Preparing the Mind

“Before we start, I’d like us to take a moment and take three deep breaths... focusing our attention on the inhale... and then lengthening the exhale...”

Since starting the journey to becoming an executive coach, I’ve been in a million interactions that have started with this kind of exercise. Some would call that “centering.” 

I go along with it, but inside, I’m usually thinking, “Can’t we just get this going?”

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I was recently talking to a coaching colleague, and the conversation turned to how the language we use in our profession doesn’t always resonate with those who spend less of their time thinking about their feelings and scrutinizing their mental patterns. Hence, we suggest starting interactions with centering, and others say, “What???”

But centering eventually started resonating with me when I started to think of it as just preparing the mind for the interaction to come. And once I’d made that connection, I saw centering exercises all over the place. 

An executive leadership program I support always starts its meetings with uplifting music, like “Lovely Day” or “Shine.” And for me, the sound always signals, “I’m in this new thing—let me shift my mindset.” That’s centering.

During their championship runs, the Chicago Bulls had that one guy end their pre-game huddle with, “What time is it???” Everyone responded, “Game time!” That’s centering.

A coaching colleague whose faith is an important part of his practice sometimes plays worship music and says a prayer with his client to help them get into the right mind space. That’s centering, too. 

In the design world, people do “stokes,” or physical warmups, before brainstorming sessions. Yes, that’s to get the right energy level for creativity. Centering.

Amy Cuddy’s research on presence indicates that “power posing” is helpful in getting our mindset and physiology in the right place for performance. Yes, that’s centering.

And before taking a test in college, I’d always play “Eye of the Tiger” and the first 1:15 of “Final Countdown”—the latter because it primed me to think about the Detroit Pistons Bad Boys era. 

Of course, listening to the songs didn’t make up for any lack of knowledge I had going into those tests, but it did make sure I was in the right mindset! :)

Call it centering, call it a prep routine—the point is this: Even if we’re not wired to the woo-woo exercises that we might do in a meditation retreat, the existence of practices across these varied contexts should signal that there’s surely a benefit in thinking about how we get ourselves ready for whatever we need to do.

For my money, the simplest form of centering is just taking the time. It’s having a break between each meeting and asking, “How do I want to show up in this next interaction?” 

For many of us, that’s enough to get ready. 

It can also be a challenge with the seemingly endless stream of back-to-back meetings and the lack of the natural breaks—e.g., walking from one meeting room to another—that many of us enjoyed before the pandemic. 

Hence, we may have to be selfish and proactive about taking those breaks! As I posed to a client: Is it better to be on-time and frazzled for the whole meeting, or to be one minute late and be at your best for the other 59?