5 ways to make your work life more mindful—and more successful

Along with being one of the most in-demand Kundalini yoga teachers in the country, Guru Jagat wears another hat: that of an entrepreneur and CEO. Here, the Well+Good Council member) shares five lessons that can your work life more mindful…and more powerful, too.

“It is a cosmic law that you cannot be a failure.” —Yogi Bhajan

Today, we are watching the work, leadership, and political sector transform with increasing velocity. A massive shift of power is happening across all sectors of leadership. I think it’s fascinating (and important) to discuss how to create and define the new era of women’s workplace and culture within an organic space—outside the reactivity that has been prevalent in post-feminist movements across the planet.

One of the elements of the workplace that requires a transformation is how women operate a workplace. What standards, what conditions, what deconditioning needs to take place to recalibrate the tenets of collaboration and creativity? Part of what is still happening across sectors (and we saw this very critically in the political arena) is a toxic mimic of “power behavior” and thought processes. It’s the idea that to be a strong woman at the head of our career and lives, we have to repeat the patterns and mores of “a man’s world.” This is a myth that I am taking head on in my own life and as I carefully create the culture of my wellness brand, RA MA.

Establishing the feminine workplace culture is a big part of my daily meditation.

As a female entrepreneur and leader of a global team of intelligent, creative, powerful women, establishing the feminine workplace culture is a big part of my daily meditation. In this endeavor, I recently gathered the senior members of my global team, as well as a number of my advisors in all sectors, for a secret, two-day retreat in Idyllwild, CA—a magical mountain town just two hours outside of Los Angeles. I’d like to let you in on five of our best practices for creating power and effectiveness with women in the workplace.

Know the Trinity Cycle of Success

One of my most effective business practices is to employ the teachings of Yogi Bhajan, a business genius who built seven multi-million dollar companies, some which are still leaders in their field today.

During the RA MA corporate retreat, I pulled one of Yogi Bhajan’s more advanced wealth and success teachings called the Trinity Cycle of Success. It’s a multi-layered teaching, but the basis of it is this:

You have an Individual Transactional Capacity that is unlike anyone else. You also have a Universal Core that is common with all. If you want to increase your success, increase your Individual Transactional Capacity—which is something that is yours and yours alone. This will then increase your creative capacity of life force—which is common with all. You will then find yourself more energized, fulfilled, and collaborative than ever before.

This teaching is powerful. And if you really get it, it will deliver numerical results to you over and over again. However, I also find this teaching to be quite significant in the female workplace.

One of the biggest hangovers from the previous age is a sense that we as women need to blend in, or be like someone else, or that someone else can probably do it better, or that we have to compete with our coworkers in order to succeed. You don’t have to be like anyone else, you can’t be like anyone else, no one else can do it better, and you don’t need to compete.

You just have to amplify your Individual Transactional Capacity. That’s the key to success.

Let go of time scarcity

…and self-importance, while you’re at it. In this quick-moving, ever-changing landscape, there’s no end to what will be asked of you. In order to counteract the demands of the times, we need new tools and new ways of bending the time-space continuum.

A lot of our time is actually wasted in anxiety, complaints, and resistance about how much we have to do.

A lot of our time is actually wasted in anxiety, complaints, and resistance about how much we have to do. This is essentially just self-importance. You’re not being asked to do anything more than exactly what you are capable of. The more in command you are of your own time and space, the more can happen. That’s when business (and life) starts to get exciting! You become magnetic in your efficiency and ease.

One of my favorite time-management techniques is timed tasks. It’s not a new technique, but I’ve put a little spin on it. As an experiment at the RA MA Corporate Retreat, instead of setting our timers for 15 or 30 minutes, we set our timers for 22 minutes. I chose the number 22 because it is a number of mastery in the yogic traditions—transforming time and space. In numerology, 22 is the considered one of the most powerful of all numbers. It is called the Master Builder and can turn the most ambitious of dreams into reality and success. It was an educated guess to try it out for timed work tasks, but we were all astonished by the level of accomplishment during that sequence. Try implementing it in your personal tasks and with your team and see what happens.

