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Ravi0:17Welcome to the Motivated Life podcast. I'm Ravi Raman. On today's episode, I'll be interviewing Jim Posner of The Mindful Advantage. Jim is a Wall Street traitor turned mindfulness meditation teacher. And he's going to join me to discuss the value of meditation, what mindfulness meditation actually is and how to do it. And also, we're going to go into. quite a bit of depth regarding his career transition. And I'm fascinated with people who make career transitions, and Jim's is one of note, going from an equities trader on Wall Street to being laid off and not doing the thing that I would have imagined he would have done, which is go out and look for another job in finance.
Instead, he turned 180 degrees. and went on a journey to study mindfulness meditation and eventually become a teacher and now running a business, helping other people lower stress and anxiety through mindfulness meditation. So we just scratched the surface of meditation and what it is and how to do it, but hopefully this will give you a bit of an understanding of the benefits of mindfulness practice can hold. If you are so inclined, you can check out Jim, Jim Posner's information where he has various videos talking about mindfulness and also some writing he's done on the topic.
He also does workshop and training in person as well. You can find all that information on his website. And regardless, I think his story of career transition may be insightful to many people who are wondering what their next step in their career is going to be. and perhaps those who have been laid off or are thinking about a bigger change, it might give you some inspiration to think about what you'd really want to do with the next act in your career. With that, I bring you Jim Posner.
Jim, welcome to the podcast.
Jim2:37Ravi, thank you so much for having me on.
Ravi2:40Well, by this time in the morning, my guess is you've already meditated for three hours and I'm still working on my first cup of coffee, huh?
Jim2:49Such as the time zone difference, but yeah, not quite three hours, but I like to get in a solid half hour every morning. Okay, yeah, awesome.
Ravi2:59Well, how would you describe your current career? And then, of course, I want to spend some time talking about your journey to what you do now, but how would you describe what you currently do? Sure.
Jim3:11So right now, I teach mindfulness meditation, And what that really means is I use mindfulness techniques to teach people how to manage their stress and achieve peak performance. And the way I work is I teach workshops to groups of people at corporations. I've worked with a lot of high-profile schools here in New York City. I've worked with a number of C-suite individuals. I've also worked with some athletic teams on the college level. So that's what that looks like and a little bit of the way it works with mindfulness.
What it really mindfulness really means awareness, so I teach people how to bring a higher sense of awareness to their thoughts, feelings and emotions. And when you can do that, ultimately what happens is, instead of your thoughts, feelings and emotions controlling you, you can actually control your thoughts, feelings and emotions, and if you really just stop and think about that for a moment, I can't really think of a more powerful skill than being able to get control of your thoughts, feelings and emotions. So you know, as we speak further, I'll get into more of how that works, right, All right.
Now, you walk us from, if
Ravi4:46We were to go back to the beginning and look more at your journey. You have a, let me say, an unconventional path into what you're doing right now at least unconventional based on, I would imagine. You're a psychologist or a psychiatrist, or maybe in a healing profession, and you've migrated into mindfulness, but you seem to have come from the diametrically opposed point on the career spectrum to where you are now. So tell us a bit about your journey to become the mindfulness meditation teacher you are now.
Jim5:17Yeah, sure. It's a good question. And one I think a lot of people find is quite interesting and relatable. So in 2003, I was working on Wall Street. And I had just kind of switched careers a few years earlier to Wall Street. So the Internet bubble kind of had just burst at that time. And the company I was working at, I would say, I was probably, probably one of the last hires, and then when the internet bubble imploded, the layoffs just started to roll on Wall Street.
And in 2003, my number came up and I was laid off. Now, interestingly enough, other things going in my life included the fact that my wife was pregnant with our first child. So I just became an anxiety riddled mess. I couldn't sleep at night. I was just constantly worried about the future. How am I going to get another job? How am I going to pay the bills? How much more money do I have in the bank before we get kicked to the street? So I was constantly worried about the future and I was really, quite frankly, pissed off about the past.
