Selling Your Mindfulness Meditation Programs and Workshops

Speaker 1 · 0:00Welcome everyone. My name is Sean Fargo, the founder of Mindfulness Exercises. In today's episode, I'm going to be speaking with Danny Greco, who's helped thousands of mindfulness and meditation teachers to teach mindfulness in organizations, corporations, and nonprofits all around the world. I met Danny at Wisdom 2.0 a couple years ago, one of the big mindfulness and meditation conferences in Silicon Valley. And he was introduced to me by one of my mindfulness teachers, Mark Coleman, who I know from Spirit Rock Meditation Center. I had learned that Danny had done a workshop for Search Inside Yourself at Google, helping their mindfulness teachers learn how to sell their mindfulness and meditation offerings in organizations, corporations, nonprofits to help those organizations be more mindful. And I thought, wow, such a treat to be able to meet someone who's um helped other mindfulness teachers uh make an impact in those settings and make an income as well, um, doing that with integrity and authenticity. So I got to know Danny over the years, and we've been working together, and we're um launching a new uh mindfulness sales course to help anyone who's interested in teaching mindfulness and meditation to be able to get contracts with large organizations or small organizations to be able to help them. Um and so the course is live on our website at mindfulness exercises.com slash mindfulness sales course. Um, and so today we're gonna be speaking about some of his journey, uh some of the things he's learned over the years about this topic to support you to be able to help others in this uh space. Uh Danny is a fellow mindfulness teacher, he's also worked as a salesperson for a long time. He's trained people in sales for a long time, and he's been practicing mindfulness meditation for over 10 years. As a salesperson, he's successfully sold for startups and Fortune 500 companies, selling into almost every industry from small accounts to seven-figure deals. He's seen the good, the bad, and the ugly so that you can see the best of what works. He spent the last five years teaching non-salespeople the skills of corporate. He's trained hundreds of mindfulness teachers in sales and getting contracts with organizations. And he's trained dozens of Silicon Valley startup founders, including Y Combinator. He spent 10 plus years personally practicing and studying mindfulness and meditation, including daily practice, silent retreats, and academic study. He's also a certified teacher at Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, the mindfulness program born at Google. And he's taught programs at Facebook, Amazon, and many others. His instruction is engaging, fun, instantly applicable, and just very relatable. He's a down-to-earth guy, and I'm really looking forward to speaking with you today. So welcome to the podcast, Danny. It's a pleasure to be speaking with you again.

Speaker 2 · 3:55Thank you so much, Sean. Really glad to be here and really excited to be able to speak to these fellow teachers here. It's an honor, really is. This is part of my intention getting to share it right now. So the honor's here. Thank you.

Speaker 1 · 4:07Beautiful. Yeah. So I'd like to start by asking what what are the biggest challenges you face trying to sell your mindfulness and meditation services to organizations?

Speaker 2 · 4:21Yeah, great question. So I can go pretty deep on this, but I think that the biggest thing is probably just how we frame it and then getting people to feel it. Because when we bring this in, they might think it's oh, this sort of hippie-dippy thing, and they're very much in their heads. And they, you know, in the corporate world, we tend to stay in our heads a lot. But because as mindfulness teachers, we're actually embodying what we what we preach and what we teach, we can actually convert them to feeling a bit. And so part of the challenge, partially for us, is to hold that embodiment. And then the other challenge is helping them to sort of feel it. Because it's hard to get somebody, you can get people to think their way into mindfulness. You know, we'll talk about ROI, that stuff is important. We'll talk about, you know, employee retention stats. But getting them to actually feel it is the biggest key. And the beauty of being a mindfulness teacher, most of us are, I assume all of us are practitioners. We know how to feel and we'll talk about ways to actually get people to feel it themselves as well. So a lot of it is framing it and putting it in their words. If we come in using words like mindfulness and meditation, that might be a little bit more challenging to them. But if we understand what challenges they have first, burnout, retention, stress, people not getting along, then we can speak in their terms because these are things that matter to them. At the end of the day, we can call it whatever we want. I had a really good fellow teacher who said, they asked, How are you so good at bringing these workshops into companies? And she said, I smuggled in in boxes with different labels on them. I might not call it meditation, I might not call it self-compassion, it might be mental strength, it might be uh, you know, stress reduction, it might be nervous system regulation. But basically, you know, realizing we kind of have a set of ways we describe it, but being adaptable using our compassion and empathy that we're so strong at already, in order to put it into their words, is really a powerful way to bring it to them.

