Memo. How To Become A Leader! Part 20. Time

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

From the author: From the author: As a leadership coach, several years ago I came to the conviction that it is possible to unlock the hidden potential of a leader in any manager, and after many years of successful work, I decided to draw up a Memo "How to Become a Leader". Today we'll talk about Time.

(Continued. Read previous chapters)

How to Become a Leader! Part 20. Time

(In addition to my research, I relied on the research of A. Einstein, M. Kaku, N. Kozyrev, A. Bloom, B. Augustin)

Today we all complain that there is not enough time for anything other than work and leisure. But, if we put together the grains of wasted time and mold pieces from them, we will find that there is quite a lot of time. If we remember the number of empty minutes during the day, when we do something solely because we are afraid of emptiness, afraid of being alone with ourselves, it will be found that there are many short periods that could belong to us and only to us

But I want to say something that seems to me even more important, namely, how we can keep time under control and stop it. There is no need to run after time to catch up with it; it does not run away from us, it flows towards us. Whether you are looking forward to the next minute or you are completely unaware of it, it will come. The future, whatever you do in this regard, will become the present, and there is no need to jump from the present to the future. You don't have to be nervous, but just wait for it to come. In this sense, one can be perfectly stable and still move in time, because time itself moves. You know how it happens when you sit in a car or on a train: if you are not driving, you sit back and look out the window. You can read, you can think, you can just relax, and the train is moving. And so, at some point, what was the future - whether the next station or your final stop - will become the present.

This is the mistake we often make in our inner life. We imagine and imagine that if we hurry a little, we will get to the future faster - like a man who runs from the last car to the first, hoping to shorten the distance from Moscow to St. Petersburg. With this example, you can see how absurd it is. But when we continuously strive to live one step, a step ahead of ourselves, we do not notice this absurdity. This is what prevents us from being completely in the present moment - where, as I said, we can only be. Even if we are sure that we are supposedly ahead of time or ourselves, then we are deeply mistaken. The only thing that happens is that we are in a hurry, but that is why we do not move faster.

We have all seen more than once how a man with a heavy suitcase catches up with a trolleybus or bus. He hurries with all his might, runs as fast as the suitcase allows him, mentally trying to race against time. With all his being, he is not where he is. But it's impossible to get ahead of time. But things are different when you are walking on vacation. Walk fast or slow. If you are in the mood, you can even run - but there is no rush. Because it is important to just walk or run, just for no purpose.

Usually we imagine and behave as if the present is an imaginary, elusive line between the past and the future, and we roll from the past to the future, constantly crossing this border, like rolling an egg in a towel. It rolls continuously, but nowhere in any moment is it "found". There is no present, because it is always in the future.

Each of us should practice stopping time, standing in the present, in that "now" which is my present. What do you need to do for this? This is the first thing to practice when you have absolutely nothing to do, when nothing pulls you back and pushes you forward. When you can use seven or three minutes to do nothing. You sit down and say, "I am sitting, I am not doing anything, I will not do anything for three minutes," and then relax and during this length of time realize: "I am here, in my own presence, in the presence of the surrounding furniture., quietly and silently, not moving anywhere. " You need to make a firm decision that during these three minutes, which you firmly assigned to yourself in order to learn how to stop time, you will not be snatched from them by a gadget ringing, a doorbell ringing, or a sudden desire to immediately do an urgent matter that you postponed all the time. You sit down and say, "Here I am," and you are. This exercise should be carried out regularly in free moments of life. And then you will learn not to fidget in the inner space, but to be completely calm and internally stable. Then go on and gradually extend these few minutes for a short time, and then a little more.

