The Mindfulness Edge

11Extraordinary Leadership Presence and the Final Piece of the Puzzle of Unconditional Happiness

The wisdom we discussed in Chapter 10 helps us realize every benefit for leadership excellence that we've discussed in this book, including unconditional happiness and extraordinary leadership presence, which are what we'll focus on in this chapter.

In Chapter 7, we discussed how simply by being free from comparative thinking, we can realize happiness during simple, mundane moments that make up the vast majority of our lives, at least for most people reading this book. But what about the times when life is really challenging?

When we're beginning our practice, there will be many, many moments when we revert back to our habitual tendency to cling to and be pulled around by unpleasant thoughts and emotions. We will still suffer. This suffering may arise as dissatisfaction during rather simple, neutral moments. In more challenging situations or when the pull of our thoughts and feelings is a bit stronger, we may experience varying degrees of other unpleasant mind states and emotions.

In very challenging situations, during the times in our lives that are not so neutral, when life is painful emotionally or physically, or when we're really pulled around by our thoughts and emotions, we can experience absolute mental and emotional anguish. We cannot leave out these more extreme moments of ...