245. Mindful Messages: Leveraging the Power of Presence

Hi. Matt here. The start of the new year gives us a moment to rethink how we work. And I don't know about you, but I wanna work more efficiently. And that's why I'm going to double down on Grammarly. Grammarly has been super helpful to me. It brings everything I need to do when writing all together. So I can take my writing from draft to done in one place, emails, presentations, proposals. I don't lose momentum, and you won't either. Grammarly even helps you use AI more thoughtfully and thoroughly. You can get real time suggestions, refine your tone, or ask for help, all while keeping your own voice front and center. I found it saves time and makes writing feel more manageable and even enjoyable. In fact, 90% of professionals say Grammarly saves them time, writing, and editing. Sign up for Grammarly free and take your professional writing from draft to done. Visit grammarly.com. That's grammarly.com. Creative and conscious communication can not only help us resolve our conflicts, but can help us live a better, more connected life. My name is Matt Abrahams, and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. Today, I'm excited to speak with Deepak Chopra. Doctor Chopra is a physician and the leading authority on integrative well-being in spiritual intelligence. He is a clinical professor of family medicine and public health at the University of California, San Diego, and he serves as a senior scientist for Gallup organization. He is the author of over 97 books, many of which are New York Times bestsellers. He is the cofounder of cyberhuman.ai and Deepak chopra.ai, a new AI tool available to all. Well, welcome, doctor Chopra. I look forward to our conversation. I have been a big follower of your work for many years. Thank you. Shall we get started? Yes. Of course. Excellent. Your work emphasizes the importance of presence and mindfulness. What practices do you recommend to cultivate presence in our communication and our interaction with others? To make any communication meaningful, we need presence. Presence is fundamental, but it is overshadowed by the ego mind. Most of us do not bring presence in our conversations. You bring presence in conversations when you have deep listening without judgment. We call it attention. You bring presence when you bring the element of empathy and compassion and joy and equanimity. That's called affection. So attention, affection. Third thing, you bring presence is when you have appreciation for what you're doing because every conversation is unique, every conversation, and every encounter is unique. And finally, you bring presence when you have radical acceptance, which you're not trying to change another person's point of view. You're expressing your point of view, but you're not attached to it. Then that's present. Of course, mindfulness practices, being aware of your breath, being aware of your bodily sensations, Once in a while, asking yourself, am I present? Okay. All …