How can something so chill seem so intimidating? If you’re like many business types, the thought of adding meditation to your routine can seem impossible. How do you sit quietly when you live in high gear? Today I’ll share how to work meditation into your morning routine so you can access your best ideas and inner wisdom. The best part? You don’t even have to sit quietly in the lotus pose to do it! From taking longer showers to solo hikes, you’ll be amazed that reaping the benefits of meditation is much simpler than you think.

Read transcript below:

Steve Napolitan: Welcome to More Business More Life Daily. And today, I want to talk about meditation and what an impact it’s made on my life. So meditation, some of us are maybe not feeling it, we don’t know how to do it. All these things pop up in our head, especially for me, like I’m a very active person. My mindset, my mind just goes, and so to sit and think of nothing was very difficult sounding to me.

What I found is meditation is different for every person. Mine are very active. My mind starts to go in different places and it definitely helps me to have a meeting with myself of like what’s going on for me and to have… Now I’ve had full downloads for business plans. I’ve filled up pages in my journal from ideas that come from just taking time with myself.

So one thing that we can do is really just notice that sometimes we’re so busy in life, and we’re doing the day to days, and we don’t give enough time for ourselves to actually slow down and recognize what’s going on for us. It’s helped me in decision making and all of these things.

Because when you’re going all the time, you can’t actually hear your own thoughts. When we can quiet ourselves enough to register and get those ideas, they come to us. They’re already there. It made me realize how much wiser we all are. Like you definitely have more ideas than you can ever imagine.

Now, we have to have a place to start. One thing a meditation coach, a friend of mine from Australia, he said, “If you don’t meditate then take longer showers. Because in the shower…” So meditation can occur in many different ways. That’s why sometimes going on a walk, or going on a hike, doing things that we don’t have to focus on just to get ourselves away from electronics, get ourselves away from a conversation. So it’s like walking.

One of my clients, I have clients come out to the property here and we kind of get away. I’ll do like a one day with a client and we’ll take time. We talk a lot because we’re going over strategies and we’re putting things on the flip chart.

One thing that I’ve recently tried out with one of my clients was we didn’t talk at all during lunch. We sat there and ate together, but we just had the whole lunch with no talking. Then we actually talked about and we did it outside. We talked about what things did we hear, what came up in our mind. It’s a form of meditation.

So I, first and foremost, want you to know that you don’t have to freak out about meditation. You just have to give yourself some space to think, to let your mind be. I started with small chunks. So this is now, it’s been over a decade I’ve been meditating consistently every single day. Mornings are the best time because if you wait till later, the day can get away from you. It’s the best thing just to get it done in the morning, to get this practice started.

There are times, like right now I’m doing a practice where I’m meditating in the morning, then I’m meditating on workdays when I finish work, just a short one just to reset myself for my family time. Then the third time, right before I go to sleep.

Now, I’m not recommending to start with such activity. I’d start small. What I had to do is I just start with just five minutes. I just sat on the edge of my bed as I woke up and I said, what am I… Well first, number one, I started breathing deeply, and that is relaxing.

I was talking to someone that helps people quit smoking and they said that a cigarette is 10 deep breaths. On average, it’s 10 deep breaths is one cigarette. Just think of that. And so they use that as a practice. When you feel like you want to smoke, just take 10 deep breaths and then notice if you still need that cigarette.

It’s interesting. It’s just one thing. I’m not saying it’s foolproof or that’s the way to quit smoking. But it was just the idea of that, when we notice getting that oxygen to our brain and breathing it into our body, like feeling the air, fill our belly, like not just fill the lungs, but filling the whole body. So I usually breathe down and then when I exhale, breathe out. So breathe in down my body, breathe out. Just doing that breathing just for a little bit about a minute.

Then I would notice what I’m grateful for, for a minute. Then I would notice what I wanted from that day. Then I would start to visualize like what I wanted from that day. Then for the last couple of minutes, I would visualize the bigger outcome that I would want in my life.

So it’s kind of like a visualization mixed with meditation or, or it is meditation. Again, what do we define that is? Many teachers will define meditation in different ways, but I think it’s just time with ourselves. That’s I take it in as. So just having that practice allowed me for a small amount to build on this.

Then after I did that for a while, then I started getting guided meditation from other people. Kelly Howell. So, Kelly K-E-L-L-Y, Howell H-O-W-E-L-L. I have no affiliation with her. I’ve never met her. I should reach out to her. I recommend her a lot because her guided meditations helped me help me a lot. Really get into the groove.

Now there’s so many apps like Headspace and different places that you can use. Even one of my friends, Bronkar Lee he talks, and he’s been on some of my podcasts and my shows. He has meditations that don’t suck and he also has brain beats music, so you can look that up, brain beats music. There’s lots of things out there.

So just a way to get you started, the root of today’s… Or the ultimate thing, if we boil it down for today’s message is just start, just start meditating, three to five minutes a day on the edge of your bed. Then obviously, I can tell you more tips and things that I’ve learned over the years, but it’s changed my life.

The last thing I’ll tell you… I know this video is a little longer, I try to keep these about five minutes. But when I started meditating, I was still working really hard and my wife was like, “Really? You’re going to meditate now too? One more thing to take you away from the family?” I had to veto that because I really felt in my heart that I needed to do this, and I did.

Then shortly after that, like a couple of months into this, I remember it was a Sunday, we’re having a brunch, my family at home, and we’re sitting there. Then my son said, and he was quite young at this time, like so probably four or five, I guess about five years old. Then he said, “Dad, did you meditate today?” Then I said, “No.” And he said, “I could tell.” I mean maybe he was six or something. I don’t remember the age right around there. Then my wife said, “Yeah, me too.”

So now it’s the total opposite. Now it’s just part of my life. It just happens every day, no matter what. I meditated today, it’s just part of my life. But there were times when I was still learning and there was days that I didn’t. Then my family would say, “Hey, I think you should go meditate.” It was the opposite of taking away from our family unit. It actually added to because it calmed me down, and I had a different demeanor on the days that I meditated.

So just give it a try. What do you have to lose? Sit on the edge of your bed. Breathe in. Find your gratitude. Find what you want for today, and find what your bigger dream is for four or five minutes, and then off to your day. I hope this serves you. I look forward to continuing to help you out with these videos. And as always, remember, choose gratitude, and create freedom.