Stress Less, Accomplish More (Book Summary)

Stress Less, Accomplish More by Emily Fletcher

Book Review

• The good: The book contains a meditation approach that I imagine will help sales professionals manage their stress – esp. before key meetings, after losing deals, and in general, at the end of the quarter. The approach is to do the following:
  • What: Meditate for ~15 minutes, 2x per day.
  • When: 1x in the AM just after waking (before breakfast, coffee, or looking at a screen. Then 1x in the in the midafternoon, preferably after digesting lunch but before the PM slump sets in.
  • Where: Anywhere is fine though low-light and low-noise will likely be more enjoyable.
  • How: Sit comfortably with your back supported and your head free. Close your eyes. Start with 1 to 2 minutes of mindfulness by scanning your 5 senses. Continue for 13 to 14 minutes of meditiation by gently coming back to your mantra (a single word or sound) anytime your mind drifts. Finish with 2 minute of manifesting by imagining one dream, goal, or desire as if it is happening now.
• The not so good:
  • The book takes 200+ pages to explain what should really take one or two pages.
  • The book tries to come off as science but is very much a self-help book with the usual stock-and-trade of self-serving anecdotes and many incomplete assertions and references. Nonetheless, if you can get past all that, the 3M approach (mindfulness, meditation, and manifesting) feels like it can’t hurt and will probably help.

Preface

• Mindfulness is really about the now, whereas meditation is about letting go of stress from the past.

1 Why Meditate

• The mind thinks involuntarily, just like the heart beats involuntarily.
• There are hundreds of different styles of meditation. [I] classify meditation into three main categories
  • Mindfulness: Mindfulness is a “directed focus “mental practice, meaning that you have some point of concentration during the exercise. I would define it as the art of bringing your awareness into the present moment, and it is very effective at handling your stress in the right now. Counting your breaths, visualizing, imagining a waterfall, listening to guided audio — all these would be versions of mindfulness.
  • Meditation: Meditation, as I define it, is helping you get rid of your stress from the past. Nishkam karma meditation requires no effort, no focused concentration, and, thankfully, no struggling to “clear the mind.”
  • Manifesting: Manifesting: Designing a life you love. The act of being grateful for what you have while simultaneously imagining your dreams as if they are happening now. The process of manifesting is multifold: 1. Give thanks for what you have. 2. Clarify your goals. 3. Take time to imagine one goal as if it is happening now. 4. Detach from any outcome. This isn’t something you simply wish into being; you still have to get off the couch and take inspired action. manifestation a more effective tool at the end of meditation.
• Mantra — Sanskrit for “mind vehicle“— is a word or sound used as an anchor to de-excite the nervous system, access more subtle states of consciousness, and induce deep, healing rest.
• In zivaLIVE, which is face-to-face, you’re given a personalized but meaningless primordial sound
• You need only fifteen minutes [to meditate] — bonus: you can do it in your chair at work, on the train, or even with your kids screaming in the next room.
• Write down your intention for picking up this book, no matter how vague, silly, or ambiguous it may feel right now.
• Don’t think you have to set out to be the best meditator in all the land. Don’t worry if you find your mind far busier than you would like it to be.

2 Tapping the Source

• Now I see all that stress and worry as wasted energy.
• People can tell if you’re there to serve them or to serve yourself.
• Stress keeps you in survival mode, which keeps you focused on yourself. Meditation helps you get out of that primal “fight or flight “mode, so you can give more generously and access creative ideas, even in high-stress situations.
• Adaptation energy is your ability to handle a demand or a change of expectation.
• Eyes-Closed Exercise: The 2x Breath = Doubling the length of the exhale

3 Stress Makes You Stupid

• Exercise is exercise; meditation is meditation.
• “There is no such thing as a stressful situation, only stressful responses to a given situation.”
• We juggle many demands on our time; our stress is the negative impact we allow those demands to have.

4 Sleepless in Seattle — and Everywhere Else

• Sleep is rest for your brain; meditation is rest for your body.

5 Sick of Being Sick

• Eyes-Open Exercise Cooling Breath: Roll your tongue like a straw, then breathe in for a count of 5 and out for a count of 5, letting both the inhale and the exhale flow through your tongue straw.

6 The (Legit) Fountain of Youth

7 The “I’ll Be Happy When… “Syndrome

• Your happiness exists in one time — right now — and in one place — inside you.
• Meditation allows you to transition from being a bag of need looking for fulfillment to fulfillment looking for need.
• Ask yourself: What is the most pressing need of the time? How do my gifts best serve the need of the time?
• Eyes-Open Exercise = Gratitude Exercise: Every morning and every night, write down three things you are grateful for.  Water the Flowers, Not the Weeds.

