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Eileen Fisher, Fashion Icon

Oct 5, 2016 50m 57s 43 insights
<p>Eileen Fisher weaves mindfulness and social consciousness throughout her multimillion-dollar clothing company and in her personal life. After being in business for over 30 years, her collections are sold in 65 EILEEN FISHER shops across the country, as well as department stores, and her company backs several initiatives focused on using sustainable fabrics, human rights for garment workers and EILEEN FISHER employee health. But even with the daily stress of managing a clothing empire, Fisher still begins each day with meditation.</p>
Actionable Insights

1. Elevate Happiness Set Point

Regularly practice meditation to deepen enjoyment of positive experiences, build resilience against difficulties, reduce rumination, and gradually elevate your overall happiness set point.

2. Exercise Choice in Well-being

Actively exercise your choice in managing emotional states and well-being by utilizing tools like meditation, yoga, dietary changes, or relationship adjustments to create a different experience.

3. Practice Embodiment

Practice ’embodiment’ to learn how to fully inhabit your body, notice your internal feelings and thoughts, and reference your physical state during interactions and situations.

4. Observe & Shift Coping Patterns

Identify and observe your personal coping patterns, particularly those originating from childhood, and consciously choose different responses in the moment to engage more fully, speak up, or listen effectively.

5. Meditate First Thing Daily

Make meditation the first activity every morning to help manage a chaotic mind and prevent it from getting the better of you.

6. Practice Full Presence with Loved Ones

When with loved ones, especially children, practice full presence by eliminating distractions like your phone and actively engaging with them, rather than just being physically nearby.

7. Solicit Regular Feedback

Actively solicit regular, specific feedback from colleagues, both individually and in group settings, on how you can improve your behavior and impact, ensuring to follow up on their input.

8. Reframe Difficult Interactions

When encountering difficult people, reframe your perspective by remembering that they, like everyone, seek happiness and wish to avoid suffering.

9. Practice Loving-Kindness Meditation

Regularly practice loving-kindness meditation, which involves systematically sending good wishes to others, to cultivate warmth, compassion, and potentially improve health and behavior.

10. Approach Meditation with Courage

Approach meditation with courage, particularly during challenging phases, as it demands being present with your own chaotic mind and internal experiences.

11. Utilize Present Tools & Awareness

Acknowledge past limitations but focus on utilizing your current tools and awareness to make the best possible choices and actions in present situations.

12. Meditation for Presence & Engagement

Utilize meditation as a vital tool to enhance your ability to be present and effectively engage with challenging personal situations, such as parenting.

13. Cultivate Holistic Work Ethic

Adopt a holistic approach to your work, prioritizing not only the final product but also the quality of collaboration, employee growth, ethical treatment of workers, and environmental responsibility.

14. Prioritize Ethical & Sustainable Practices

Prioritize ethical supply chain practices, fair worker treatment, and environmental sustainability, recognizing these as crucial for long-term brand integrity and employee motivation.

15. Invest in Employee Well-being

Invest in employee well-being and personal development to help them overcome internal obstacles and free up their energy, which ultimately leads to better business outcomes.

16. Implement Employee Ownership & Profit-Sharing

Consider implementing employee ownership programs (ESOPs) and generous profit-sharing to empower employees and cultivate a strong sense of collective investment and shared success.

17. Prioritize People & Culture

As a leader, make employee well-being and company culture a priority by allocating resources and focus, even if it means delegating to specialized teams.

18. Combine Morning Yoga & Meditation

Integrate a minimum of 10 minutes of yoga with 10 minutes of meditation into your morning routine, extending to 30 minutes for each when you have more time, to support both physical and mental well-being.

19. Adopt “Rise, Pee, Meditate”

Implement the ‘rise, pee, meditate’ routine to anchor a consistent morning meditation practice immediately after waking and using the restroom.

