Typically at this time of year, our minds tend to shift to a retrospective of the year's accomplishments as well as what our goals for the coming year will be. New Year's resolutions, anyone? In the middle of all of that, many of us are also focusing on the holiday season and the entertaining, gift-buying, cooking, baking, and decorating frenzy.

This final, enlightening Piedmont ATD event of 2021 will be led by Manpreet Bawa, a sought-after speaker on this topic. He'll be joining us from the UK and will share what mindfulness is, help us understand the benefits, and lead us in engaging in some mindfulness techniques. This session is not only important at this busy time of year, but it also forms one of the statements in the Emotional Intelligence and Decision-Making Capability in the ATD Capability Model: Knowledge of techniques and approaches to learn and/or demonstrate resilience, for example meditation, mindfulness, and perspective-taking.

According to Manpreet, our mental focus has been a key component for success and staying productive, whether it's education or our work. If COVID showed us one thing, it is that just forcing focus isn't working. We are depleting our energy and capabilities, and have not been trained to manage our mind and our mental health effectively. This is a not new age problem; even monks and saints from 5000 years ago battled and that's how they came up with what we now call "Mindfulness". We are constantly living in the past or future, but rarely present in the now, and that's what takes away our capability to be productive, lively, and enjoy the present fully.

Manpreet Bawa

After 20 years of a successful IT professional career, and raising over 10M+ in revenue, when it seemed I had everything going - I realized how unfulfilled I was. I decided to find and spend the rest of my life on purpose. I worked feverishly to get out of the unfulfilling rut. I am not a Guru, or expert but I am a few steps in this journey and I love to share what this journey has taught me so far.