Speaker 1 · 6:32Beautiful. Thanks for sharing all that. That makes a lot of sense. Can you share a success story where selling your mindfulness training to a company led to significant positive changes within that organization? Sure.

Speaker 2 · 6:45Yeah, I can share a few. Um, I was lucky enough to get into Facebook or Meta now, as it's called. And I taught, I think, three or four workshops there. And it's really beautiful seeing the transformation of the people over the time we spend with them. One story I love telling is we got to the very end of it and we did it, we went around, let everybody sort of share their experience, share what their takeaways were. And there was one young woman, uh, probably, you know, early 20s or so. And the whole time, you know, she'd been a bit scattered, you know, wasn't didn't seem as focused, wasn't even sure how much she was really, you know, taking it all in. And what she said was, my biggest takeaway is that I now see my fellow employees as actual real people. And that blew me away. And I think the fact is, not only is she seeing her employees as real people, they're seeing their clients as real people. And so many companies we work with, not only are they interfacing with their fellow employees, they're interfacing with the world through the products that they're creating, through the college driving with their customers. So seeing that ripple effect come out is really powerful. And we did a lot of surveys at Facebook. They had a lot of really positive feedback on there. Some of it hopefully will be published soon. But speaking of stuff that's been published, I had a really good colleague of mine who's also a fellow mindfulness teacher through the same organization. And he works at SAP. For those who don't know, SAP is a massive German global conglomerate software company that, you know, not to make generalizations, but they're the very analytical type, very head-based type. Uh and we were worried that they'd even take to it. There's an amazing article in Reuters, which I can link or we can share the link to. And being as they are, they analyzed it, they studied it. And they saw a 200% return on investment with the training leading to a quote, rise in employee engagement and a fall in absenteeism. What company does not want to have employee engagement and a reduction absenteeism? So knowing we're making these changes is so positive. This isn't just, oh, do this, feel good, but they're actually having bottom line business results that come as a consequence or a benefit of these types of practices.

Speaker 1 · 9:16It's amazing that they saw those changes, much less being able to see hard data.

Speaker 2 · 9:23Yep.

Speaker 1 · 9:24Um, yeah. What specific skills or strategies do you think are most essential for effectively pitching mindfulness programs to corporate clients?