Why did I get laid off? Why not the other person? My boss was a fucking jerk. So these were the thoughts that were just engulfing me and I couldn't sleep. I really was incapable of thinking clearly, to be quite frank. So you know, you hear this term all the time being present. Well, I was incapable of being present again, just constantly worried about the future and ruminating about the past. So what did I do? Well, I did what a lot of other Western men tend to do in these situations.
I started to drink quite heavily. It was really the only way I could shut my mind off from all these negative thoughts. Of course, drinking heavily is not a very good solution and only exacerbated the problem. And then, you know, one night I was staring at the ceiling and I just said to myself I got to do something, something else. So I decided that I was going to go see a psychologist, who put me in touch with a psychiatrist who prescribed some antidepressants for me. And you know, that whole process didn't really resonate with me.
I know it's a very good solution for a lot of people, but for me I just felt like it was a band-aid. You know on a, Did you?
Ravi8:00find that it helped did that working with the psychologist and the medication did it help you or did it not fully?
Jim8:08I would say it softened some of the intensity of the feelings that I was having and maybe it helped help me sleep a little bit better. But again, I didn't feel like it was really getting to the root of the problem for me. I just felt like this was, you know, again, masking the problem and not really helping me. I was still just unable to stop the flow of negative thoughts that I was having. So it was a really difficult time. And then I started to have panic attacks.
So I had one panic attack that was so bad. I had to go to the hospital. I thought I was having a heart attack. And the only good thing that came out of that event was that the emergency. emergency room doctor said to me, you know what, 50% of all the people that I see in here every day are here because of an anxiety attack. So I walked out of the hospital and I still didn't have any solutions, but I felt a little bit better in the sense that, hey, you know what, I'm not the only one according to the emergency room doctor
Ravi9:22that's going through this. And this is in New York, New
Jim9:25York City? This was in New York City, correct. So, you know, again, walked out of there, still didn't have any viable solutions. Here I am trying to get a job and I know I looked like a mess, you know, I just was somebody that was drinking heavily at night. I wasn't sleeping well because of all the anxiety. And, you know, the truth is also, I made this whole event all about me. You know, I'm somebody that I had never really had a failure before. And, you know, in my mind, I made this out to be some sort of failure getting laid off.
But in retrospect, it had nothing to do with me. You know, Wall Street literally imploded. The job that I was doing was called market making, which is basically filling stock orders electronically. And that whole business model completely changed also. I mean, there were a number of changes, but one of them was, you know, the spreads went from quarters to decimals, so when you previously could make 25 cents on a trade, now the spread was, you know, a penny a lot of times. So the whole business model switched, and again, I beat myself up, made this all about me.
I did everything that you shouldn't do when you get laid off, You know. What you should do is call everybody, you know, and say let's go have coffee or can I have a conversation with you and let's talk about what I want to do, and you know how I can move forward. I built this wall around myself and kind of threw myself a pity party, you know. And again, this was before LinkedIn and social media, where we're really cruising along. So, um, you know, I just was in this depressed state.
So, thankfully, after the emergency emergency room incident, a few weeks after that, I met somebody and she said to me you should try something called mindfulness-based stress reduction meditation. So, you know, I heard the term meditation and my mind went to this image of some kind of weird guy, you know, sitting on a mountain in robes, chanting. That's what I thought meditation was, you know. And I think a lot of people get that visual when they hear the term meditation. So, you know, I did a little research and made sure I wasn't joining a cult and I decided that, you know what, I need to try something.
Nothing else that I'm trying is working and something has to change. So I signed up for this eight-week MBSR course, mindfulness-based stress reduction meditation course. And I also decided that, you know what, I'm going on. all in. So I'm going to do what the teachers say. I'm going to do my homework. I'm going to practice. You know, that's what the homework is, is you have class once a week and you have to practice in between. So I went all in and, you know, lo and behold, within a few weeks, I started to really feel a lot better.
And after I've completed the course, within, you know, a couple of I stopped seeing the psychiatrist and was weaned off of the antidepressants. I have never had another panic attack. I had my drinking under control. And I was just feeling a lot better and a lot more confident. So that's how I started down the path of meditating. And
Ravi13:00so this was, you said, 2003 was the layoff. Yeah. And so when did you first, I guess, get exposed to mindfulness? on us work?
