Mindfulness Mode

Costa Michailidis has spent his career consulting with some of the brightest minds on some of the world’s toughest innovation challenges, from NASA scientists and big tech companies, to young entrepreneurs and nonprofits. He has worked on initiatives to build synthetic cells, improve cybersecurity, and reform life science education. His focus is always on cultivating the kind of innovative thinking required for making breakthroughs. He has spoken at the United Nations in New York, served as a TEDx organizer and emcee, and helped accelerate innovation across industries. He co-founded Innovation Bound and has joined a team of academics, entrepreneurs, consultants, and other creativity & innovation experts just like him to help accelerate innovation efforts in science, business, and beyond.

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Contact Info

• Website: www.innovationbound.com
• Podcast: Are You Innovation Bound?
• Innovation-101 Course: www.innovationbound.com/101

Most Influential Person

• Dan Millman, Author

Effect on Emotions

• So for me, because mindfulness was originally something I learned in sport, it changed my conception of emotions to emotional fitness. So I think of emotional fitness rather than emotional intelligence.
• And fitness means you have to work out to stay in shape. If you don't work out, you're gonna fall out of shape. Having a good coach is useful. So fitness is a metaphor; if you use good techniques, you're likely to do it. Well. If you had bad techniques, you can get injured. So I think of it as emotional fitness, and that came from mindfulness in my sport.

Thoughts on Breathing

• Focusing on the breath and staying in the moment is tremendous. And what's really wonderful about free-diving is you learn specific breathing patterns that can reduce your heart rate. The reason we do it in free-diving is; to do a more efficient free-dive allows you to be able to go longer on that single breath-hold.
• So using those techniques from free-diving, ultimately using breath to become calm, to develop a tremendous sense of calm in order to achieve that.

Suggested Resources

• Book: Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives by Dan Millman
• App: Loop Habit Tracker

Bullying Story

• So the thing that came to mind for me for this was about bullying with love. And I think there was so mindfulness there. So my brother and I have about seven and a half years difference. So anybody with an older brother knows, they're your bully. You sort of inherit them when you're born. It's great.
• And so we'd get into a scuffle here and there. It was just sort of a natural environment. But he was much bigger because he's seven and a half years older. And there was one time he was hanging on a pull-up bar, you know, one of the ones you set up in the doorway.
• So he's kind of kicking at me, just sort of kicking me away, and I'm trying to get at him. I don't remember what we were arguing about. And he comes off, and I  swing to punch him and I end up hitting him in the nose. And he's got a nosebleed. He's checking his nose.
• I said real loud, still yelling, I'm sorry, I was aiming for your stomach. His response was to laugh and be kind of proud of me that I was standing up for myself. So I think on his part, not retaliating was the mindful thing to do, and was ultimately good for our relationship.
• I think when that sort of aggressive or assertive part of our nature comes at us, but it comes from a place of love, in this case, two siblings and whatever we're arguing about, you know, ultimately, we have long since forgotten.

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