One Second Ahead Page 3
and establish your own daily practice.
In the meantime, let’s get started by exploring what it really means
to get one second ahead.
CHAPTER 1
Mastering Your Mind—First Steps
Jacob was a senior manager in a European financial services com-
pany. Like most of his counterparts, he was always “on”—con-
nected to the office in one way or another, all day, every day. Day
in, day out, he dealt with a steady stream of e-mails and an overloaded
calendar of meetings. When he did have a free moment, he would
often be interrupted by someone phoning with yet another urgent mat-
ter that needed his immediate attention.
When I first met Jacob, he told me that he didn’t feel in control of
his life. He felt like he was always trying to catch up, always overloaded
with external forces—people and tasks—dictating his day-to-day real-
ity. He felt he was living on autopilot without a clear sense of purpose
and direction.
Sound familiar?
Like many of us, Jacob longed for a greater sense of control. A friend
of his had recently been to one of my workshops and suggested Jacob
give me a call. In our first meeting, he committed to undertake a four-
month program based on the tools, techniques, and strategies presented
in this book. During that time, we met for ten one-hour sessions and
he dedicated ten minutes a day to mindfulness training. Though it
was specifically designed as a convenient, user-friendly program, it was
still a significant investment of time considering his already busy work
schedule.
4 ● One Second Ahead
After the four months had gone by, I asked Jacob what he’d gained
from the program.
His answer: “One second.”
At first, his response took me by surprise. Four months of effort
and daily training to gain only one second? That seemed like a meager
return.
But then he explained, “Previously, when something happened, I
reacted automatically. Every time an e-mail came in, I read it. Every
time I received a text, I answered it. Whenever a thought or emotion
popped into my head, I paid attention to it and allowed it to take my
focus away from what I was doing. I was a victim of my own automatic
reactions. The four months of training have given me a one-second
mental gap between what happens and my own response. It feels like
I’m one second ahead, so that I can choose my response rather than
being a victim of my automatic reactions. I can’t always control what
happens in life, but I’ve developed the freedom to choose my response
to it.”
Jacob’s story clearly describes what millions of busy people experi-
ence every day.
But one second? What can change in one second?
Everything.
One second is the difference between catching the train or being late
for work. It’s the difference between making a yellow light or running
a red. It’s the difference between a close call or a catastrophe.
In the Olympics, one second separates winning gold and being
immortalized from coming in last and being forgotten.
In our low-latency world, speed is a factor in any competition—
sports, politics, and especially business. This is more true now than
ever before. With today’s high-frequency trading, millions of dollars
can change hands in a millisecond. That’s one-tenth the time it takes
to blink. As the speed of business approaches the speed of light, one
second is the difference between performance and high performance.
For Jacob, one second gave him the freedom to control his thoughts,
his actions, and, more profoundly, his life.
This chapter aims to jump-start your transformation toward gaining
that one-second advantage in your own life. Together, we’ll examine
Mastering Your Mind—First Steps ● 5
our natural cognitive tendencies, the effect these tendencies have on
productivity, and some simple—but very powerful—rules for increas-
ing mental effectiveness.
Who Is in Control?
Life is about results. Results come from our actions. Our actions come
from the choices we make. Our choices come from the thoughts we
think (see Figure 1.1).
Our thoughts are the foundation for everything we want to achieve
in life. Thus, our ability to manage our mind becomes critically impor-
tant. We are best able to manage our thoughts when our mind is clear,
calm, and focused. This is true in all aspects of life, but especially true
in the workplace.
According to scientists, however, on average our mind is wander-
ing almost half our waking hours. 1 We are constantly thinking about
events that happened in the past, or might happen in the future, rather
than attending to what’s happening right now. This limits our ability
to achieve meaningful results.
Does this apply to you? Here’s a quick test to find out.
1. Set a timer for 45 seconds.
2. Focus your attention on one thought—an e-mail, a meeting, or
something else.
3. Focus your full attention on this one thing and nothing else.
4. Do not pay attention to any other thoughts or sounds until the
time is over.
Were you able to maintain focus on one thing? If you are like most
people, you likely experienced that, during those brief 45 seconds, your
mind wandered off to a variety of thoughts. Don’t worry—you’re per-
fectly normal.
MIND
CHOICES
ACTIONS
RESULTS
Figure 1.1
Results come from your mind.