Speaker 2 · 9:35Yeah. So I'll focus on the pitching side. In sales or, you know, bringing stuff in organizations. We talk about demoing the product. And our embodiment, how we show up to these, our energy going into these is in a sense showing what we're going to be bringing to them. So a huge advantage that mindfulness teachers have is we have this embodiment. You know, it can vary day to day, of course. We're human, right? But coming in as yourself, you might have to speak a little bit faster, but you know, not getting into that frantic state is really powerful. The other thing, too, that I referenced a little bit is getting them to feel this. And there's a few different ways that I've successfully done this and seen others successfully do that. And one of those is storytelling. There's a gentleman, Scott Shute. Some of you listening might have heard of him or heard him speak at Wisdom 2.0 or other events. Uh, he basically championed and pioneered the mindfulness program at LinkedIn. Jeff Wiener, the CEO of LinkedIn, one of the largest companies, a very well-known CEO here in Silicon Valley, huge proponent of mindfulness and emotional intelligence. And Scott started doing programs. They actually promoted him to, I forgot the exact title, but it was sort of chief compassion officer or something like that. I think it was one of the first C-level roles they actually had at a major company. And so what he does is he tells stories to sell this. And it is kind of this balance or pitching of, you know, the data to satisfy, you know, the uh the technical side of the brain. But then we also have to get the feeling side of the brain. And one example he gives that I love is, you know, back in the day, you know, 70s or so, 60 or 70s, if you were running down the street, just running down the street, people be like, what's this person doing? Why are they just running down the street? Now I realize it's called exercise. Back then it wasn't a normal thing. Back, even further back, there's this radical program that uh I forgot that the football team was doing this, you know, maybe early 1900s, where people are literally tearing their muscles to get stronger. It's called weightlifting as we do it today. And fast forward, you know, dealing with the body, this analogy of the body, almost every single major company has a gym, you know, somewhere in there, or some sort of benefit for gym membership, or these health programs they offer for weight loss within their company. And so then the question is okay, we realize we have these bodily things that help us to be more productive and efficient. What about our mind though? And so just like in the past, you know, and still today we struggle with, you know, bodily challenges, lethargy, you know, uh weight challenges. Today we're really struggling, particularly in this post-COVID world, not to use that phrase overly, with the mental challenges of the world. And so now all we're really doing is bringing them the similar type of skills to deal with what's even more critical to an office worker, which is the stress of the job, through science-based tools that really help them to be more calm, to be more resilient, to manage the stress better. In a way, it almost begs the question: why have we neglected this portion of the worker? You know, we just kind of almost assumed that burnout, you know, uh sickness is a part of our jobs these days, is a part of the reality of living today. The beauty is it doesn't have to be. And so all we're doing is bringing in kind of the next evolution of instead of focusing on the body, now we're giving people tools and exercises for the health of the mind. And so I think that's really helpful to share stories like this when you're pitching. Another really powerful thing, too, is when you're speaking to the person, asking them if they've ever done any of these practices. Beautiful thing. Maybe they've tried it, maybe they haven't, but maybe they've done it a little bit. Maybe they might say, Yeah, you know, I did it. I went to this, you know, weekend retreat thing. They had some of that, and ask them, how'd that make you feel afterward? Maybe if you're willing, take a moment. What was that like for you? But genuinely ask. This is where we bring in our other major skill of empathy and compassion. And they'll say, Well, gosh, you know what? I actually felt great. I I said to myself, I should be doing this more often. And maybe then ask the person, what would it be like if you had that quality of mind that you had then during your normal workday? Leave a big pause, give them time to sink in and kind of sit with that. They might say, Wow, that would be really nice. And then maybe ask a question like, is there a fellow coworker who you think would be easier to work with if they also embodied that frame of mind? And you can say, you know, don't tell me their name, you know, tell me their name, but ask that. Maybe imagine what it'd be like if the entire company even became, you know, 20% more like that. What effects do you think that might have on how employees get relate to each other, how they treat their clients, how they treat their customers? And you see, I'm really leaving a pause here. Again, that's there's a great phrase that was shared that's um decisions are made in the silence. And so allowing this space really allows them to sort of switch over from this analyzing brain to that sort of feeling brain and sort of try this on so they kind of get it, not only at the tactical level, but at the feeling level as well. So to kind of sum that up, us embodying it, us telling stories, us bringing them to us bringing up stuff for them is really powerful. And one more really cool uh thing that I've done before and other teachers have used is actually offering a little mini practice during the call itself, saying, you know what, the intention of this isn't always to, you know, we're not gonna ask people to start meditating 20 minutes a day. That's a big ask. We do bite-sized practices they can do in the moment. And so if you'd like, we can try one right now. You don't have to, if you don't feel like it, but maybe just, you know, see what it's like for you. And a practice I would really like to use, Sean, is uh the three breaths practice. We just say to the person, you know, I'll do it with you right now, Sean. I'll say, hey, if you'd like, just get comfortable in your seat. You don't even have to close your eyes, you can just lower them slightly. We're gonna take three breaths together that'll lead us through. So I'll invite us to begin with one nice deep breath now. Relaxing the body first, maybe allowing the shoulders to drop, the face to calm a little bit. One more breath, allowing the body, I'm sorry, allowing the mind to settle a little bit. Now one more nice deep breath. Allowing yourself to drop in a little bit more sit with this for a moment, and now ask yourself what's most important right now. And a lot of times people are like, oh my gosh, you know what? I realize that I really need to handle this one email that I've been putting off for weeks. Thank you for reminding me. Or they might say, you know what, I really need to remember to book that babysitter. Or it might be something like, I just need to go take a walk right now. And it completely changes the tone of the entire conversation from this rushed, okay, what do you got? Shall we know what you got? to a more embodied type of sense. So there are a few ways I think can really be helpful in pitching mindfulness there.

