Mindshifting Joshua Ehrlich

You can learn to focus both inward and outward to build your leadership skills. Once you can focus, you can change your perspective using framing and multiple vantage points.
I review the following key concepts:
Understanding politics in a positive light using perspective taking. The positive and negative sides of habituation--tuning things out consciously and unconsciously. The danger of being an expert and how to use ‘beginner’s mind’ to combat habituation. The ‘one-down’ position to facilitate learning. Challenging ourselves with new experiences to facilitate learning. 
Experiment: tiger eye meditation--meditating with your eyes open to develop your ability to focus both inward and outward.
Experiment: noticing different types of distractions and learning to manage them; creating gap time by taking a media holiday. 
Experiment: mindful reading--taking in ideas with curiosity and openness rather than judgment. 
Experiment: positive sensitization to open your mind and cultivate greater awareness.
Experiment: using ultradian rhythms to recharge and changing channels to refresh yourself on your body’s natural cycles.


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You can learn to focus your spotlight in three ways: scope, time and attitude. This enables you to pick up on cues inside you and around you. I explain the importance of self-acceptance and how it is different from passivity, complacency and self-indulgence. You can use focus to develop your self-awareness and find your blind spots. You can help your team focus by starting meetings with brief check-ins to clear the decks. I explain the difference between mindfulness and reflection, and where to use each. 

Experiment: programming mindful breathing to make it a habit and create a safety net for yourself. Reprogramming the stress response we get from notifications into a relaxation response.
Experiment: meditation--what is it and how to do it. How to deal with the problem of thinking while you meditate. Setting goals for your meditation and avoiding pitfalls. 
Experiment: walking meditation--how to meditate while you move. 

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Experience is a great teacher, but without reflection, guidance and support we can learn negative lessons. IQ doesn’t predict how well we will learn, but we can accelerate our ability to learn. I describe the problem of passive learning and how we can engage with new ideas so we internalize them.

Experiment: Learning how to learn using the four stage learning cycle: 
 • Activists like to jump in to new experiences
 • Reflectors step back and review events
 • Theorists make mental models and predictions
 • Pragmatists like to plan how to apply ideas

Experiment: Journaling to make reflection a habit using six-way reflection
 • Backward (what worked in the past)
 • Forward (where am I going?)
 • Inward (values and attitudes) 
 • Outward (intention vs. impact) 
 • Downward (the view from the balcony) 
 • Upward (using your imagination) 

Experiment: Forming a Personal Board of Directors with key advisors:
 • Thinking partners you value for their objectivity
 • Allies who will support you when you need it
 • Advocates who have a seat at the table 
 • Mentors and coaches who will give new perspectives

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I explain how reflecting helps us learn and make better decisions. We need to look at why we avoid it and the roadblocks to making it a habit. Reflecting doesn’t need to slow us down--it actually helps us get where we want faster. I offer ways to make reflection a habit and key questions to give yourself a structure for reflection. 
I explain how organizations can make reflection a habit: 
 • Decide what to stop doing
 • Clarify decision making processes
 • Ensure sufficient resources 
 • Take time outs from continual change 
 • Ask about the sources of failure 
 • Insist on learning from experiments 
 • Institute “after action reviews” 

Experiment: Career Reflection using focused questions: 
 • What made you take each job?
 • How did it fit your skills, interests, and motivators?
 • What values did it allow you to express?
 • What did you learn from each job?
 • What career goal were you pursuing at that time? 
 • What overall themes emerge?

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In this chapter you build the foundations of stopping, reflecting and focusing. I provide an introduction to mindfulness, its research basis and define it. I explain how to use mindfulness to quiet your mind and get biofeedback from your body. Mindfulness enables you to focus to learn and to learn how to learn. Mindfulness helps you reduce stress and gives you access to more information. I discuss the power of stopping the mind to sleep and review ways to establish good sleep habits.
I offer advice on how to make time to think:
 • How Einstein made time to think
 • How to get others to help you. 
 • Setting boundaries and managing distractions from technology
 • The ACT method to deal with interruptions
 • Dealing with restlessness and hyperactivity
 • The value of Not Doing and Not Thinking to reset your attention and recharge  
Experiment: Foundational mindful breathing exercise


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We face information overload and new demands coming at us from all directions. We can overcome the challenges of our frenetic modern life and work. I introduce mindful leadership and invite you to stop, reflect and focus. Doing this enables you to learn from the inside out. I explain the concept of Mindshifting--how to focus to do our jobs more effectively--and how we can learn to lead by focusing and paying attention to specific cues. I outline the book’s organization so you can use it to guide your development: key components are positive habits, managing technology and experiments to practice new skills. I explain the dangers of multitasking and the nature of attention, and provide the research basis for this approach to leadership. 


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