This document summarizes a workshop on developing mindfulness skills to thrive as leaders. It discusses how mindfulness can help people cultivate awareness of emotions and self-talk related to failure and success. Leaders are encouraged to meet both with equanimity. Mindfulness practices like observing thoughts and emotions without reactivity can build resilience. Failure-tolerant leaders create cultures where people feel safe to take intelligent risks and learn from mistakes.

1. FAILURE AND SELF-AWARENESS
Essential Mindfulness Skills to Thrive as Leaders
Shalini Bahl, Ph.D.
Founder & Mindfulness Consultant
UMass Women into Leadership Annual Workshop

2. Pause & Observe Failure
Mind
Body
Heart

3. AGENDA
1. Failure
➤ Facts about failure
2. Emotional Awareness
➤ Befriend your emotions
3. Cognitive Awareness
➤ Know your self-talk
4. How to cultivate
awareness
➤ Mindfulness
➤ Practice Resilience
5. Personal Resilience Plan

4. “..some failure in life is
inevitable. It is
impossible to live
without failing at
something, unless you
live so cautiously that
you might as well not
have lived at all — in
which case, you fail by
default.”
- J.K. Rowling, Author

5. “Mistakes are a
fact of life. It is the
response to the
error that counts.”
- Nikki Giovanni, American poet,
writer, commentator, activist, and
educator.

6. We need to accept that
we won’t always make
the right decisions, that
we’ll screw up royally
sometimes -
understanding that
failure is not the
opposite of success, it’s
part of success.”
- Arianna Huffington, co-founder
and editor-in-chief of The
Huffington Post

7. “You may encounter
many defeats, but you
must not be defeated.
In fact, it may be
necessary to encounter
the defeats, so you can
know who you are,
what you can rise
from, how you can still
come out of it.”
– Maya Angelou, Poet, civil rights activist

8. SURPRISING FACTS ABOUT
FAILURE
1. Failure distorts your perceptions of
your goals makes them seem more
unattainable
2. Failure distorts your perceptions of
your actual abilities
3. Most fears of failure are unconscious
4. Fear of failure often leads to
unconscious self-sabotaging
5. Fear of failure can be transmitted
from parents to children
6. The pressure to succeed increases
performance anxiety and causes
choking.
- Guy Winch Ph.D.

9. EMOTIONAL
AWARENESS
How do you feel about
your success and failure?

10. Success and
failure are
emotional
experiences.
EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE

11. Emotions can give
rise to grasping
and aversion,
which holds us
back.
EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE

12. (Nummenmaa et al.2013)
EMOTIONAL AWARENESS
Recognize unconscious fear in body

13. EMOTIONAL AWARENESS:
YOU ARE NOT YOUR EMOTIONS
EXISTENTIAL
“I am angry”
PHYSIOLOGICAL
“I experience anger in
my body”

14. COGNITIVE
AWARENESS
How do you explain your
success and failure?

15. “Your way of explaining events to
yourself determines how helpless you
can become, or how energized, when
you encounter the everyday setbacks
as well as momentous defeats.
~Seligman, Martin E. in Learned Optimism:
How to Change Your Mind and Your Life
EXPLANATORY STYLE

16. EXPLANATORY STYLE: 3 P’S
Self-Talk Patterns:
1.Permanence
2.Pervasiveness
3.Personalization

17. PERMANENCE: ACROSS TIME
Pessimistic:
Permanent
It is always windy here!
I never get a chance to relax.
I was lucky to get this client & not
likely to happen again.
Optimistic:
Specific & Temporary
It is windy today.
It has been an exceptionally busy week.
I will always be able to find the right
clients with my skills and perseverance.

18. PERVASIVENESS: ACROSS CONTEXTS
Pessimistic:
Across all contexts
I wasn’t as smart as others in training
All supervisors are unfair.
I cant ski coz I am not athletic.
Optimistic:
Specific Context
I didn’t prepare for it well.
Mr. X was unfair in his treatment of Y
I can’t ski cause I am new to it.

19. PERSONALIZATION: OVERLY SELF-CRITICAL
Pessimistic:
Internalize
The client cancelled last minute because
he doesn't like me.
I did not close the deal because I am not
cut out for this job.
Optimistic:
External Reasons
The client cancelled last minute because he is
busy.
I did not close the deal because I am new at
this job and would like to learn from my
mentor.