Speaker 1 · 17:20Yeah, those are really great tips. Um, you know, I think a lot of people when they think about, you know, selling their mindfulness or meditation offerings, uh, they get very heady and that they have to try to like convince someone that it's um, you know, the best thing since sliced bread or that they're the best person for the job, or that you know, that company needs it or something. But yeah, if if you can um invite that experiential practice and kind of give people a taste or a sense of what it is that we're really offering here, and see that's a very powerful way of demonstrating you know the value of what you're offering and can help you to, you know, get that contract or you know, be able to reach more people in the organization.

Speaker 2 · 18:14Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 · 18:16Beautiful.

Speaker 2 · 18:17One thing I'll add to that too. Um, Chaid Mengtan, if people aren't familiar, he's one of the earliest Google employees within the first couple hundred. And he pioneered a uh mindfulness course they taught at Google. He's also written books like Search Inside Yourself, Joy on Demand. And what he always said is get people to feel it. So that's a great way to get them to feel it. And maybe after you do that practice with them, you might ask them, what would it be like if more people in your organization did that? What would it be like if everybody did this on somewhat of a regular basis in those moments? What if your manager tried that? A lot of our job is, you know, bringing when bringing this into organizations and working with people is helping them to connect the dots. What would it be like if, what would it be like if kind of painting that vision? Another great uh sales mentor I had said, paint the vision. So, you know, imagine if even team offsite started with just a few breaths. Maybe, you know, you have these really busy weekly meetings. If everybody stopped and did just those three breaths or something like that at the beginning of those meetings, how do you think that might change things?

Speaker 1 · 19:26Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, for your own sake, for your manager's sake, for the people you're managing, for the team's sake. Um absolutely. How do you maintain authenticity and compassion while navigating the business aspects of selling mindfulness or meditation offerings?

Speaker 2 · 19:49Yeah, great question. I think it really starts with connecting with your intention. And in the course I do, that's the very first module we do is connecting with our why and asking ourselves, why am I doing this? Then maybe why am I really doing this? Why am I really, really doing this? And there's more steps to go into it. You know, what effect would this have on the world? What change do I like to see in the world? And then I think that, you know, if you go into a call and you kind of reconnect with that intention, you're coming from that place versus worrying about, oh, am I going to get the contract signed? Or is this negotiation gonna be hard? Do I have all my slides put together? But when we kind of start by really knowing what our intention is, we're automatically coming from a place of authenticity. And we can even share that directly with the person we're speaking with. You know, my intention is to see if there's a good fit for bringing more common peace to your organization in a way that would help your organization in the ways that you'd like to be helped right now with the challenges you have right now. How does that sound? And probably I'm gonna be like, yeah, that sounds pretty good. Thanks for sharing that. Because they're always worried about what your intention is, because they're used to speaking to, you know, people pitching them, oh, they're just trying to get my money. They're just trying to get me to, you know, sign on a dotted line. But if our intention is to only work together if there's alignment, we could even say that, then it puts them at ease. And that's what really comfortable sales feels like. And here's the crazy thing, Sean. The best salespeople I've worked with, that's the point that they get to. They're not the ones who are trying to force anything, they're the ones who know when there's a fit. They know how to explain how what we bring could be a fit. And if it's there, let's explore how to potentially bring it in there. And if there's not, no harm, no foul. Let's not waste either of our times. Maybe in the future, but thanks for sharing about you. And I think that knowing that behaving that way is what the client is really comfortable with gives us a lot more confident, give us a lot more confidence. So I'd say those things are some of the ways we can really do it. And you know, gut checking ourselves. And it's okay when nerves come up, that's normal. But you know, always reconnecting back to that intention there's a really powerful technique. Oh, I even I even hesitate to use the word technique, you know, because it might cheapen a little bit, but when there's that deeper alignment.

Speaker 1 · 22:15It's something to remember as we're engaging people to yeah, sense into our heart's intention and um not be overly aggressive or heady. Um so as you're selling mindfulness or meditation offerings to organization, I'm really curious what are the most common misconceptions or objections that you hear from organizations uh when you're trying to sell your mindfulness offerings? I've heard plenty of things.

