The Mindful Leader: An interview with Michael Bunting
Mindfulness is a rewarding journey, not just for yourself but also for people around you. I started practicing mindfulness 2 years ago to put some space between myself and my reactions; however, to be honest, I didn’t make a lot of progress until I met Michael Bunting.
Last year, when my friend (who also happens to be my ex-boss, mentor and guardian angel) invited me to the mindfulness workshop with Michael Bunting that she was organizing for her team, I bragged like a child about my immense knowledge on the topic and how much progress I had already made on the journey. Today, when I go back and think about that conversation, I have a mocking yet forgiving smile on my face. My friend stared right into my soul with her big, expressive eyes and she said: “His book is changing me and making a hugely positive impact on my life, you should join our workshop no matter what.” I obviously followed her.
When you meet Michael, you immediately feel his positivity and welcoming kindness. He effortlessly creates a “safe zone” around him as if you were with your family having breakfast together on Sunday…as if you were with your lifelong friends visiting your childhood hometown. He then eloquently shares his wisdom and scientifically proven ideas & methods, he deeply inspires you to “be present”, to “be yourself” and, of course, to “be mindful”. He brings you to an intense yet spectacular moment of realization how ignorant we have been all this time to the core human values we have, somewhere within us. He shows you the way to find your intrinsic goodness, wellness and desire to end all suffering. That day was a milestone for me (and for my colleagues/friends) in so many ways that I will forever be in his debt.
As I have been recently writing about leadership and authenticity, I put my mind to writing about my journey on mindfulness. After a long week of reflection, I realized that I was not advanced enough in my practice to teach anyone about mindfulness, but I couldn’t let the idea go. I wrote to Michael and asked for help & he accepted without hesitation. The interview you will read below is his generous and kindhearted gift to all of us.
Michael, thank you for accepting to have this interview. I am really humbled by your generosity, honored to have this opportunity. What is mindfulness and how is it different from any other self-improvement practices?
“Technically, the word mindfulness originates in the Pali term “sati”, which means “remembering”, remembering where you are now. Because when we are not mindful, in other words forgetful, we literally forget where we are. So, we can be walking along in a passage way or driving a car, and we forget that because we are lost in the mind. The most basic mindfulness is remembering where you are, now.
Definitionally, it is also being able to stay in the present sustainably or maintaining presence. It is remembering you are here now, and constantly staying in the present. There is a nuanced part of mindfulness: you can equally call it “heartfulness”.
Frequently, mindfulness is just taught as being “attentionally present”, but it goes a lot deeper than that, you need to emotionally present as well and this requires a warm, kind open-heartedness, open-mindedness. So, mindfulness is remembering to stay in the present moment sustainably and open-heartedly.
The most typical anchor point for being present is feeling the body, noting the senses. You cannot feel the body and senses of past or future, you can only feel your body and senses now, in the present moment.
Regarding your question about the other self-improvement practices, I can only speak about my experience, I am not an expert in every single personal development technique. One of the key differences about mindfulness is that it is actually about transformation through self-acceptance rather than transformation through a self-improvement project.
Mindfulness as a philosophy is to accept that who you are is already perfect & your mind tricks you into believing that you are not just fine as you are. It is about unraveling ideas and thinking, not taking on new ones. It is a discipline, or a technique of being present, but you also have to integrate ethics, compassion and kindness to find your deep congruence.
Mindfulness is the acceptance and connection with the present moment and discovering through an awareness process that who we are is fundamentally okay. As we realize that, we begin to make healthier choices from a place of self-worth, not from a place of trying to be a better me.”
How do you explain the popularity of mindfulness?
“Mindfulness practice has been around 2500 years in the format that it’s being taught in corporations, hospitals so on. But Jon Kabat-Zinn popularized it in the West with his medical research.
He proved that stress reduction methods based on mindfulness meditation guided by audiotaped instructions can heal psoriasis much faster (14 and 49.5 days) in patients undergoing phototherapy (UVB) or photochemotherapy (PUVA) treatment respectively.
This was the first big moment of wow, first time we had a measurable, medical outcome. Subsequently, it has blown out of proportion, last year alone there were 1093 peer-reviewed academic studies done on mindfulness. Because we had scientific evidence behind, it hit the mainstream.