Once you have learned this kind of enduring serenity, you can stop time. Moreover, not only when it stretches or still stands, but at the moments when it rushes at you swiftly and makes demands on you. It will happen like this: for example, you are busy with something useful. You feel that if you don't, the world will go astray. If then at some point you say, "I am stopping," you will discover new moments for yourself. In the beginning, suddenly, it turns out that the world has not gone crazy and that the whole world can wait five minutes until you do it. So the first thing is to say, "Whatever happens, I stop here." The simplest thing is to do it with an alarm clock. Set the alarm clock and say: "I work without looking back at the time until it rings." You know, it is extremely important that we learn, or rather unlearn, look at the clock. Accordingly, when the alarm goes off, you consciously and firmly know that for the next five minutes the world does not exist for you, and you do not exist for it. And there is no goal for which you will budge. This is your and only your own time, and you comfortably and calmly settle down in it.

You will see how difficult it is at first. It will seem to you that it is certainly very important, for example, to write a letter or finish reading an article or book. In fact, you will very soon find that it is perfectly possible to postpone it for three, seven or even ten minutes all your affairs, and nothing will happen. And if what you are doing requires special attention, then you will see how much better and faster you can do it later, after these seven or ten minutes.

So, if you practice first to stop the time that does not move, and then - the time that rushes by rapidly, if you stop and say "no" to it, you will find that at the moment when you overcome the inner tension, internal "rumor", fidgeting and anxiety, time will flow completely smoothly. Can you imagine that in one minute, only one minute passes? After all, this is exactly how it is. It's strange, but true, even if, judging by the way we behave, you might think that five minutes can go by in thirty seconds. No, every minute is the same duration as the next, every hour is equal to the next hour. Nothing catastrophic happens.

Having learned not to fidget or fuss, you can do anything and at any pace, and even with any degree of attention and speed, and at the same time not feel at all that time is running away from you or taking you away. This is the feeling that I wrote about earlier - when you are on vacation and the whole vacation is still ahead. When you can be fast or slow, without any sense of time, because you only do what you do, and there is no stress to achieve any goal.

This, of course, requires consistent, systematic and smart training. Just like we train to learn and develop our other abilities and talents. Learn to master the time - and no matter what you do, whatever the tension, in the bustle in which we live all the time - you will always be able to be calm and balanced. You can easily be and live in the present moment. This skill can only be achieved by learning, to some extent, to be silent. Start with inner and outer verbal silence. With the silence of feelings and emotions. From the silence of thought and a peaceful body. But it would be a mistake to imagine that we can immediately start from the highest point, from inner silence. You need to start with the silence of the language, with the silence of the body - that is, learn to be motionless, release tension, without falling into daydreaming and relaxation.

… Here's how my client described her experience of stopping time:

I think I learned how to stop time. Probably this is what they call

I can probably look like this for a very long time, and it doesn’t get boring, and it’s not boring, and it’s not wasted (wasted) time. Even if I didn't pick up mushrooms or berries. It is full. Filled with contemplation. The picture before the eyes is voluminous and very thick. Immediately I remembered the statement of my coach: "Reality is very plastic."

… When I was a novice coach, psychoanalyst, it seemed to me that it is very unfair to those who are waiting in the waiting room if I spend too long with the person who is in my office. Therefore, on my first visiting day, I tried to have a session as soon as possible. And at the end of the consultation hours, I found that I had no memory of the people I received, because all the time I had a client, I was thinking about a new client. As a result, I had to ask the same question twice, and when the session ended, I could not remember what I understood about the client's request and what not.

At that moment, I thought that it was not fair, and decided to act as if the person who is with me is the only one in the world. At the moment when the feeling "must hurry" arose, I leaned back in my chair and deliberately started a few minutes of a simple but attentive conversation precisely in order not to let myself be in a hurry. And within a week I found that I didn't need to do anything like that. You can just be completely focused on the client and his request. And then, in my office, exciting sessions began to take place in a creative space with discoveries and insights …

A year and a half has passed since the start of work as a coach, psychoanalyst.

Impossible for others will soon become possible for you

Let's continue.

Damian of Sinai

leadership coach, expert psychoanalyst, Head of the Center for Strategic Coaching and Psychotherapy "Innovation Values"