Speaker 2 · 22:47Um probably the biggest things would be that, you know, it feels woo-woo, you know, or that, you know, where's the money in it? Where's the money and breathing, you know, so to speak. And and you know, that's very normal. And I think that, you know, one thing I talk about in the course is when it comes to objections, the number one way to respond is to welcome them. If someone is asking these questions, it means they're actually thinking about it. If they weren't asking this, then it means they're probably checked out. They're not really paying attention. There's apathy there. So, well, first off, welcome questions. And the second piece is a lot of times it helps to ask a follow-up question and to kind of you know narrow it down a bit. So if someone says, oh, it feels woo-woo or hippy-dippy, I'd say, great, you know what? I hear that a lot. Don't worry, no worries. Um, I'm curious, you know, given that what some of the fears are that you might see that having, or, you know, why that comes up for you, maybe there's specific people that you're worried about or something like that. Maybe getting them to clarify a little bit more. They might say, oh, well, you know, I know that our we've tried something in the past, or, you know, some people were very kind of, you know, we're a lot of maybe we're a group of lawyers and they're very hard-edged thinkers. And so, first off, that allows us to kind of know where we're coming at it from a bit closer. But I'll kind of give some common responses that might have to some of these questions, though. So let me think. So for the hippy-dippy side, I think that going back to the stories and the analogies is really powerful. And yes, we could acknowledge, hey, I totally acknowledge that Eli's practices might have had origins in different places. But the good news is when we do this in your organization, we do it in the framework of your organization. So, you know, a lot of times we use words like mental challenges instead of mindfulness, for example. And I think the more we can elevate it to being, again, this isn't about, you know, trying these weird practices. This is about directly addressing the reality of the workplace today with these very powerful tools. Again, the fact is, people are burnt out, people are stressed, there's lack of engagement, there's higher turnover than there's ever been. How are we actually managing these things? And basically, maybe sharing the way we do this program. We'll reference science as well, if that's helpful for your team, and we'll put it in their terms. And everything that we bring to people is an invitation. We're not gonna be talking about religion, we're not gonna be talking about Buddhism, unless that's something that your organization is amenable to, but might not be. We're gonna be talking about specific challenges they have. And the way we've used and framed these practices is in a way that feels that doesn't feel spiritual or woo-woo. Um, I'm not gonna come in with incense or beads, nothing against those, of course, but that's not the context of how we're doing this today. We know that people, when their adrenaline is spiked, that which it is quite a bit, you know, the amygdalas we talk about, that fight or flight part of our brain, it shuts down the prefrontal cortex, which is a part of the brain responsible for critical thinking, for making good decisions, for logic and reasoning. So, in a way, we're actually bringing people back to a place where they can be more in control, so to speak. So they do feel more calm. So their body is very much regulated. The mind is what regulates the body. And so these tools aren't made to be, you know, a form of spiritual practice. The way these are presented here is very much in a way that helps with the mind managing the body and managing the stress and the challenges that you told me that you have today. And we welcome the skeptics. Um, as I mentioned, everything is an invitation during these programs. We invite people to participate at their at a pace that's comfortable for them. And I like to tell a story where, you know, the last time I presented this was a group of uh, it was a sales team based out of Louisiana and Texas. Mostly men like to hunt, they like to fish. And by the end of it, they were convinced. They, I even had a quote that said, at the beginning, I was a bit skeptical, but by the end, I couldn't have been more grateful for the tools that Danny brought to me or brought to us here as well. So that's uh one misconception. The other one has to do around um, you know, where's the money in it? And I think traditionally companies don't spend money unless they can see a way that's going to make that money. And so there's a few ways to attack to sort of respond to this. I'd say one is the, you know, logical, and then one is more of the kind of feeling-based one. On the logical side, we can say, hey, the good news is the data is in on this stuff. You could reference the SAP article. There's hundreds of articles of, you know, peer-reviewed journals of showing how breathing calms the nervous system, which allows the brain to work better. And offering to share these with your client, part of the thing I have in the course is a spreadsheet of links of great articles. And I encourage teachers, anytime you see a great one, save it, bookmark it, and share it. A lot of a good way to sell is not only with our own uh sort of beliefs, but by sharing others and third parties as well. The more places I hear it from, the more directions to the point like, okay, I can't really ignore this anymore. This is very true, the more effective it is. And one more thing I'll add is referencing other companies who've used this. You know what? This is used by top companies today. This is no longer a sort of, you know, bleeding edge or cutting edge or kind of, you know, far out thing to do. Like I mentioned, SAP uses this. A massive company here, Hyatt Hotels uses this. Uh, German Telecom uses this, Deloitte, one of the biggest consulting firms, uses this. Ford uses these tools. The UN uses these, believe it or not. It's also been used in pro sports teams, too. Basically, any place where there's some degree of stress, this is effective. You know, is this a place where you have or where there's stress in your office today? I'd be curious to know. Yeah.