6 ● One Second Ahead
If you can relate to this experience, then you probably recognize that
sometimes—or possibly often—your mind has a mind of its own. In
other words, it can be difficult to control your mind and what you pay
attention to. But if it’s true that our thoughts shape our future, and we
are really not in control of our thoughts, it raises an important ques-
tion: Who’s making the decisions in our lives?
For many of us, this question is becoming tougher to answer. The
natural tendency for our mind to wander has worsened over the past
few decades. Before the advent of the desktop computer, smartphones,
and the Internet, it was easier for people to give their full attention to
each task at hand. But within a relatively short span of time, we’ve gone
from handling a typewriter and a telephone to juggling e-mails, texts,
tweets, spreadsheets, reports, deadlines, and much more—all at the
same time. We have mountains of evidence, as well as stacks of reports,
articles, and books, outlining the detrimental effect that our recent
digital immersion has had on focus and productivity.
Welcome to the Attention Economy
Work life has changed radically over the past few decades. We used to
have working conditions where our attention could more easily focus
on the task at hand. We are now experiencing distractions and infor-
mation overload all the time. Our cell phones, tablets, e-mails, texts,
and the like place constant demands on our attention. According to the
former director of the Accenture Institute of Strategic Change, Tom
Davenport, “Understanding and managing attention is now the single
most important determinant of business success.” 2
We are living in an “attention economy” where the ability to man-
age our attention and the quality of our attention is key to our success.
But in the digital age, where our ability to pay attention at will is under
siege, we have a problem.
How big is this problem? Researchers studying the mind’s natu-
ral tendency to wander calculated that on average our mind wan-
ders 46.9 percent of the time. 3 In other words, while we are at work,
53.1 percent of the time our mind is on task. The rest of the time it is
off task. From a human resource perspective, there is a lot of potential
Mastering Your Mind—First Steps ● 7
to be developed here. Even just a small increase in “on-task” time could
have a significant improvement in many aspects of work, including
productivity, customer service, safety, teamwork, and anything else
that would benefit from more focused attention.
Attention is indeed a new variable of performance in business.
Traditionally, business productivity has been enhanced through time
management, goal setting, prioritization skills, and general qualifica-
tions. Attention, in the digital age, is becoming a new enabler of busi-
ness performance. Welcome to the attention economy.
Researchers have found that the brain has a default way of reacting
&nb
sp; to the relentless flow of distractions in the digital age: it tries to attend
to it all at the same time. It defaults to multitasking. And who wouldn’t
love to be able to get more accomplished by doing multiple tasks at the
same time? Some companies even include “good at multitasking” as
a requirement in job descriptions. But when we try to multitask, the
research shows, we take more time, make more mistakes, and use up
more mental energy.
Multitasking Is a Myth
Most of us carry around the powerful illusion that we can pay atten-
tion to more than one thing at a time. We think we can drive a car
while talking on the phone, participate in a meeting while checking
e-mails, or engage in a conversation while writing a text message. To be
clear, we can do many activities without paying attention, that is, with-
out conscious thought. For example, we can walk and talk at the same
time. Experienced drivers can handle many of the elements of driving,
such as changing gears and turning the wheel, on autopilot.
But from a neurological perspective, we’re not capable of focusing
attention on two things at the same time. When we think we are mul-
titasking, what we are doing in reality is shift-tasking : shifting attention
rapidly between two or more things. For example, when talking on the
phone while driving, for a second, we’re aware of traffic, and then the
next second, of the phone. Sometimes we switch so quickly between
tasks we have the illusion we’re paying attention to both at the same
time, but in actuality, we aren’t.
8 ● One Second Ahead
The Noncomputational Brain
The term “multitasking” comes from the computer industry and
describes a computer’s ability to process several different data sets in
parallel. Computers today have no trouble running an Excel spread-
sheet, playing a video, sending and receiving e-mails, and scanning for
viruses all at the same time. This highlights a big difference between a
computer and a human: a computer has several processors, all operat-
ing at the same time, while a human has only one brain and a singular
attention.
When we have many things we have to get done, many of us try to
be efficient and effective by doing more than one thing at a time. The
reality is, as amazing and powerful as our brains are, we’re not capable
of focusing our attention on two things at the same time.