Jim13:11Oh, that was probably in about 2004 or late 2003. Okay, Yeah, so you know then, for the longest time, quite frankly, I was this closet meditator. I never told any of my friends And slowly I started to have conversations with my friends. When I'd be kind of in a one-on-one situation with them, I'd say hey, you know, remember a few years ago when I got laid off? I've had a really tough time and I've been meditating ever since and, without question, every single person I had this conversation with said tell me more.
Last year I had an anxiety attack, or I'm going through a reorg at work right now and I'm petrified that I'm going to lose my job. So the light bulb just started to go off. That you know what. This is something that the world really needs And I also realized that, hey, as Western men, here we are, we all have all these feelings that we're internalizing and not talking about. And, you know, everybody needs mindfulness. And it's really just a tool. That's all mindfulness is. I look at it as a tool.
So
Ravi14:30I'd love to go a little deeper into what mindfulness is if you can... Absolutely. I guess, paint a picture of what exactly is the practice. There's meditation, and then there's mindfulness, and there's MBSR, which is mindfulness-based stress reduction. So maybe if you can just talk about those, how they work, and the
Jim14:52logic behind it. Absolutely. So mindfulness is really another term for awareness. MBSR, mindfulness-based stress reduction, is really a course and a process. that a man named John Cabot-Zinn, who set up the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts created. So he created this MBSR course. So that's kind of his copywritten, you know, mindfulness course. And it's taught, you know, all over the world now. And basically, he started this. He was a researcher, I believe, in biophysics or something, at MIT, long-time practitioner of mindfulness. And he thought, you know what, with my research background and analytical background, I think that there's something physical actually going on in the body and the brain when, you know, due to my meditation, something beneficial.
So he kind of went to all these traditional doctors and therapists and said, you know, give me your patients that you've working with that have chronic issues, whether it's pain or anxiety or depression, and you haven't been able to see a whole lot of progress with. And I would like to put them through my MBSR course. So he did that. And lo and behold, I think the results were something like 80% of the people that had these chronic issues with little or to know results previously, went through the MBSR course and started to feel better.
You know, and and now the science also shows. There's a tremendous amount of science literally coming out every day showing the benefits of MBSR and mindfulness. And you know they do. MRIs of of people before they learn to meditate and after they learn to meditate and parts of the brain that are associated with stress and anxiety actually change in a relatively short period of time also right, so I'd love.
Ravi17:01to hear about your, if you can describe, did you have a chance to sit this morning for your meditation? Yes, I did. Okay. Would you mind walking us through what your practice looks like? Yeah, sure.
Jim17:16So I try to sit every morning for 30 minutes. And my practice really consists of sitting down. It's not in any crazy position. I sit on a chair. And the first thing I do is, I bring awareness to my breath and I concentrate on breathing into my diaphragm, just at a relaxed pace. I also, you know, I am sitting with an intention to be present with myself. And then I will bring a little bit of awareness to my body and my posture and just maybe acknowledge the parts of my body that are providing support for me.
just noting the way my feet feel touching the floor, maybe my hips on the chair, my spine, supporting my upper body. And then I will just kind of, for lack of a better term, start to just drop into bringing awareness to my thoughts. And quite frankly, when I catch my thoughts kind of wandering to the future or, you know, worrying about something in the past, I'll start to label the thoughts. And by labeling them, you know, you're kind of bringing them out of the subconscious. And then I'll basically just escort my attention
Ravi18:47back. So by labeling your thoughts, what is that? Is that like saying, okay, I'm just thinking
Jim18:53and thinking. Yeah. So this is how you start out. So, you know, again, this is very much, much what you would call a concentration practice to start out. So when I first sit, I always start with a concentration practice, just concentrating, you know, on awareness of my thoughts. Again, so when I teach, I always tell my story, which I just conveyed a little bit earlier. And the reason is, is it's a really good illustration of what happens to us. We're human, you know. So the seminal moment in meditation is when you recognize that your mind has kind of gone to worries about the future or ruminations about the past.