20. Use Power Poses

Adopt ‘power poses’ or other physical postures to influence your mindset and behavior, as changing your body can lead to changes in your mind.

21. Find Signal in Cliché Advice

Don’t dismiss common or cliché advice reflexively; instead, look for the ‘signal in the noise’ as it often contains valuable and important guidance.

22. Embrace Full Emotional Range

Understand that meditation can increase your capacity to feel emotions more fully, including sadness, as it fosters greater awareness rather than emotional suppression.

23. Prioritize Presence with Children

Prioritize being fully present with your children during their early years, as this time is precious and can lead to regrets if overshadowed by work demands.

24. Embrace Parenting Cliches

Instead of dismissing common parenting cliches, embrace them as they often contain valuable and true advice about the experience of raising children.

25. Insight 25

Engage in therapy and journaling as practices to foster self-knowledge, understand your motivations, and recognize what impacts you.

26. Seek Emotional Freedom

If you are easily triggered or emotionally hijacked, pursue programs or practices, such as meditation, to gain emotional freedom and reduce internal chaos.

27. Correct for Personal Bias

If you notice personal biases or fears affecting your judgment, acknowledge them and take corrective steps, such as re-evaluating a situation or re-engaging with the person, to ensure fair assessment.

28. Use Accessible Language

When discussing mindfulness or meditation, choose accessible and non-alienating language to invite more people to engage with the practices.

29. Empower Meaningful Employee Engagement

Empower employees to participate in meaningful initiatives, like sustainability efforts, as it significantly boosts their motivation and sense of purpose beyond routine tasks.

30. Build Loyalty Through Ethics

Invest in ethical and sustainable practices, even with increased costs, to build strong customer loyalty and pride, allowing them to justify purchases from a responsible brand.

31. Innovate for Philanthropic Goals

When charitable resources are limited, innovate by creating new programs, such as a recycling initiative, that can generate revenue, create employment, and fulfill philanthropic goals in a sustainable way.

32. Uphold Ethical Commitment in Crisis

Maintain unwavering commitment to ethical and socially conscious business practices, even during financial difficulties or crises, as these values are integral to your identity.

33. Offer Flexible Wellness Benefits

Offer wellness benefits to employees, such as funds for massages or yoga, and be prepared to adjust their scope during difficult financial periods while preserving the underlying commitment to well-being.

34. Pause Before Meetings

Introduce a brief moment of silence or pause before meetings to help participants transition from previous tasks, be more present, and foster collective awareness.

35. Frame Pauses as “Sanity Breaks”

To make workplace pauses more accessible, frame them as ‘sanity breaks’ or moments to gather and be present, rather than using potentially alienating terms like ‘meditation’ or ‘mindfulness’.

36. Spontaneous Meeting Pauses

Incorporate spontaneous pauses during meetings, particularly after important ideas or thoughts, to allow for deeper reflection and enhanced collective presence.

37. Integrate Stretch Breaks

Introduce stretch breaks during meetings or work periods as a simple, accessible way to refresh physical and mental focus.

38. Maintain Larger Vision

Cultivate and maintain a larger vision for your work to ensure quality and integrity, preventing tunnel vision from immediate demands while still meeting deadlines and operational requirements.

39. Recognize Motivation Spectrum

Understand that motivations for actions, whether in business or personal life, often exist on a spectrum from pragmatic to high-minded, and multiple motivations can coexist.

40. Share Extra Profits

Once your business generates extra profits, consider sharing a portion, such as 10%, with employees or for charitable purposes.

41. Foster Caring in Small Teams

In small teams or startups, naturally foster a caring environment by being present and genuinely showing care for your team members.

42. Insight 42

Consider attending a yoga retreat, particularly one that integrates daily meditation, as the immersive environment can make the initial experience more blissful and accessible.

43. Teach Loving-Kindness to Children

Introduce loving-kindness meditation to children to foster generosity and empathy, as studies show it can lead to more prosocial behaviors.