In the context of multitasking at work, researchers have found that
“multitaskers are masters of everything that is irrelevant, they let them-
selves be distracted by anything.” 4 Perhaps you’ve experienced losing
track of what you are doing even when you have a simple task and clear
intentions. For example, say you want to send your mother a gift for
her birthday, so you go online to search for something she would like.
While searching for books in Amazon, you find a couple books to add
to your own wish list. Then you notice a link in one of the book’s com-
ments to an article that looks interesting. You hit that link and start
reading, and find a link to a cool video on YouTube. An hour later, you
catch yourself still watching videos and have completely lost track of
what you started out to do.
Studies have shown that multitasking lowers people’s job satisfac-
tion, damages personal relationships, adversely affects memory, and
negatively impacts health. 5 Many of these studies have demonstrated
that multitasking reduces effectiveness because it takes longer to
complete tasks and leads to more mistakes. This is because when we
switch our focus from one task to another, it takes time to make the
shift. Depending on the complexity of the new task, that can take
anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes. This phenomenon
is called shift-time . Shift-time saps our mental energy and taxes our
productivity.
Mastering Your Mind—First Steps ● 9
In addition, researchers from Harvard Business School discovered
that multitasking hinders creativity. 6 They assessed 9,000 employees
who were working on projects that required creative and innovative
thinking. They found a notable drop in creative thinking among
employees who multitasked and an increase in creativity among
employees who focused on one task at a time.
In summary, when we multitask, we’re less effective, make more
mistakes, and have less focus and creativity. But if multitasking is so
bad, why do so many of us continue to do it?
Because it’s addictive. Shifting rapidly back and forth between tasks
often feels exciting, even though it’s physically draining and stressful. 7
In a separate study, researchers at Harvard University discovered that
multitasking provides a “dopamine injection” to the brain. 8 Dopamine
is a naturally produced neurotransmitter in the brain that is directly
linked to addiction. When released in the brain, it provides a sense of
enjoyment and gratification. Because of this instant gratification, the
brain is constantly looking for a new dopamine kick—and quick, eas-
ily achieved tasks like e-mail do the trick. As it turns out, multitasking
actually trains the brain to welcome distraction and all the inefficien-
cies it creates.
But there is a way to break the habit.
The Well-Trained Mind
Mindfulness is about you. It’s about overcoming the multitasking trap,
and entering the attention economy being one second ahead of your
wandering mind and external distractions. It’s about being the best
version of yourself every day. It’s about generating greater mental effec-
tiveness so that you can reach your full potential, both on a profes-
sional and a personal level. Effectiveness in this context is the ability to
achieve your goals, objectives, and wishes in life.
Mindfulness training has been developed over thousands of years.
In recent decades it has spread widely in the West, taking form through
different interpretations and applications. In our work, we keep the
definition of mindfulness close to its ancient description: a mind in
balance, which sees reality clearly and values ethics. A balanced mind
10 ● One Second Ahead
is relaxed, focused, and clear. A mind that sees clearly views, reality as
ever changing, as mere potential, and knows the difference between
genuine happiness and fleeting pleasure. Valuing ethics means contin-
ually discerning what’s wholesome and constructive and what is not.
Ancient Wisdom, Modern Work
In an attention economy, mindfulness is about learning to master your
attention. When you learn to master your attention, you learn to mas-
ter your thoughts. You learn to hold your focus on what you choose,
whether it’s this page, an e-mail, a meeting, your spouse, or your chil-
dren. In other words, you train yourself to be more present in the here
and now.
Over the years, working with thousands of people around the globe,
I’ve seen formal mindfulness training help individuals become calmer
and clearer minded. With a calmer and clearer mind, people are able
to greatly enhance performance, effectiveness, collaboration, and gain
a clearer perspective on life and the choices they make.
But don’t take my word for it. Since the first controlled experiments
with mindfulness, the scientific world has discovered the wide-ranging
benefits of mindfulness training. Mindfulness has a positive impact on
our physiology, mental processes, and work performance. At the physi-
ological level, researchers have demonstrated that mindfulness training
can result in a stronger immune system, 9 lower blood pressure, 10 and a
lower heart rate. 11 People sleep better 12 and feel less stressed. 13
Mindfulness training increases the density of grey cells in our cere-
bral cortex, the part of the brain that thinks rationally and solves prob-