8 The Z Technique

• Mindfulness helps you deal with stress in the present moment; meditation gets rid of stress from the past; and manifesting helps you create your dreams for the future.
• It’s best to do your morning sitting just after waking so you start your day fully rested and at peak creativity and productivity. Do this before breakfast, coffee, or computer time.
• Your second sitting will occur sometime in midafternoon or early evening — not immediately after lunch, between noon and eight p.m., ideally before the afternoon slump sets in.
• You don’t have to be rigidly attached to the same schedule every day;
• Meditating too late can make sleep difficult.
• Do it on the train, in a park, at your desk, in the dark — it sounds like a children’s book, but the truth is that you really can meditate in any setting.
• If you have the choice between bright or dim lights, a loud setting or a quiet one, go with the low-light, low-noise option if you can, simply because it will be more enjoyable.
• The only necessary thing is a place to sit with your back supported and your head free. Your legs can be crossed, stretched out, pulled up toward your chest — comfort is key.
• We’ll begin with the mindfulness portion of our practice — the first of the 3 M’s – for 1 to 2 minutes.
  • Remember that mindfulness is the art of bringing your awareness into the present moment:
  • Begin with your eyes closed, your back supported, and your head free.
  • Take a moment to enjoy the easy flow of your breath in and out of your lungs, then gradually shift your attention to all the sounds happening around you. Hear what you’re hearing. Listen for the most prominent sound in the room — maybe it’s your coworker on the phone or the air-conditioning clicking on. Then, after a few breaths, gently shift your awareness to the subtlest sound you can detect — the sound of your own breathing or ambient noise from the hallway.
  • Enjoy this for a few more breaths and then, on your next inhale, gently bring your awareness to the most prominent tactile sensation in your body right now
  • Recognize it and then shift your attention to the subtlest tactile sensation, whether it’s your hair lightly brushing your neck or the feeling of the air entering and exiting your lungs. Take care that you’re not judging the sensations as “good “or “bad “— simply notice what is the most prevalent and most subtle.
  • After a few moments, shift your awareness to your sense of sight. Yes, your eyes will be closed, but what can you see? Blackness? A sliver of light coming through the space where your eyelids meet? Perhaps you even see colors in your mind’s eye.
  • Gradually shift your attention to your sense of taste.
  • After a few breaths, start to notice the subtlest taste — maybe you can taste the salad dressing from your lunch or the minty flavor of the gum you enjoyed afterward, or maybe it’s nothing more than a sense of your mouth being acidic or dry.
  • Finally, let yourself smell what you’re smelling.
  • Now I invite you to pull the lens of your awareness back and simultaneously bring all five senses into your awareness at once:
• The Second M: Meditation – for 13 to 14 minutes
  • Let your mantra come to you. Let it bubble up from the back of your brain effortlessly and innocently. Don’t actually say the mantra out loud; that would be chanting. You’ll gently hear the word one in the background of your mind, helping to usher you into the subtler states of consciousness. You can simply enjoy the sound of the word, happening faintly in the background of your mind. You’re using the word as an anchor and setting your body and mind up for deep rest and surrender.
  • Thoughts are not the enemy. Remember that the mind thinks involuntarily just like the heart beats involuntarily, so please don’t try to give your mind a command to be silent. You have your trusty anchor, one, to come back to when you notice you’ve taken a mental field trip.
  • Your meditation period — the part of the Z Technique that you will soon see can feel a bit like a nap sitting up — should last about fourteen minutes. Eventually you will need only about one minute of the mindfulness appetizer. It’s no problem if you want to check your watch.  Ideally, however, I want you to train your own internal clock so that you can move away from relying on any kind of an alarm at all. Simply put, they’re too alarming. I would rather you check your clock a hundred times than get yanked out of the meditation by your alarm going off.
• The Third M: Manifesting – for 2 minutes
  • We start the manifesting portion from a place of gratitude. What am I grateful for right now?
  • After you finish your fifteen minutes of mindfulness and meditation, you will check your timepiece, let go of the mantra anchor, and move into the safety stop. The safety stop only takes two minutes. You begin with a moment of gratitude, then I invite you to think of one dream, one goal, or one desire and imagine it as if it were your current reality. This is really the trick to manifesting: Imagine the dream as if it is happening now.
  • We all think we are chasing a goal, but the reality is, we’re chasing how we assume the goal will make us feel.
  • Once you can feel and see this dream happening all around you, ask yourself who would be the first person you call to share the news with.
• And then, when you’re ready, slowly open your eyes and come back to your surroundings.
• A deep meditation is no better for you than a shallow meditation.
• Meditations generally fall into one of five categories — three of which are effective, two of which are not.
  • Effective Meditation Experience # 1: The Thought Train – thoughts are not the enemy of meditation; effort is. Thoughts are an indicator that stress is leaving the body.
  • Effective Meditation Experience # 2: The Party – Here’s how you want to handle thoughts and mantra happening simultaneously: Treat it like a party.
  • Effective Meditation Experience # 3: Bliss Field – You have a momentary thought of, Oh, wait, I’m off the mantra, but the last thought you had was the mantra. There’s this little space of time there that you can’t really account for. Maybe you were drifting or maybe you were dozing or maybe it felt like sleeping.
  • Ineffective Meditation Experience # 1: Contemplation – You realize you’re off the mantra, but you choose to stay off the mantra because you have to finish solving the great mystery of whether to work or work out. No need to have a journal next to you to write down every single thought that comes up. Just let it go and trust that amazing ideas are going to be flowing more freely in your waking state. Anything worth knowing will still be there for you after the meditation is over. The only real difference between contemplation and the thought train is that in contemplation, you realize you’re off the mantra and actively choose to remain off.
  • Ineffective Meditation Experience # 2: The Baseball Bat – The fifth thing that can happen during meditation is that we use the mantra like a baseball bat to whack the thoughts away.
• You should treat both your mantra and your thoughts as guests. When you realize you’ve taken a mental field trip (which is allowed), gently float back to your mantra.
• Noise is no barrier to meditation.
• Here’s the trick about the baseball bat. We usually use it when we are trying to get to the bliss field. The more you try to get there, the farther away you’ll move from it.
• You don’t get any gold stars for staying in the bliss field for two extra minutes. That is not up to you. The bliss field is just one of the things that can happen during the cycle that is meditation.

