Meta-Awareness

Like many mindfulness exercises, the River of Thought feels at odds with the decisive, action-driven orientation often ascribed to great leaders, but that is the whole point.

It allows us to take a very different stance toward our experience. It’s very rare that we experience something as n...

Watching your mind wander without engaging is easier said than done. But learning to be more conscious of where you are directing your attention—and ensuring that wherever you are focused in a particular moment is the right place to be—seems well worth the effort.

Really exceptional...

An overly intense focus on a goal can lead to what cognitive psychologists call goal neglect. That may seem counterintuitive to the average goal-oriented MBA or entrepreneur, but take, for example, the dynamic at work in micromanagement.

Often, when leaders micromanage employees, an i...

Where you direct your focus is a function of the brain’s attention system. This system has three subsystems:

• The flashlight (or orienting system), which enables you to selectively direct and concentrate your attention;
• The floodlight (or al...

Imagine sitting on a riverbank on a big boulder that’s sturdy and stable, and watching the contents of your conscious experience flow by as if it were the water itself. You’re not going to go chase every leaf or every fish or whatever you see flowing down the river; you’re going to watch it p...