Mindfulness Mode

• I don't know if you're familiar with it, but my favorite breathing technique is the four-sided box breathing. It might have been developed by the military or popularized through their use, but I find it really impactful.
• When I go on stage, I feel this overwhelming burst of energy. If I don't express it physically, I can't calm down, which is strange because I'm an introvert and don't usually feel this way. It's the best way I can describe the nerves of getting up there.
• What I found is that using the four-sided box breathing helps. You count a set number of seconds—four, three, five, whatever you're comfortable with—for each part of the breath. You take that time to inhale, hold the breath in, exhale, and then hold the breath out. If you take the same amount of time for each of those four sides and go through a number of cycles, it really helps.
• It gets tough when you have to hold the breath with your lungs empty. If you can't do that, it's a sign you're breathing too shallow and not getting good enough breaths.
• For me, it's both a diagnostic tool and a way to force myself to slow down and calm my breathing.

Bullying Story

• The best example of bullying I've experienced is with a former business partner, a family member whose business I bought into and ultimately bought out. This happened later in my career when I had mindfulness, but I could have handled it better. It was a controlling situation. I ran the business for several years but wasn't the majority owner at the time.
• Everyone knew it was time for me to buy the company, which both sides believed. However, there was this element of bullying because they knew how much I had invested in making the company successful and how much progress I'd made.
• The approach was bizarre and unprofessional, with talks about me buying the company but them still controlling it.
• Mindfulness has taught me a lot. Now, thanks to Chris Voss's book “Never Split the Difference,” I understand things better and don't get upset as easily.
• The biggest shift would have been to anticipate such situations, not let them visibly upset me, and instead process, plan, and work my way out of it calmly.