The other reason is the ramping rise of illness linked to new technologies. Our attention span is getting shorter and shorter, rising levels of anxiety and depression in the recent years has been phenomenal. Modern technological world and its pace is creating mental illness and nobody is debating anymore. According to Microsoft, an average person’s attention span is now lower than that of a goldfish (9 seconds). Since the year 2000 (or about when the mobile revolution began) the average attention span dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds indicating the effects of an increasingly digitalized lifestyle on the brain. Other studies indicate that an average person in the Western world now is displaying what would have previously been regarded as ADHD- attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I was working with Dell Computers recently, they recognize these trends even in the way they are designing their computers. That loss of attention is coming with a very high price for people in terms of anxiety, depression, meaninglessness. And mindfulness is the antidote because it is the attention training to start expanding our attention span.
And surprise, surprise, extending our attention span improves outcomes regarding depression, mental and physical health. There is also a rise of mindfulness in sports. Top two teams in Australian Rules Football last year had some form of mindfulness practice and meditation. There is a strong correlation between performance and mindfulness. It is also compulsory for the judges in Australia to learn mindfulness, it is compulsory for doctors in Monash university. 68% of GPs in the UK now recommend mindfulness as a method to work with anxiety and depression.
Based on my own experience, I think corporate leadership trainings require leaders to change behavior. But without a sustained awareness practice, being able to manage your attention and manage yourself, there can’t really be a sustained change. Mindfulness is progressively becoming the key methodology for training leaders.”
Why does mindfulness matter for leaders? What are the most important values of a mindful leader?
“That’s a big question! Subject of self-awareness has been extensively researched by various universities and academicians. Self-awareness is a fundamental quality and skill in leadership and hardest one to maintain. Ironically, what we’ve got is a problem with self-awareness.
As you are reading this now, if I invited you to be self-aware, would you know exactly what to actually do? What technique are you going to apply? What are you going to practice to be self-aware right now, practically?
I asked the question to more than 10000 leaders. Maybe 0.0002% have answered that question. I want to highlight that there is a massive gap of understanding between our need to be self-aware and how do you actually do self-awareness as a practical skill. The answer is mindfulness, which is sustained awareness & sustained attention. Firstly, mindfulness training is training the mind to stay aware, especially when things are not comfortable. We know that prefrontal cortex grows in the brain in people who are practicing mindfulness, a self-regulating part of the brain. Mindfulness teaches leaders to be able to regulate their behavior and be aware. It also teaches the “self” part of awareness. Leaders learn to regulate themselves from the physical cues. If they are behaving in a way that’s not ideal, they begin to learn how that feels like physically and recognize that physical impulse which allows them to “catch behavior at the emotional level”. Mindfulness teaches leaders to still the mind and stay focused. People want the presence and attention of their leaders. Our research from 4000 observers and about 500 leaders has shown that being calm, clear, grounded and focused (especially under pressure) are the top 5 qualities people want from their boss, out of 83 leadership qualities.
Secondly, what leaders discover when they become more acutely self-aware, tuned in to what’s happening inside themselves, they begin to notice the effect on them when they are not leading in alignment with their stated values. They begin to see that the body goes into a certain kind of tension, emotional toxicity and pain.
The mind is racing when we are not leading from good principles and values. With mindfulness, leaders get to realize that they are suffering just as much as the other people around them & it becomes a very natural attunement over time to follow ethics, as it is linked with a deep level of happiness and wellness which explains why it is an intrinsic motivation, not an extrinsic one. Those are the 2 main areas that I found extremely important. If you haven’t mastered them, it is almost like you are a crippled leader & you are not really in flow.”
How do we identify a mindful leader? How do we know if someone is mindful?
“We actually measure this. 1. They are calm under pressure. 2. They are empathetic. 3. They are very focused. 4. They are kindhearted. 5. They are deeply respectful in the way they connect and speak with others. These are the basic qualities. Their other key characteristics are open-mindedness. They are not defensive, they don’t need their opinions to be validated to feel secure. Their sense of security is based on their presence and not hanging on to their ideas. They are purposeful and they have a natural vulnerability. They can talk about their errors and mistakes, which comes from a profound level of confidence and focus. There is a fundamental goodness and humanity.
A lot of people describe “what” of mindfulness. But what’s the “why”? It is to remove all the unnecessary suffering that we experience and to behave in a way that never inflicts suffering on others. You can be having tough conversations with someone, or even firing someone. But it always done from a place of kindness, care and compassion. The mindful leader is not perfect, they know they are not perfect because they have got a genuine self-awareness and a deep level of honesty.”
You mentioned about the “what” and “why”. How do we practice mindfulness? Is there a quick fix?
