What I Found at Search Inside Yourself
I’ve already shared with many of you my excitement at becoming certified as a Search Inside Yourself (SIY) teacher. But, if you’re not yet familiar with Search Inside Yourself and its practical approach to incorporating mindfulness into your daily personal and professional lives, please spend a few moments on our brand new Leadership Development (SIY) page for more insight into the program and the life-changing experience it offers.
Rather than describe what SIY is here again, I’d like to tell you a very personal story about how I discovered SIY and how it has impacted my life deeply and profoundly. I first learned about the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute a few years ago from a good friend in the financial services industry who knew of my commitment to mindfulness practice and interest in the concept of emotional intelligence and compassionate, insightful leaders.
Intrigued, I went to the SIY website and was immediately struck that finally here was a mindfulness-based leadership development program—born at Google and embraced across the globe in corporate settings—that was secular in nature and that truly integrated the practical benefits of mindfulness into everyday corporate American life, delivering ROI on both the business and wellbeing end.
That resonated deeply with me, particularly at that moment. I was then senior vice president at Fossil, leading the Americas business unit. We were going through a massive corporate reorganization and at the same time facing the challenges of the dramatic shift in the retail landscape from brick-and-mortar to digital businesses.
It was a very stressful and uncertain period for everyone in the industry. Personally, I was searching for ways to deepen my own mindfulness practice and to integrate the benefits into my professional life and my relationships with peers, team members, and clients. I was also navigating high levels of stress, challenge, and uncertainty on the home front as a caretaker for someone I love deeply.
I decided to commit to my own learning and leadership development, and I booked my ticket to attend a two-day SIY experience in Detroit. The impact on my life has been transformational.
From the very first session, I realized that others in the room—an incredible blend of professionals, entrepreneurs, and executives from a broad cross-section of corporate America—were all seeking ways to show up every day as their best selves in all aspects of their lives.
Everyone seemed to be navigating uncertainty, disruption, and stress and at the same time looking to tap into their true purpose, deepen self-awareness, and connect with their own values to avoid getting swallowed up in the chaos and change swirling around them. These were definitely people with whom I could identify and relate.
As we journeyed together through the two-day experience, we not only learned about the theory and neuroscience of mindfulness, we also practiced ways to incorporate it into daily life—at home and at work—so we could embrace resiliency, enhance communication, feel more empowered, and find more focus and clarity amidst all the noise and clutter.
The enduring beauty of the program is that after the in-person training, we received 28 days of digital follow-up, inviting us to embrace and engage in the practices we’d learned. It was a mix of micro practices—something you could do while sitting at a red light in traffic or just before going into a meeting—and longer practices that might take 10 to 20 minutes or more. All focused on becoming more grounded, connected, compassionate and aware. SIY also pairs you with a buddy, someone with whom you’ve engaged during the program so you can check in with each other once a week in a structured way to get and give support and encouragement to continue your practice.
The idea is that if you can actively incorporate mindfulness into your life every single day, you start to let go of conditioned responses and biases that feed emotional reactivity and stress. Instead, you begin to develop new habits and new ways of responding that can make you a more effective, equanimous leader and team member, shifting from autopilot to aware and from compulsion to choice.
I know from my own personal experience that SIY delivers on its promise. As a pragmatic business person, anecdotal evidence is important, but I’m also gratified that research has documented statistically significant improvements among SIY participants in reducing stress while increasing resilience, focus, and the ability to collaborate and manage challenging situations. I’d be happy to share more details about those findings on request.
For me, SIY offers an easily accessible, very practical approach to constructing a personal roadmap to my own purpose and engagement and to becoming my most authentic, empathetic and effective human being in every aspect of life. That’s why I felt compelled to learn more about the program and eventually to bring it to others as a Certified SIY Teacher through Inseus.
Contact me now if you’d like to learn more about SIY and how Inseus can bring it’s transformational effect to your organization.
Mindfully yours,
Ashley