Speaker 1 · 29:06Totally. Great. Thanks for sharing all that. Um I'm curious as you sell mindfulness workshops and courses and teachings to companies, um, whether your personal practice or your personal understanding of mindfulness has been impacted as you, you know, relate with these organizations and talk with them about mindfulness. How has that impacted your own personal practice and understanding of mindfulness itself?

Speaker 2 · 29:37Yeah, great question. So, to be honest, I think the way I was introduced to this, um, I had someone I was actually dating who is a yoga instructor. And I think they were kind of sick of my, you know, anxiousness, you know, and that's kind of how I operated on pure adrenaline all the time. I think out of frustration, she kind of shook me and said, You should try this, try mindfulness or try meditation. I start. Or three minutes. Next thing you know, I went through the whole transcendental meditation course, you know. Um, I've been to silent retreats as well. And so for me, I kind of thought that it was this thing that I do maybe in the mornings or afternoons, where I just sit there for 20 minutes or however long and do my transcendent meditation meta has been very effective for me too. And then I go about my day. But after teaching in organizations, what I really realized is that doing this throughout the day is what's really kind of the true test of our practice. And so learning new ways to kind of do this throughout the course of it. Maybe it's I'm about to hop on a call, I'm nervous, I take a few breaths now. You know, it doesn't need to be 20 minutes on the cushion. Or after I get done with the call and I'm feeling all flustered, I can tell that I'm flustered. Number one. And then number two, I can do some grounding practices there. So what it's done for me is it's really helped me to integrate it kind of more bite-sized pieces throughout the day, because the lifestyle we live in today doesn't always permit going and sitting for five, 10, 15 minutes, but finding ways to integrate it throughout the day. I really think that's one of the best ways to teach it as well. And I recommend people teach it by these sort of micro practices, if you will, that people can do. So yeah, it's become more of a practice, you know. Uh the emotional intelligence piece is really big too. And knowing that I don't have to wait till tomorrow morning to sit on the cushion and and and calm myself. I can do it in the moment or while driving. I'm not the most calm driver, but I've really become more calm. I'll say that.

Speaker 1 · 31:38Yeah. Yeah, it really helps make it more accessible for people. Um, yeah, you don't have to live in a monastery. Um, you can just do this while you're sitting at your desk or taking a shower. Yeah. Um, it's great. As you said, you know, a lot of companies want to know if there's like money and breathing, or um, you know, what are we gonna get out of this financially? Um, how does a mindfulness training impact our bottom line? And so I'm curious how you measure the success of a mindfulness training, or um, how do you measure the return on investment of your mindfulness for organizations?

