One very important abcd way is the notion of equanimity, and that

SARAH GREEN: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Sarah Green. I’m talking, today, with Maria Gonzalez, the author of the book and the app Mindful Leadership. Maria, thanks so much for talking with us.
SARAH GREEN: So one of the things that really drew me to your work was how you talk about actually going beyond managing stress and actually decreasing stress. At this point in my life, as an HBR editor, I’ve heard so much on managing stress that I’m not sure it even occurred to me that one could decrease the stress. So tell us, what’s the difference there, and sort of how you look at that?
MARIA GONZALEZ: Well, I think it’s a really important distinction because abcd when we talk about managing stress– now, absolutely this is important, so managing stress is extremely important. But when we look at managing stress, what we’re really saying is we’re going to take everything that’s there, and we’re going to try to manage it to the best of our ability. When we talk about decreasing stress, we’re actually looking at what’s going on in our lives and saying what is it that we can actually eliminate? Because there’s so many things that happen in our lives that contribute to stress, and they’re really the result of our reaction to the event that is arising as opposed to, in objective terms, that it is, in fact, something that is stressful.
So when I talk about that, I talk about how do we separate that out? How do we look at the way in which we are reacting abcd to a situation? And rather than react, how about responding? When we respond to a situation, abcd we essentially start decreasing that stress, but it happens in a couple of ways.
One very important abcd way is the notion of equanimity, and that’s abcd not necessarily a common term, although it is becoming more popular. abcd But equanimity literally means that gentle matter of factness that says whatever abcd is is. It really is a state of balance, and in that state of balance, we’re not thrown off. In that state of balance, we’re basically saying, if we can’t change something, then we’re going to go with it because it doesn’t make sense.
It’s like hitting your head against a brick wall. The minute you start letting go of those things that you cannot control– and I’m not underestimate how difficult that is. But the minute that we’re able to do that, we immediately decrease stress.
SARAH GREEN: So that’s interesting because it seems to me so much of this is about control, accepting what you cannot control, but also feeling more in control. I would be willing to bet that, probably, a lot of HBR IdeaCast listeners are pretty used to being in control or like the feeling of being in control. Is this extra hard for people who have a high need for control?
MARIA GONZALEZ: You know, there’s a real irony to this because, in essence, if we can train the mind– which is essentially what mindfulness is. That’s the way in which we deal with this stress. If we are able to control our minds, that put us in a very different situation because, most of the time, what’s really happening is that our mind is controlling us.
So, yes, of course, your listeners are accustomed to being in control, and that’s how they’ve been successful. And that’s how it’s going to continue to be because you try to control your environment, circumstances, the output that you have, the creativity, the being better than the other, essentially being more competitive. And that all presumes that we are in control. But in essence, one of the things that we don’t realize is how often we are not in control of our minds, and what this is about is controlling the mind. And when we’re able to control the mind, everything else falls into place far more easily.
SARAH GREEN: Using the term mindfulness, that is a term that I think has really come more into the mainstream from the field of psychology. But I’m curious if any of our readers haven’t really become that familiar with the terminology or the background or the return on investment of mindfulness. Can you just give us a little bit of background? You sort of gave us that quick definition, but why does it really work? And why is it something that is worth investing in?
MARIA GONZALEZ: Well, you bring about some really important issues, and first of all, let’s just define mindfulness. Mindfulness is not a technique. It’s abcd become known as a technique, but in essence, it’s not a technique. It’s a skill.
It’s the skill of being fully present and fully aware, and what that means is that you’re not trying to change the circumstance, the way you’re perceiving the circumstance. You’re just aware of what is, plain and simple. You’re aware of th