Almost 20 years ago, studies by Kabat-Zinn suggested that mindfulness brought attention to one’s moment-to-moment experience. Around this same time in 1990, I gave my attention to marketing, and enrolled in a fresh, and intensive moment-by-moment, psychologically-based, international marketing and sales educational program that was like none other that I had ever experienced.
While I have engaged in countless marketing and sales trainings and educational programs for the past twenty years, this particular business model has been the bedrock of my professional life. Rated #1 in business, marketing, and sales training by Entrepreneur magazine in 2008, and for the past 5 years in a row, Sandler Training System, of which I am a lifelong President’s Club member, continues to be one of the best kept global secrets.
The Sandler System dispels the negative associations that many people have regarding sales, and instead, guides its members to:
- be real
- laser-focus on the other person while simultaneously attentive to one’s own thoughts
- throw away any scripted material
- observe and listen
- show up and be present. That’s it.
Showing up and being present paved the way for me to segue away from the corporate world after more than a dozen years and continue lifelong learning in the arts and sciences; I arrived at the portal of art therapy. As an individual with a fine art education, and a teaching background, I found significant promise in the field that enabled me to merge my studio art background with my passion for psychology.
After moving from Milwaukee, WI to the Gulf Coast of Florida over 5 years ago, I continue to find great rewards in my Psychology of Marketing classroom and Psychology of the Arts classroom at Ringling College of Art and Design. I teach the undergraduate art and design students the psychological underpinnings of our emotional hardwiring. We spend a fair amount of time attending to one of their greatest skills: their own innate observational skills that sharpen all of their intra and interpersonal relations and ready them for the marketplace, be it Pixar, Apple, Dreamworks, Hallmark, or Disney.
Several years ago, the introduction of Positive Psychology turned my head just enough and I began studying the emerging field of coaching. Almost immediately, I recognized the convergence of the years of education, credentialing, and expertise into a field which would draw upon and combine all of those rich resources. I was trained under an ICF approved and accredited Certified Coaching Program (CTA) and am a Certified Coach who helps people showcase the best of themselves into the marketplace.
Here are six principles:
- Being present as an artist and attending at the easel is one of the most essential elements in the creative art process.
- Being present as a marketing and sales director and attending to the client is one of the most essential elements in any co-creative relationship.
- Being present as an art therapist and attending to the client is one of the most essential elements in any co-creative relationship.
- Being present as a Ringling College of Art and Design Professor and attending to my students is one of the most essential elements in any co—creative relationship.
- Being present as a marketing coach and attending to the client is one of the most essential elements in any co-creative relationship.
- Being present on the cushion and attending to the breath is one of the most essential elements in my creative relationship.
At first blush, I wonder if I have transitioned from the easel to the marketplace to the cushion; however, I believe I continue to “attend” and engage in all three venues. And I noticed something funny on the way to the cushion: I’ve discovered 19 years later, the creative synergy of mindfulness and marketing.