Speaker 2 · 32:26Yeah, great question. The uh the the quick and dirty answer is survey, survey, survey people. And I'll add a few sort of nuances to that. Really, our job starts on that first conversation we have where we're trying to really figure out what challenges, what unique challenges does this organization have? Going deep, we might ask them, what type of potential, you know, kind of employee challenges are you having today? They might say, Well, we noticed that employee engagement is low. Oh, that's really interesting. Can you tell me more about that? Oh, yeah. Well, we find that, you know, people are uh, you know, reporting really high levels of stress. Oh, that's interesting. Can you give me some specific examples, maybe even? If you can think of any, you don't have to name names. And then getting them to sort of share some anecdotes, which also allows them to sort of connect with wow, there there really is a challenge here. Or we are having really high turnover right now. Oh, you are? How is that impacting your business? Oh gosh, well, it means we're hiring all the time, we don't have roles filled. Oh man, that's challenging. What type of impact does it have? You know, maybe think of one of the roles now, a big role uh that somebody left from when that role isn't filled. Oh gosh, it means that, you know, if we don't have a director of sales, then our sales numbers are probably dropping. And then I might leave a big pause after that. Then to sort of feel the impact of what that means to the organization. You can even go a step deeper. What impact does that have on the organization when sales numbers aren't being met? Hmm, gosh, I don't even want to think about it. If we don't hit our numbers, then we're probably gonna have to have layoffs. Oh, geez. Yeah. How's that affect the stability of the business in the future? You know, and then kind of getting them to really connect to the what this really means for the organization. This isn't just, oh, let's get people to be a little more relaxed. And then I make, I would really strongly recommend when you're bringing in, excuse me, these programs, make it really understand what their challenges are. And those are the surveys we're going to have. So what are your metrics? Okay. What we're going to do is start with a pre-survey. We're obviously going to do a survey immediately following the workshop. And then we'll do a later post-survey as well. And using their metrics, you know, or stuff that they've identified specifically, stress levels, um, you know, uh, things of that nature, engagement. And then we create simple surveys that we have people take beforehand. What's your stress level now? And later, what's your stress level now? And um, I think that there's a few other important pieces to have to this, which I'll mention here. We don't only want, we definitely want the quantitative data. You know, these numbers went down, these metrics went down. We also want qualitative data. So in these surveys, I recommend asking questions like maybe right after the workshop, in what ways will this affect your work? Maybe later on, what changes have you seen in your own work as a result? What was your biggest takeaway from this? And maybe beforehand, yes, we have stress levels, but then we might ask, you know, how does your stress affect your work today? Can you name any specific ways? And then this quantitative data is really important. And also having the qualitative data, where once we've kind of done a workshop or two or a few, being able to then review this with the client and be like, wow, the head of sales said that now they feel like they're able to be much more present and get more work done in a day. So being able to have specific stories and specific numbers is really powerful as well. A really strong way. And I'd recommend making this a part of the program itself, you know, making this this is how we do it. Not will you do this, but this is how we do it.

Speaker 1 · 36:18Beautiful. Yeah, that that qualitative and quantitative data goes a long way. Um, yeah, in the beginning of a relationship, middle, and yeah, that's great advice. For those people wanting to start out teaching mindfulness to companies and organizations and corporations, someone who wants to share the practices of mindfulness and meditation with uh professionals. What advice would you give to someone starting out and selling their services?

Speaker 2 · 36:57Yeah. So first off, always, as we talked about, connect to your intention. What's your why behind doing this? I feel like that'll kind of help you to feel more confident in it and feel more sort of grounded in your why, which you know increases motivation, increases that drive and desire. And then honestly say, get the skills to do this. Um, to actually do quote unquote, you know, sales, which isn't a dirty word. It's basically, you know, the way we bring our intention out there. If you think of people who've made big changes in the world, you know, there's a lot of similarity between what they're doing versus what we're doing. It might have taken different shapes or forms. Great thinkers, great leaders, and realizing that that's what they're doing. And but getting to the skills, there is sort of a way things work, excuse me, in modern corporate sales today, where, you know, we reach out in a certain way, we have a first call in a certain way, we ask certain questions, we share our value in a certain way, we share contracts in a certain way. And so being able to really sort of understand what these mechanisms are and how they work will make the person feel comfortable knowing that, okay, this person, yes, they have this side of it, the intention, the groundedness, the ability to teach, but also they know how our world works. I don't have to coach them on this. They're going to be able to work with me and collaborate with me throughout this process as well, too. So really having that's important because they do exist, they're there, they're clear. It's, you know, what the course is about that I share. But having that. And one more thing I'd say too, to really encourage people thinking about doing this, which kind of blew my mind when I realized this. There was a survey done about what makes the most effective people who do sales and might invite the listeners to think about what that might be. And guess what? It wasn't they're great at pitching. It wasn't that they're great at negotiating. It's that they want to do it. At a deep level, they want to do this. And I feel like mindfulness teachers really want to do this. I believe all of us, myself included, have been very deeply personally impacted by these types of tools and abilities. And so knowing that, you know, you have that already within you. Another interesting survey was done. It's what are the two things, the two biggest issues that buyers have with people who are selling to them? It's that they don't, the person selling doesn't listen. And then they don't understand me. And my guess is two of the things that everybody on this listening right now is the best at is listening and understanding, you know, holding space, digging deep, really empathizing. Because people, yes, they want to buy from who has the best product, so to speak, but they really want to buy from the person who understands them the best. And if you can ask these questions, get deep, and then say, here's what I heard. You know, it sounds like this organization is struggling with this, which has had these types of challenges. You know, we've seen issues with this and that. And you have these other types of goals as well that are on the line. And if we don't work with those or serve those, it might end up in these challenges. However, if we do serve these, then it looks like we could have these benefits as well. How true does that seem to you? You know, and always going back. How does that seem for you? How does that feel for you? And going back with them too, which is something that we really have because so many people selling these days are going in there kind of frazzled, like, okay, let me show you my product, let me show you what I have, look at this feature, look at this, look at that. What, you know, and any sort of discovery that is called, you know, is usually very kind of surface level. What challenges? Okay, people are a little bit stressed. Okay, um, what other this? But our ability to dig deep, understand, and hold space, the person feels held. Oh my gosh, this person gets it. They're listening, they're asking deeper questions. I trust this person. I just speak to this person. I don't want to ignore this person when they reach back out again. So the beauty of it is that, you know, the advice, connecting with your intention, getting the skills, and knowing that you already have some of the most kind of, you know, I call it sort of the mental emotional skills in place, and then balancing those with the tactical skills makes for a really powerful and effective presence you're able to bring.

