The last couple of months have knocked me completely out of rhythm.
First it was toxic mold in my Los Angeles apartment. Then living out of a suitcase at friends’ homes. Then a move to Miami. Then straight into a stretch of events and travel. Somewhere in all of that, my morning routine disappeared.
And when the routine went away, so did my focus.
I’d wake up and immediately feel behind. I’d sit down to write for thirty minutes, only to end up seven minutes in with seventeen tabs open in Google Chrome and no idea how I got there. My mind felt stuck in hypervigilance after everything that had happened—not just the last two months, but the last few years.
Around that same time, my meditation practice had also shifted. I’d moved from mindfulness to A Course in Miracles. While the Course has helped me in ways I can’t even fully explain, it takes a level of mental discipline that’s tough to access when your nervous system is fried. The Course has a line: “You are much too tolerant of mind wandering.” And it’s true. Half the time we don’t even realize it’s happening.
How To Stop Chasing The Day
A couple weeks ago I was talking to my coach and said, “I feel like I’m constantly chasing the day.”
Her response: “We need to get you back into your body.”
Meaning: back into the present moment.
Because when the present feels overwhelming, the mind jumps into the future. It convinces us that strategizing, planning, and problem-solving will create safety. But all it really does is pull us away from the moment we’re actually living. She gave me a grounding exercise—simple, informal, unstructured. But my mind was all over the place. I needed more support than that.
After a few days I realized what I needed.
When I worked with basketball players, whenever someone lost their rhythm, we always went back to the fundamentals. Back to the spot on the floor where they felt confident. Back to easy reps. Back to something that helped them remember what it feels like to get the ball through the net.
I realized I had to do the same thing.
So I went back to the very first practice I started over a decade ago—the one I still teach leaders and teams: mindfulness.
I reopened Tara Brach’s work.
I logged back into the Headspace app.
I went back to my breath as my anchor.
One inhale. One exhale. One moment.
And almost immediately I noticed the shift.
My mornings weren’t chaotic anymore.
I wasn’t chasing the day—I was in it.
My writing routine came back online.
Why Mindfulness Works for Leaders
Research keeps reinforcing what lived experience has already taught:
- Mindfulness reduces attentional drift.
A study in the Harvard Business Review found that mindfulness significantly improves sustained focus, decision quality, and emotional regulation under pressure (source).
- It increases cognitive control.
Neuroscientists at Carnegie Mellon showed that even brief mindfulness practices reduce rumination and enhance executive functioning—key ingredients for leadership clarity (source).
- It gives back time by sharpening focus.
Mindfulness doesn’t slow you down—it eliminates mental noise. Peak performers don’t win because they have more time. They win because they waste less attention.
The Leadership Advantage Hidden in Plain Sight
One of the biggest myths I hear is that mindfulness demands time leaders don’t have.
But the truth is the opposite: it creates time.
You start the day with clarity.
You carry that clarity into every conversation.
You notice the drift at 12:17 PM and pull yourself back without losing the next hour.
This isn’t about perfection.
It’s about awareness.
It’s about returning—again and again—to the moment that’s actually happening, not the one your mind is trying to predict.
My external circumstances haven’t calmed down. But my internal state has. And that’s the part I can actually lead.
Sometimes the answer isn’t a new strategy, a new framework, or a new system.
Sometimes it’s going back to what worked before you drifted away.
For me, that meant going back to my breath.
Back to presence.
Back to the fundamentals.
Back to the moment.
Moment by moment.