And you can recognize that and bring that attention back to the present. And using an anchor, such as your breath to do that. So label the thought, bring my attention back to my breath, rest my awareness on my breath for a while and then of course since we're human our mind will start to wander again recognize it again that it's wandered label it bring our attention back to our anchor our breath
Ravi20:04I can imagine someone listening and thinking huh that sounds really simple is that really all there is to it
Jim20:11right well you know what the practice can certainly we can take a much deeper dive you know, as we get further into a practice. But, you know, for starters, that's all there is to it. What we're doing is we're training ourselves to recognize that our mind has gone to useless thoughts or worries about tomorrow or yesterday. So when I was going through my, you know, excuse my friends, but when I was going through my shit, when I got laid off, I could not stop my mind.
I couldn't stop the ruminations, just a constant worry, the constant negative thoughts. And what was going on? Well, those thoughts were very much on a subconscious level. And of course I know I'm having the thoughts, but I just didn't have this higher level of awareness. Again, going back to how we started the conversation, this higher level of awareness of my thoughts. And through the practice, all right, I can recognize that, hey, you know what, here I am. I'm worried about how I'm going to get another job.
Well, worrying about that really doesn't do any good. So recognize it, label it, bring my attention back to my breath. And listen, the other thing is that part of this is that you want to teach yourself to breathe properly. We've actually kind of unlearned how to breathe. A lot of us take these short fight or flight breaths into the chest. So through this practice, again, I mentioned how, you know, it's a concentration practice when we start and when we're first learning. So recognize that your mind has wandered and concentrate on breathing into your belly, into your diaphragm.
And there's a lot of science behind that also to the positive effects. So it helps relax. It helps, you know, it can lower your blood pressure, it can help with hypertension and many other things as well. So, you know, just by tending to the breath, you're also nurturing yourself and calming yourself down through, again, through practicing. Again, you mentioned that it sounds easy, but, you know, it's, it's, it takes practice like, like anything else.
Ravi22:32And my understanding is there are meditators and practitioners who, for an entire lifetime, will simply, cultivate awareness of the breath as the practice. There really is no need to complicate it further.
Jim22:49I would agree 100% with that. I mean, there are, you know, you can get to this, you can kind of delve into other things and when you get to a point where you recognize that you're having a thought and you'd start kind of just start to watch the thoughts from this observer self perspective without judging the thoughts. And, you know, as your practice gets deeper, quite frankly, you can start to play a little bit. But as one of my teachers said, especially if you're having, if you're going through a difficult period or something, the most important thing is just the concentration practice.
Ravi23:31So you mentioned teachers. I'd love to hear from you, your experience in working with teachers, because the idea of such a simple thing is mindfulness might lead people to people to be. believe that, well, I can just,
Jim23:42and I'm sure obviously
Ravi23:43people can and probably should practice and they could start today if they'd like to. But what have you, who have you practiced with? You don't even have to name names, but I'm just curious your experience working with teachers to deepen your own practice and what you've gotten from teachers in the MBSR and meditation world.
Jim24:05So my experience working with teachers and I still work with two in the city is that I think it's like a lot of other, a lot of other things in order. You know I have these weekly or monthly sangas with the two teachers, where they're kind of group meetings, and you know we've all gone through an MBSR course. Many of us are actually teachers now and we sit and we meditate and we also discuss, hey, maybe certain blocks that come up at times or certain hindrances that we might be having.
Because this is a process. You know, I often say it's a practice and a process. And I think it's important to have a teacher. And again, I see my current teachers each once a month. I'm also a member of this teaching collaborative, which meets once a month. So, you know, it's a means of support. which I think is very very important. And it's also some accountability as well. So that's really all I really would have to say about having a teacher. I think it's a little bit similar to having maybe a trainer that you go to the gym for it.
You know, it's like you might do the same exercises every day, but it's some accountability or maybe. somebody can help you through a difficult moment or a plateau period. It
Ravi25:49seems to me that there's something powerful about having an objective observer who can see things that I might not be able to do to just being so captivated by my own thinking. And, well, it's obviously I'm biased. I'm a coach. But I also work with coaches as a coach because. Right. And it's sort of hard to do, it's hard to do a surgery on yourself, so to speak, and it's hard to see things objectively all the time, and having an objective third party can really, really help.
