Chief of Staff Nicole Montano Shares One Small Shift for an Empowered State of Being

When peo­ple ask me what my favorite part of the week at Pow­er­Plant is, I always think of the sev­en to ten min­utes on Tues­days when I get to guide and con­nect with our team in a med­i­ta­tion. On Tues­days, we have our all-day team meet­ing and before we begin div­ing into the many mov­ing parts on our agen­da, we begin by shut­ting out the world, ground­ing in our truth and cre­at­ing a state of inten­tion­al focus and clar­i­ty. I love so many things about being Chief of Staff at Pow­er­Plant but the min­utes we spend med­i­tat­ing togeth­er feel like pure gold to me.

To be hon­est, I am not sure if we start­ed our week­ly med­i­ta­tion pre-pan­dem­ic or at the start of it, but it stuck and has become a cher­ished part of our week­ly rou­tine. The space that we hold for each oth­er to hon­or our mind, body, and spir­it is empow­er­ing and inspir­ing. It’s safe, it’s with­out judg­ment and it’s respect­ful of each team member’s desire and need to take a minute to ground. When we open our eyes, we can be the very best ver­sion of our­selves — for our­selves and for each oth­er.

Qui­et­ing the mind or shift­ing focus to a heal­ing thought or breath can bring your body back to a state of inner peace and release anx­i­ety or stress. Most of us are con­stant­ly in the weeds at work. We are mul­ti­task­ing with emails, video calls, texts and dead­lines while jug­gling home life, cur­rent world events and per­son­al stres­sors. In sim­ple terms, the over­load of these events can send a mes­sage to the body that it is under attack, caus­ing a fight or flight response.

We are so busy mul­ti­task­ing that we for­get to breathe and as a result, can’t show up ful­ly present with clients and col­leagues. This isn’t inten­tion­al, it’s sim­ply an uncon­scious act. We are in sur­vival mode. I’m sure every­one that reads this is like­ly a very high achiev­ing, high ener­gy, high func­tion­ing human like the peo­ple on our team. You are in your full ele­ment with the mul­ti­task­ing nar­ra­tive, I get it. It can be a real­ly fun place to be. Hands in mul­ti­ple pots, con­ver­sa­tions hap­pen­ing, strate­giz­ing the next thing, cre­at­ing the next prod­uct or launch. It’s excit­ing and ini­tial­ly, you feel ele­vat­ed and euphor­ic but at some point, your ener­gy is drained. Or worse, you hit a wall and your health or rela­tion­ship with your­self and oth­ers suf­fers.

What if you made a tiny shift and instead of sur­viv­ing, made the inten­tion­al choice to thrive? What if you paused every cou­ple of hours or even before every call? That’s right, I said every call. What if you took 30 sec­onds to close your eyes and become aware of your body? What if you took a deep breath in, deeply exhaled all of that breath out, deeply inhaled and exhaled again, and then opened your eyes and dialed into your meet­ing with a clear mind and calm body? I invite you to try it.

Namaste – Nicole

Fol­low Nicole on Insta­gram.