By Elba Mueller
​In order to remain competitive in today’s market, successful companies need:

• To possess a clear vision of their goals
• Inspiration to be innovative in their approach to supplying products and services
• Leadership to guide individuals towards success
• Teamwork to enable employees to keep up in today’s global marketplace

The practice of meditation helps to make all of this possible. The Harvard Business School along with INSEAD—Europe’s leading business school—have concluded from their research that the two most effective business tools for twenty-first century executives are meditation and intuition. The benefits of meditation in the workplace are cumulative; they build on one another, starting with the individual and from there, positively impacting the performance of the business as a whole.

The success of any business begins with the individual because innovation and inspiration are born at the individual level. The potential for greatness is inside each person that realizes there are infinite possibilities all around them, and that their creativity is limitless. Unfortunately, most individuals find that their potential is seriously limited by stress, which can:

• Block creativity, inspiration, and mental clarity
• Damage relationships with others, which in turn negatively impacts teamwork
• Cause insomnia, which leads to a decrease in new thinking, inspiration, and innovation
• Cause anxiety, which can make it difficult to work on a team that requires patience and collaboration 
• Cause individuals to doubt their true talents, which can lead to limiting thoughts and inhibit drive and passion

Meditation has been around for thousands of years, and has survived all this time because it works. My passion for bringing meditation to the workplace stems from the time I spent in the workplace and suffered the negative effects of stress almost every day of my working life. Not only was I unproductive and difficult to work with, I also felt tired and irritable most the time. I was sick quite often, and whatever creativity I possessed was nowhere to be found. There was no clarity or peace in my personal life, which led to none in my working life.
Today, I consider myself a ‘stress survivor,’ thanks to my meditation practice. As living proof, I know meditation can benefit any individual or business in limitless ways. Here are the top five benefits I feel meditation brings to the business world:  

"When was the last time you sat quietly at your desk and did nothing but think? How would you react if you observed a peer, employee, or manager doing so? Encouraging employees to slow down to focus on the present can seem at odds with a corporate culture of speed and goal attainment. But in today’s hyper-paced work environment, mindfulness practitioners know the importance of recharging in order to regain productivity. And mindfulness research is convincing many managers that investing in reflection, openness, and thoughtfulness will have a positive impact on employees and on the bottom line." Source: https://hbr.org/2015/12/why-google-target-and-general-mills-are-investing-in-mindfulness​