9    Better Parking Karma

• Karma is simply the actions you take and the ripple effect of those actions in your life.
• Dharma, on the other hand, is the Sanskrit word used to describe your life’s path or greater purpose.
• When we detach ourselves from the outcome, we allow things to be as they are rather than as we force them to be.
• The habitual reaction, when faced with hard times, is “Why is this happening to me?“ What I would encourage you to think instead is, “Why is this happening for me?”
• Eyes-Closed Exercise Superpower Pose – Start by bringing your arms over your head to make a giant V shape or what referees do to signal a touchdown. Make sure your palms are open and facing each other. Holding this pose, we are going to start something called “breath of fire, “a fast in / out through the nostrils. Breathe quickly for 30 seconds, softening the face and letting the impulse for the breath start with the belly. Now lower your arms, close your eyes, and take a moment to check in. What is the most prevalent body sensation happening right now? How do you feel now compared with how you felt before you started? Now begin the breath of fire again, this time for 45 seconds.

10   The Most Amazing Version of You

• Are you evaluated and potentially promoted based on how you feel about your job or how you actually perform your job?
• How you feel about the process of pursuing physical health doesn’t matter; all that ultimately matters are the real results that come from those lifestyle changes.
• Of course, it’s impossible to prove their rest patterns directly contributed to their brilliant insight and output, but it certainly seems more than coincidental that some of the most extraordinary thinkers in history all followed variations on this pattern of behavior.
• When I talk about expanding consciousness, what I mean is our awareness of how we connect with the world and our place in it.
• There are three telltale signs of how much consciousness you have:
  • The ability to hold many things in one awareness — that is, to be mentally engaged on multiple levels effortlessly
  • The ability to detect subtleties
  • The ability to detect themes
• Here is your challenge, if you choose to accept it: Don’t preface your future unveilings (of any kind) by pointing out and obsessing over every tiny flaw. You may judge something as imperfect, but others might not view it that way at all. When you apologize preemptively, you’re giving them permission to lead with disapproval.
• One of the most important elements of success is confidence — whether real or projected.
• In the famous words of Yoda, “Do or do not. There is no try.”
• o one wants to pay to watch you do something with effort, but everyone will want to see you do your work with a sense of ease, confidence, and self-assuredness.
• Most of us have spent a long time strengthening the “trying“ muscle because it gives us an easy way out if we don’t succeed. Get rid of that safety net.
• Once you break the apology addiction and the trying trap, you can step into the most amazing version of you.
• Eyes-Open Exercise Breaking the Apology Addiction – For one whole week, challenge yourself not to apologize. To keep track, find a special place in a journal, or even make a note in your handy smartphone, where you can keep a tally of each time you unnecessarily apologize and catch yourself after.

11 From Om to OMG!

• ind the Gap
• The gap you have between stimulus and reaction — that split second that less stress affords you to choose how you’ll respond to a given situation — can affect the direction of your entire day as well as the days of the people around you.
• Leaders become far more effective and win over the rest of the team when they radiate a sense of self-mastery in any scenario, which allows everyone around them to feel more at ease.
• There is an automatic gravitation toward someone whose energy is calm and confident, especially in the midst of uncertain or chaotic situations.
• Eyes-Closed Exercise Love Bomb: Start the Love Bomb by imagining that someone you love very much is sitting about three feet in front of you. On your inhale, allow yourself to receive the love flowing back from this person, supercharging every single cell in your body with this feeling of love and gratitude. As you exhale, imagine sending that out to the entire room.
• Now imagine wrapping the entire planet with this beautiful feeling of love. Take a moment to surrender into that sense of expansiveness and connectedness, and know that as you blast the entire universe with love, it’s simultaneously sending it back to you.

13 Up-Level Your Performance

• There is an advanced technique I sometimes share with my more experienced students to use a few minutes after their practice to reframe events from their pasts. Taking a few minutes to revisit important events from your past from your least excited state of awareness can help you answer the question “Why did that happen for me?”