Speaker 1 · 41:22Beautiful. Well said, Danny. Um you know, so many people in professional settings and organizations are suffering, they're stressed, they're depressed, they're overwhelmed, they're burned out. And so many people could really use these mindfulness practices, these practices of self-compassion and emotional regulation and resilience. And so we need more mindfulness teachers in these spaces to support these professionals, these leaders, these managers. And so for everyone listening, there's never been a greater demand for mindfulness teachers in these spaces. And uh I encourage you to get the skills that Danny's talking about. We offer Danny's course, a mindfulness sales course, to give you the skills to be able to offer your mindfulness trainings, your workshops, your keynotes, your practices, your meditations into organizations. And it gives you all the tools that you need to be able to do that effectively with integrity and uh compassion and also effectiveness, really impacting the organizations uh in qualitative ways. So, everyone who's listening, I encourage you to check out Danny's course on our website at mindfulnessercises.com. We'll have the link down below. Encourage you to check it out so that you can help people in organizations uh effectively. Uh, Danny, it's been a treat to be able to learn from you and um hear your insights, uh, really hear your heart coming through. Um I just want to honor the work that you've done for so many mindfulness teachers around the world uh in helping them to share their wisdom and their compassion with people in a professional setting. So uh thank you so much for coming, Danny.

Speaker 2 · 43:33Yeah, yeah, my pleasure. It genuinely is. I don't just say that, you know, as a matter of speaking. I think that if someone's listening to this, if someone has kind of come this far, that there's a reason. And I don't want to go too far out, but I feel like I don't know if I would, you know, you can maybe say we've been chosen in some sense, or you know, there's something a bit bigger that's brought us to this space, but there's a real opportunity here. And not everybody comes here. And I feel like all of us together can turn the tide of this world. And if you're here, you're one of those people. I'm sure we had to probably crawl through some heavy places to get where we are right now. And I honor that. I know I have. So I really welcome people to know that what we've gone through, how we've been able to help ourselves is a gift that doesn't just need to stop with us. We needed to learn at this level in order to manage ourselves. And now we have this gift and ability to bring this out in others. And maybe you can imagine what it'd been like if someone came and shared this with you, you know, five or 10 years before you figure it out for yourself, how that might have changed the trajectory of your own life. And knowing that bringing this into organizations that are literally creating the products, the services that touch the world all day, every single day, if that effect is washed over them, not only to the employees, but again to everybody that they're touching, the effect and the reach that this really has. So I just see it's such a powerful way to kind of utilize our challenges and things we've learned in our practices to have arguably the broadest reach possible. And we're coming from the right place. So thank you all for being here. This is part of my intention is to amplify it and helping people who are at this point in their in their journey as well. So the honor is really mine. Thank you all.