20. COGNITIVE AWARENESS:
YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS
I am not good
enough!
I am the best!

21. HOW TO
CULTIVATE
EMOTIONAL&
COGNITIVE
AWARENESS
Mindfulness of Emotions,
Body, & Self-Talk

22. 1. MINDFULNESS
The ability to see
with clarity without
getting carried away
by our habitual
patterns of
reactivity.

23. MINDFULNESS: AWARENESS WITHOUT REACTIVITY
O T H E R
P H E N O M E N A
T H O U G H T S
B O D Y
S E N S AT I O N S
E M O T I O N S
G
entle
Curiosity
N
on-Reactivity
Intentional Attention

24. PRACTICE
RESILIENCE
AWARENESS OF SUCCESS &
FAILURE WITH EQUANIMITY

25. FREESTYLE JOURNALING
➤ Take a few breaths to create
space in mind, body and
heart
➤ Use the suggested prompts
to start writing without
worrying about grammar,
spellings, and making sense
➤ Do not stop writing till the
bell rings. If nothing is
coming up, just keep
writing, nothing is coming
up, till something comes up.

26. ➤Reflecting on my failure I feel…

27. ➤Reflecting on my success I feel…

28. ➤Read what you wrote and discover any
words or phrases that are repeating or
stand out.
➤Are there any patterns in how you
experience success and failure?

29. OBSERVATIONS

30. OBSERVATIONS
“Women attribute their success to working hard, luck, and
help from other people. Men will attribute that – whatever
success they have, that same success – to their own core
skills.”
– Sheryl Sandberg
“In studies, men overestimate their
abilities and performance, and women
underestimate both. Their performances
do not differ in quality.”
– Katty Kay and Claire Shipman

31. PRACTICE RESILIENCE
ADVERSITY BELIEFS
Self-Talk &
Assumptions
CONSEQUENCES
Emotions &
Actions
DISRUPT
SELF-TALK &
EMOTIONS
with breath &
curiosity
EMERGENT
SOLUTIONS
Skillful & Kind

32. MINDFUL RESILIENCE
I. Breathe & bring attention to:
1.Body sensations
2.Emotions
3.Thoughts
II. Question facts & assumptions
III. Explore alternative
perspectives
IV. Separating emotions from
facts
V. What steps can you take

33. “Executives who, through their words and
actions, help people overcome their fear of
failure and, in the process, create a culture of
intelligent risk taking that leads to sustained
innovation. These leaders don’t just accept
failure; they encourage it.”
FAILURE-TOLERANT LEADERS
Richard Farson & Ralph Keyes 2002

34. “Conversations are less about whether the
project is succeeding or failing than about
what can be learned from the experience.
Evaluation is less relevant than the subject of
where to go from here.
What’s new with your project?
What kinds of problems are you having?
Taking the long view, what might the next steps be?”
FAILURE-TOLERANT LEADERS
Richard Farson & Ralph Keyes 2002

35. MAIN TAKEAWAYS
➤ You are not your emotions
➤ You are not your thoughts
➤ Meet success & failure
with equanimity
➤ Cultivate mindfulness for
awareness and resilience
➤ Know your self talk
➤ Remember your ABCs
➤ Become a failure tolerant
leader

36. “If there is one skill that is
not stressed very much,
but is really needed, it is
knowing how to fail well…
So fail, fail again, fail
better.”
– Pema Chodron

37. DIFFERENT WAYS TO CONNECT WITH ME
➤ Email me: shalini@KnowYourMind.training
➤ For latest news on topics related to emotional intelligence like us on
Facebook:
➤ https://www.facebook.com/DowntownMindfulness/
➤ To read my blog posts: http://knowyourmind.training/blog/
➤ To view other slide decks: http://www.slideshare.net/ShaliniBahl
➤ Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shalinibahl
➤ Find my 5-minute meditation series on Simple Habit for:
1. Women’s resilience
2. Women at Work: Lead With Confidence
3. Self-Awareness
4. Procrastination
➤ or email me to get a direct ink to the above meditations.

38. ➤ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-
confidence-gap/359815/
➤ Resilience Is About How You Recharge, Not How You Endure by
Achor & Gielan in HBR, 2016
➤ How to Evaluate, Manage, and Strengthen Your Resilience by David
Kopans in HBR 2016
➤ 5 Ways to Boost Your Resilience at Work by Rich Fernandez in HBR
2016
➤ What Resilience Means, and Why It Matters by Andrea Ovans in
HBR 2015
➤ The Failure-Tolerant Leader by Richard Farson & Ralph Keyes in
HBR 2002
REFERENCES