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Brett Hill is an expert on mindfulness and coach, creator of The Language of Mindfulness, soon to be a book, training, and TEDx talk (2021). Brett has spent many years studying and practicing mindfulness in many forms. He studied Hakomi, a mindfulness-based somatic psychology with founder Ron Kurtz and he also trained as a facilitator in Matrix Leadership group dynamics with founder Amina Knowlan, before establishing the Quest institute meditation center in Dallas. He is also a published technologist having worked as a technical storyteller and international speaker for Microsoft and others. Microsoft named him as a “Most Valuable Professional” for 9 years.
The Language of Mindfulness, a life journey
Since very young Brett started his journey. At high school he used to do debating, public speaking and drama, and at college he was actually a performer, singer and songwriter.
He discovered to have a knack for technology and explaining things to people in ways that they could understand. After graduating he established his own consultancy, and helped small businesses learn how to use computers. Shortly after he decided that he wanted to be a teacher of technology. Some time after he got hired as a technology evangelist for Microsoft. This allowed him to be on stages all over the world, teaching about how technology helps people do their work better.
He was also very interested in the inner world like what makes people tick so he studied with people that were very good at this. That led him to this journey to exploring more about mindfulness and communications. By now, he is in practice to help people get more conscious with their use of language.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness means paying attention on purpose. It means you make a decision to pay attention in a particular way. Brett explains that the practice starts usually with mindfulness meditation. The common practice is to sit down, like paying attention to your breath, and doing that for 10 minutes, 20 minutes. Finally, when you create the capacity to be present with you, it changes the way you feel about what you are doing. It also changes the conversation that you’re having with other people.
Become a better speaker with mindfulness
A lot of people are afraid of public speaking. Trying to learn how to manage your fear and anxiety about public speaking is a mindful process for you have to first get in touch with the fact that you are having this anxiety. But rather than push it away, we normally give it strength by trying to reject that anxiety (as by repeating: “I can’t be anxious”, “I can’t be nervous”, etc.)
A more mindful approach would be to sit down and say, “Okay, what does this really feel like? to be afraid of speaking”, “what’s going to happen here?”, so you breathe in your anxiety in a way and you kind of let it be what it wants to be.
Then you learn that those are just thoughts that you are having, but they are not actually happening.
A piece of advice for presenting technology
According to Brett when you are presenting, technically, you need to really know your topic. Once you have that, then you need to be prepared to demonstrate something. That demonstration needs to be visual, rather than conceptual, needs to be something people can see.
Use zoom features a lot to zoom in on whatever visual action is happening in your product or your service.
Finally, what is imperative for people that are interested in technical presentations: when you do live demos, be sure you have a backup. So bring a video of your demo, just in case.
Related: Speakers Shine through Self-Awareness
Favorite quotations
“The body is always in the moment.” — Eckhart Tolle
“To be mindful under stress, you have to practice when you’re not.” — Brett Hill
Recommended book
Full catastrophe living: using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Routine to Shine
Notice the things that light you up. How is that different than your normal day to day experience. Whatever lights you up.
Then you just take a breath and relax into that feeling, just for three or four seconds don’t even have to think about it. So if you do that, if you notice what lights you up, one of those moments, you take a breath, you notice it. That is the mindful. You decide on purpose, to relax, to let yourself have the experience and you’re paying attention to your moment. You’re just being right there. That is a mindfulness practice.
Now you can do that as many times a day as you have these little moments. If you did that 10 times a day, you would be adding 10 beautiful moments to your life that were not there before. Suddenly you have added some beauty to your life in a very simple way as you practice being mindful 10 times. That is the language of mindfulness!
Links
Website: https://langugeofmindfulness.com/now
LinkedIn personal Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mindfulguy/
LinkedIn company page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/languageofmindfulness
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