“It is a paradox. Mindfulness is instantaneous, it needs to be practiced ‘now’ and it is completely natural as well. You don’t have to teach a 2-year old child to be mindful. It is absolutely natural to be sustainably present. It is not a religious or dogmatic skill, it is a natural skill. The problem is momentum with most of us. We are not taught to be mindful and we have this capacity to think in the past and future, very soon we get quite stranded by our thinking and lost in various traumas, conditioning, memories and viewpoints, chasing after dreams and goals. We habitualize absentmindedness, and not being mindful. When we begin to practice mindfulness, it is instantaneous and we almost try to rewind a lifetime of momentum about being absent-minded, distracted, mind-less. And some of us may be hurt in our childhood for example and our hearts shut down. And a part of us has never been open-heartedly present ever again. When we are practicing mindfulness, at a deeper level, we are opening the heart again which can be a quite challenging process. It is not linear when you practice mindfulness, it is rather a never-ending, opening journey.
The research tells us that tangible benefits in health -and even at genetic level- begin after 6 to 8 weeks which is a quite tight time frame. So, you get benefits pretty quickly. Experientially, the more mindfulness helps you become aware, the more aware you become of how unaware you are! Whilst your awareness is growing, you also start seeing the long road ahead. That’s why, for anyone who begins to practice mindfulness, it is super important to register, recognize and appreciate progress. It is easy to forget that you can make some profound progress in a very quick space of time. I have been teaching mindfulness for 17 years now and I have heard this countless times. The favorite moment of mindfulness practice is when someone registers and then one day they are in traffic jam or when their child is misbehaving in some way, they just don’t react like they used to, they are able to stay calm and they suddenly realize in a moment of wow that ‘this is different”. I would strongly recommend anyone to appreciate and recognize your wow moments.”
How can we be authentic and have a beginner’s mind in a corporate environment that may not appreciate these values?
“I think it is important to remember that a value is a practice. Having a beginner’s mind is practicing curiosity. I usually tell my clients this: Imagine that you have got 2 hotels that open up right next door to each other. They have got exactly the same building, same budget and same staff. But one of them practices being expert and it needs to be right all the time. And the other hotel constantly practices open-mindedness and try to learn from their errors and mistakes and keep learning. You are now given a choice as a guest, 2 years after the opening. Which hotel would you like to stay in? Which hotel is going to be better? Which hotel is going to be a more pleasant stay? Everybody knows: the one that’s been learning. Paradox of beginner’s mind is while you are practicing it, you are actually becoming a lot wiser because you are actually growing and learning from experience and you realize it is a never-ending journey and flow. You have to constantly ask “Can we look at it differently? Can we do it differently?”.
The person who doesn’t practice this, those who know the most, those who think they are the most expert, are like they are frozen in time, they are stuck! Not only are they not growing, but what a boring way to live it is, what a painful way to go through your day and your life, constantly defending your viewpoints. Bottom line is, whoever learns the fastest wins. It is as simple as that. And it doesn’t start from a magic fairyland, it starts from the leaders role modeling open-mindedness.”
Are you an optimist or a pessimist about future in the era of disruptive technologies such as big data posing ethical issues, AI threatening our humanity?
“My answer within a mindfulness practice is “neither optimist nor pessimist but more realist”. Mindfulness is about accepting what is. Optimism and pessimism are two sides of the same coin. If you are an optimist, you are hoping for a better future. If you are a pessimist you are fearing a worse future. Mindfulness practice by definition is saying “I am going to do what I can, now, with an open heart and I let go of the future because I can’t control it. I am just going to keep dealing with the “now”.
However, I think you need to keep a part of optimism in your heart, otherwise you just let go and I know it is sometimes so hard. But keep going, you are not alone. You are not the only one feeling this way.”
Thank you Michael for illuminating our paths. Much appreciated!
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If you would like to learn more about mindfulness, then read Michael’s book. You can buy it here.
If you would like to practice mindfulness and you need a structured and guided source, download Awakened Mind from AppStore or GooglePlay.
I used some other basic mindful meditation apps prior to this one but Awakened Mind is very different. Rather than only offering simple stress relief or temporary calm, this app is a life-changing solution that enables true awakening. It has been a unique and inspiring journey for me. Strongly recommended!
Michael is currently recording a series of educational videos on mindfulness with key medical experts who do research and publish on scientific principles and proof behind mindfulness. He would like you to know that these videos will soon be available, STAY TUNED :)
Ezgi Tasdemir, PhD is a Novartis Oncology employee. This article is created by Ezgi Tasdemir. All the views, analysis, and perspectives are fully independent and belong to the author only, they do not represent the views or opinions of Novartis or any other company or organization. The author does not receive any funding or support from Novartis or any other pharmaceutical/non-pharmaceutical company for this blog.
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