you're selling simple but without being simplistic.

• Wrong: "Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced new next generation social analytics for the Marketing Cloud. With the expanded Marketing Cloud ecosystem, which now includes 20 industry leading social analytics vendors, companies are able to make better business decisions based on the massive amounts of social media data created every day, all from a single dashboard." (BTW, this is a real example, selected pretty much at random.)
• Right: "We make it easier to find sales prospects on the web by gathering the results from multiple social media searches into a single convenient place."

3. Creativity

Customers already have ideas on how to solve their problems and create their opportunities. They want you to surface new ideas that won't turn up during in-house discussions.

• Wrong: "We can address your list of requirements."
• Right: "Have you considered an alliance that might let you outsource that function?"

4. Loyalty

Customers are risking their companies and careers by doing business with you. They therefore want you to represent THEIR interests and not just those of your company.

• Wrong: "Is there any reason why you wouldn't buy from us?" (Move to the close.)
• Right: "If you're not 100% certain this is a good idea, then we should reassess the situation together."

5. Accessibility

Customers want to know they're a priority and that you'll get back to them immediately if they have a problem. If you don't, they conclude they're not important to you.

• Wrong: (recording) "I'm out of the office for a few days. Leave a message and I'll get back to you when I return."
• Right: (recording) "If this is important, please text me at [number]. Otherwise leave a message."

6. Accountability

Customers don't want you to pass the buck to anybody else in your company. If they're going to work with you, they want your skin in the game.

• Wrong: "You'll have to take that up with the sale support team."
• Right: "I will call the sales support team right now and have them give your problem immediate attention."

The list above is based upon scientific research conducted by The Chally Group Worldwide.

Thank you Geoffrey James from Inc.com for the blog post.

Let us know your thoughts.

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