Who is Michael Nicholas?
Hi, I’m Michael, my career started as a chartered engineer in the military, where I was one of the first five officers on the ground in the First Gulf War, overseeing the operational deployment of communications ahead of the first Tornado deployments. Later, I gained an in-depth understanding of business in a variety of roles, including as a Director in the strategy consulting practice at Deloitte, and senior leadership experience in Nortel.
Today, I live my passion, helping people to live more fulfilling, successful, expansive and enjoyable lives.
Leaving Corporate Life Behind
It was a tough decision…
After almost 20 years’ business and leadership experience, I left my corporate career behind to start my own business in 2004. This has enabled me to put my deep knowledge and understanding of EI into action to help people to lead themselves and others more effectively, as well as to improve their decision making and general well-being.
Why should Tom Davenport have made a statement as strong as this about something as intangible as attention?
Paradoxically, as things speed up in this age of accelerations, the most important thing we need to do is to learn to slow down, to increase our self awareness, improve our performance, and make better decisions.
Slow Your Mind to Improve Your Performance
In principle, this is not hard to achieve: we need to learn to slow down enough that we can engage ‘the thinker’, to deliberately introduce a pause between any external trigger and when we start to act to handle it. Breathing offers a remarkably powerful way, probably the simplest one I know, by which we can centre ourselves enough to do this. In fact, the benefit is more than just attention, as research is increasingly showing that the way we breathe—fast and shallow when stressed or slow and deep when relaxed—affects mood, stress levels and even the immune system.
Becoming Mindful
There are lots of definitions of mindfulness.
My perspective is that mindfulness is about being mentally calm, relaxed, open, accepting, fully present, and non-judgemental. It implies a level of awareness whereby attention can be focused in a very stable way, not easily getting pulled off by distractions. In this state, the intensity of automatic thinking is greatly diminished, and we can get much closer to experiencing the information from our senses in real time. This helps us to become much more flexible in the way we respond to the world, being less restricted by habits, expectations, assumptions or previous experiences. It gives us the ability to notice our experience, and thereby creates the possibility of making changes.
By practicing focusing attention with intention, the very act itself strengthens the part of the brain that enables that focus—setting up the ultimate virtuous cycle.
As such, the ability to pay attention is actually a skill, and once it is well-developed it is expressed as mindfulness. High performance requires that it is developed to a high level, the achievement of which is both underpinned by intentional attention and impossible without it.
This is why I believe, that the ability to improve our level of intentional attention is the ultimate skill. Like all skills, it requires practice, and in this case that practice is usually called meditation.
There is a genius in all of us. We were born with it and it is still available to us by reconnecting to the unimaginable potential of our unlimited minds.
My scientific background and inquisitive nature has led me to practice active brain training through meditation, accessing parts of my brain associated with high levels of creativity and learning. Over 15 years of study and practice in this area strongly positions me to be able to apply emotional intelligence learnings in the real world. My dedication and progress can be evidenced by:
Independent brain scans taken whilst meditating (as shown) showing brain activation consistent with the top 0.5% of advance meditators.
Extensive training reading on the subject.
In the 1940s, if you had told your friends that you planned to take some exercise, the likelihood is that they would have looked at you strangely. Today, practicing mindfulness through meditation often get the same reaction. However, I believe that is about to change rapidly as people become aware of what scientific study has already proven: meditation is as important to having a healthy mind as exercise is to maintaining a healthy body.
My clients benefit from my own deep learnings, gained from both extensive study and extended practice, which I apply to my coaching, workshop insights, public speaking and writing.
Published Author
Decision making used to be all about applying your experience…
But doing the same as you have always done (i.e. standing still in a dynamic world) is no longer an option. My most recent book, “The Little Black Book of Decision Making”, highlights, through rich insights and stories, the modern days skills you need in decision making (sprinkled with emotional intelligence, creativity and mindfulness). These capabilities must be programmed into the subconscious mind to become your new modus operandi, but how can this be achieved?
The book offers many powerful steps to achieve best practice in modern leadership. It was published by Capstone in July 2017, and received an nomination in the “Best Personal Development Author and Book of the Year” category at the 2018 Best You Awards (which recognise the most talented individuals and organisations shaping personal and professional development).
To download the Introduction and Chapter 1 (no email required):
Emotional Intelligence and its application to leadership in all its guises—engagement, decision making, teamwork, vision, change, integrity, communications, resilience, etc.—is my passion, and I am dedicated to maintaining my expertise and thought leadership in the area. It’s a joy to share what I’ve learnt with others, helping them lead less stressful and more productive lives, at work and/or in play.
The genius is within you.
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Ready to invest in yourself, your leadership, or the performance of your team?
Let me know how I might help by getting in touch.
Or, if you have a question about any of my services, ask away!