Plus, it can be fun to be part of a group of people doing something and moving in the same direction. Now, I am really curious if we can roll back in time a little bit, because in 2003 you were laid off, and you went through some challenges, and you discovered mindfulness. But at some point, I mean, I can only imagine every fiber of your being at that point was trying to get back into finance, but you chose a different path. Can we talk a little bit about that career pivot, how it happened and what, if anything, was the aha moment that led to that change?
So,
Jim27:03yeah. So actually, it wasn't quite as linear as you're describing. So I did get laid off. I started with my MBSR at the end of 2003 or early 2004. I'm not 100% sure on the timing. But I actually did get another job in finance. So I was working at the New York Mercantile Exchange. And so I did get another job in finance. And I was meditate. This was a time, again, where I was meditating. I had my own practice. Nobody that I was working with at the time knew I had the practice until I had already been there for a few years.
And like I described, I started to kind of slowly tell people. But a select group of people, you know, because I still thought certain people would think that I was weird for being a meditator. Again, I still think it has just the word for whatever reason. And, you know, sometimes people have this weird image. And then, you know, again, after I started to have these conversations, the light bulb went off that, hey, you know what? A lot of people are struggling and meditation really helped me.
I even say it may have saved my life. You know, I was in a really, really bad place. And just self-destructive, you know, just drinking way too much. and so forth. But again, when that light bulb went off, while I was working again on Wall Street, I decided that this was the path that I want to take. So what I did was I started to, on my non-working hours in the evening, I started to do some more work and go down the path of becoming a teacher, just building up my credentials and so forth.
So that's, that's really how that was. Did you
Ravi29:12have an insight that this was what you wanted to do as a vocation, as a career, or did you simply want to deepen your own understanding of it? And the reason I'm asking is, I'm sure there are many people out there considering career changes who are listening. Yeah.
Jim29:27So, yeah, it is, it is what I wanted to do. I decided I wanted to do it. I had conversations with my, with my wife, that this is the path I wanted to go down. She was on board. I thought that it would be a viable career going forward. I also felt that the corporate world, the landscape, had changed a lot, you know, in the sense that I don't think there's any jobs that are secure in the corporate world. You know, there's mergers and acquisitions all the time and headcount changes and riffs.
And, you know, positions being eliminated, you know, I kind of have to laugh because today, I think the millennials get so much criticism for jumping ship so quickly. But, you know, I can't blame them because, quite frankly, there's no loyalty at all from the big corporations. The days of, you know, our fathers working at some company for 30 or 40 years and retiring. and with pension with pension and the toaster and the send-off party or you know that's over i mean it's very rare i mean i really don't know i don't know so i'm 48 you know i don't know anybody any of my peers i really don't who haven't gone through a layoff uh or multiple layoffs and career changes.
So I just felt that going and, you know, staying in the corporate world, I would, you know, basically I have the saying nowadays that the first day you're hired is the countdown till the day you're fired. Now, you know, in the court, I know it sounds a little, a little negative, but that's just really the way I feel. And so I wanted to do something on that my own and, quite frankly, again, the stories that I was hearing from friends of mine who I was talking to and opening up to, just kind of cemented my thoughts about what I wanted to do.
And I've, you know, I've had a lot of people tell me that, hey, you know, if you do this, you're gonna be a great ambassador for this, this practice as well. I would say, you know, I again, my, I think we kind of talk, we've talked a lot about the stereotypes of meditators, and I hope that that's changing and you know, I don't know, maybe it's just me that has the stereotype. I don't think so, but, you know, I don't quite fit the mold of what I think a lot of people think of when they hear the term of this guy is, you know.
Ravi32:22Jim, I was waiting for you to start chanting. Yeah,
Jim32:26exactly. What if you, I'm curious. So for you,
Ravi32:30this is now your full. time gig. You are bringing mindfulness into the world. This is what
Jim32:37you're doing full time, right? Yes.
Ravi32:40What's that been like building your own business? I'd love to hear a few of the lessons that you've learned in building your own
Jim32:47business. Yeah, that's a great question and a good pivot in the conversation, no doubt. It's been hard, and it is hard. And it's been a little more than two years since I started this business. And there's a couple of realizations that I've had. Number one is I was never a salesman in my whole life. All the jobs I've had, I was really never a salesman. So I am now primarily a salesman and I'm selling myself and my services. So that has been one part of the journey.