Embrace the feminine

No girl-boss, corporate retreat could be complete without a group spa outing, especially in the wellness sector. Ours was laden with group acupuncture sessions with Idyllwild’s best healer, radiant shopping in the local crystal shops, and yummy communal dinners that we cooked together.

It was also a time where critical expectations were set and met. As a CEO with a lot of female employees, I’m a firm believer in honoring feminine cultural values and qualities within the workplace. That means intermittent group wellness afternoons and dedicated chit-chat time. Dedicated time for non-work related conversations is important, and it’s yogically proven to increase productivity. In India, it’s called Peanut Hour. It calms the feminine mind, bonds the energy field of the group, and can make your team intrinsically creative and collaborative.

When women hold themselves and each other to excellence, they deliver deeply.

At the same time, I find that sometimes the natural feminine disposition for “tending and befriending” can allow critical oversights to go unacknowledged, or that women would rather talk behind each other’s backs than confront a problem. When a team of ambitious women are afraid to hold each other compassionately to top caliber work and creative ethos, things can go awry easily.

Within the RA MA corporate structures, I hold a very high standard of accountability. We have rigorous and clear workplace delivery expectations, all the while having fun and collaborating extensively with each other. When someone does not meet their expectations, it’s addressed in a friendly, frank way. I find that when women hold themselves and each other to excellence, they deliver deeply and with meaning.

Start a praise circle

I’m a big believer in the power of the praise circle. It’s an incredible opportunity to connect with and lift up other women. I’ve written about our experience at the retreat, with advice on incorporating this idea into your own professional setting. In our case, we’ve seen great advances in workplace and functionality from that extended praise circle. I truly believe that impact it made on my team can’t really be measured.

Make the most of your team

If you really want to succeed in this world—if you want to grow and you want to make any kind of impact—you have to amplify the materials you have already at hand. That means maximizing the talents of your team.

One of the best ways I’ve seen this work is to connect team members who don’t necessarily work on the same projects and have each one share a secret skill. No one would have expected the RA MA Global Director of Operations to be an accomplished singer. But this woman who works in an otherwise numbers-based job has a lyrical gift! Her talent activated a latent creativity in the rest of the team and opened up a whole new realm of our brand projection.

The people around us are infinite mysteries and can often offer more to a project than we realize.

The people around us and whom we hire are infinite mysteries and can often offer more to a project than we realize, if we only know the right ways to open them up. The women’s workplace that slays together stays together.

My intention in sharing these secrets from the RA MA Global Corporate retreat is that they assist you in launching and accelerating your gifts and leadership in the world. If you are a leader in this time (which you are, even if you don’t think so!), I invite you to create a group energetic field or culture that is creative, effective, high-velocity, and elegantly positive. That means continuously educating yourself, holding yourself to the highest accountability, tuning into your group, and holding a container of power, elegance, and growth. This means people look up to you when you become a human of substance, a true role model, and someone who is healthy enough physically, mentally, and emotionally to inspire others to be the same.

Women are the most primed in recent his/herstory to offer a whole new value set in all areas of society at this time. The diversity, power, depth and compassion of woman gives her the unique perspectives and genius that are actually required for the true evolution of the human race. May we all continue to rework our understanding and experience of true power and what it means to have influence as leaders, creators, parents, and business people.

Guru Jagat is the founder of RA MA Institute for Applied Yogic Science and Technology, a Kundalini yoga school with locations in Venice, CA; Mallorca, Spain; and New York City, and the author of the best-selling book Invincible Living: The Power of Yoga, The Energy of Breath, and Other Tools for a Radiant Life. In 2017 Guru Jagat created the Aquarian Women’s Leadership Society, which has members in over 20 countries, and she is also the founder and CEO of RA MA TV; RA MA Records; and the RA MA Foundation.

What should Guru Jagat write about next? Send your questions and suggestions to [email protected].