Another thing that I, quite frankly, I'm basically a public speaker now. I get up in front of groups of people at companies and I teach them how to incorporate mindfulness into their work and their life and how to meditate. And you know, hey, in the very beginning I can't say that I was really confident in my facilitation skills. So that's been another big part of the journey And, heck, I would say, even when I first started I have the story I was dropping my kids off at school and a buddy of mine uh, not so much a real close buddy, but an acquaintance and somebody that's a father of you know my kids friends at school, so saw him outside and he's a hedge fund guy, and we explained, exchanged pleasantries and how was the summer and this and that, and he's like so what are you doing now, this nut?
And I just had just started my company and I said you know I'm teaching mindfulness and he looked at me, tilts his head a little bit and he's like, oh, what's that, you know? And he kind of always is this kind of. Goofy, smiling guy, happy, go lucky, and I just kind of couldn't really explain what it is and I stammered and stuttered and you could tell again typical New York City, Taipei hedge fund guy. He just kind of like cut me off in mid-stammer, slapped me on the back you know on my back and was like all right, well, you know, good luck.
I'll see you around, you know, and he kind of trotted off. And I just sat there, you know, stood there with my mouth agape and just like, wow. I got to figure out, you know, how to convey what my message is and what this is really all about. So, yeah, it's been a lot of eye-opening moments, you know, learn some. something new every day, no doubt, and just I'm continuing to chug on.
Ravi35:29And we actually connected. You've been active online, you know, embracing the online social media tools and online means of connecting with people. In fact, we met through, I guess you can call it sort of an mini online conference you were hosting.
Jim35:46Yes. A summit, okay.
Ravi35:50And so, So has that been one of the, I guess, strategies or ways you've been spreading your message and growing your business? Yeah.
Jim35:58So listen, full disclosure. That was part of a kind of a group coaching program that I had joined. Somebody mentioned I should join. You know the goals of that coaching program, I would say, weren't necessarily aligned with exactly what I wanted to do, but I'm nothing disparaging about that, because I learned a lot and I've actually, you know, from the time we met and that summit that actually spurred the idea for something I'm doing now, which I'm very passionate about, and that's it's an interview series called the Don't Panic Project, and the mission statement is engaging conversations to help empower, educate and inspire people suffering from stress, anxiety and depression.
So I'm interviewing as many people as I can, quite frankly. So professionals in the industry, so psychiatrists, psychologists, neuroscientists, best-selling authors, meditation experts, happiness experts, just anybody that might be able to provide a solution for people that are struggling with their own issues. And then on the other side of it, I have been interviewing, you know, just interesting people that have struggled. with severe anxiety and are now thriving, so I'm trying to, you know, anxiety and depression and stress and they're now thriving. So what worked for you?
How did you kind of get through your dark periods? So, you know, I just interviewed Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian, which was turned into a big Hollywood movie. He actually suffered from stress and depression and anxiety for most of his life. I've interviewed a former U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 member. Why did I interview him? Well, he's somebody that knows how to deal with stress, you know. So I'm just interviewing a lot of people and it's, I'm just really trying to create a reference library of interviews and information for people to be able to access.
Are there a couple
Ravi38:09common themes that have come from your interviews around I guess things that you've learned that that people have discovered as things that are helpful for them. Yeah, that's a
Jim38:19great question. I think you're going to find the answer pretty interesting, actually. One theme that comes up a lot, especially amongst professionals and even people that have suffered and, you know, have worked their way through, is the idea of practicing gratitude. So what does that mean? You can practice gratitude in a number of different ways. You can simply write down three things that you're thankful for every day. You could go through kind of a self-kindness, I call it loving kindness mantra towards yourself and towards others.
You can just make a point of kind of smiling at, people and being thankful, you know, more often. And there's a lot of science behind this, actually. It really can help you reprogram the way you think. So instead of immediately kind of going to the negative thought process that so many of us tend to do so often when something doesn't seem like it's going your way, you can learn to kind of flip the switch by practicing gratitude. So if you write down these three gratitudes every day or just kind of go through a little loving kindness mantra every day.
You're literally reprogramming your brain and, you know, going back to the science that I was touching on earlier of mindfulness and how it can change your brain. Well, you know, gratitude practice. Remember how I said mindfulness is really just awareness, so we're cultivating this higher level of awareness. So by practicing gratitude, the second you say to yourself, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to practice gratitude in this moment of, you know, stress, you're bringing awareness to the fact that, hey, I'm feeling stressed right now.
Let me flip the switch by practicing gratitude or being thankful for something or going to a little kind of loving kindness mantra. So it's really powerful. So it's amazing that, you know, in a number of the interviews, it's become one of the primary topics of discussion, I would say. I even, you know, interviewed an author, his name is Bob Litwin, and the name of the book is escaping me right now, but he works with hedge funds and, you know, top finance people, and, you know, he has them write down.
So he has these type A, you know, New York City hedge fund guys, you know, writing down gratitudes on a daily basis to help them. It just, you know, it helps them basically ground themselves.
Ravi41:09So is this live the best story of your life? Yes, it is, actually. Thank you. Okay. So practicing gratitude is one of the major themes here. Are there any other themes that have come up?
Jim41:24Well, yeah. I mean, listen, anchoring yourself with, you know, focusing on the breath comes up a lot and cultivating awareness and learning how to label your feelings and so forth when you're talking about mindfulness and meditation. Okay.
Ravi41:44Well, I know we just have a few more minutes, but I would like to pick your brain a bit with your years of practicing mindfulness. I'm curious if you can go back to that time in 2003, 2004, when you were discovering mindfulness, and give yourself a couple pieces of advice regarding your practice or it could even be regarding your career change, what would you tell yourself?
Jim42:11Well, listen, you know, I like this quote by Mark Twain, which says most of the worst things in your life don't actually ever happen to you. So, you know, it's the stories we tell ourselves, which are, quite often never come true. And, you know, I, I don't have any regrets about my career choices. You know, like I said, I'm 48. Wall Street was actually one career for me. Prior to that, I was in real estate and owned a construction company. And then, you know, I got bit by the Wall Street bug.
I don't have any regrets about any of those career choices. And I, you know, I think they've all been part of my journey and helped make me, you know, the person I am today, which, hey, I'm, I'm proud of. You know, it's not easy being a solopreneur and doing this work, but it's rewarding. So,
Ravi43:27well, Jim, I can, I can definitely relate. And I guess to close it out, if someone is interested in learning more about mindfulness, learning more about you and your work, where would they go to learn about mindfulness? I don't know if you have a website or a book that was influential in your own study and then also to connect with you.
Jim43:47Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. So my website is The Mindful Advantage. So you can also email me, Jim Posner at The Mindfuladvantage.com. I've worked with a number, you know, a lot of companies and individuals, as I said. So I would love to speak to anybody who is interested in learning more about how mindfulness can help them or their company. I also, my interview series is called The Don't Panic Project. So you can go to www. the don't panic project.com. You can also see all the conversations on my YouTube channel.
It's Jim Posner, is that you can do a search Jim Posner, in YouTube or the Don't Panic Project, and also a lot of those conversations are available on iTunes. And as far as, if you're interested in just starting to investigate mindfulness on your own, as I mentioned earlier, I would recommend reading any books by John Kabat-Zinn. So that's K-A-B-A-T-I-N-N.
Ravi44:54wonderful well Jim I appreciate your coming on the podcast and hopefully we can do this again sometime soon. Yeah,
Jim45:01absolutely. Thanks so much for having me, Ravi. And hey, you know what, this whole journey that I've just been talking about, it's how I met you. And I've actually met a lot of really, really great, wonderful, smart, nice people through this journey that I've been on. So, you know, I'm grateful for that as well. Have a great
Ravi45:23Day You too. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please share it with your friends and, even better, go ahead and give this podcast a rating using your phone. Your rating helps other people to discover the podcast. If you want to find show notes and links to some of the things we discussed today, you can find that. Find all that info at my website ravi raman dot com. Forward slash podcast and just click on the episode. That's it. I'll see you next time.
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