Approximately 10 years ago, I was working with a consultant to help me grow my business. I’ll call her Barbara. She came to me with outstanding references and she had some excellent suggestions. Not too long after I met her, she suggested that we spend some time at the beginning and end of our sessions quieting ourselves. She wanted us to connect to ourselves, connect to our breath, connect to the space we were sitting in.

WHAT? I was paying her by the hour! She wanted to spend 10 minutes — 5 minutes at the beginning and end — of our session doing nothing but breathing? Those would be VERY expensive breaths! I thought she was crazy. I thought she was stealing money from me. I thought I was far too busy to spend 10 minutes a day mindlessly. I politely ended our work together.

This morning, having left my hour-long yoga class, I am perusing my calendar to see what time my meditation will begin. Now that I practice yoga regularly and am an intermittent meditator, I can feel, notice, and understand the benefits of trained quietness, trained peacefulness, trained mindfulness. And those benefits extend to both my work and personal life.

I see now that Barbara was way ahead of her time and she knew exactly what I needed. It’s unfortunate that I wasn’t able to embrace her wisdom at the time, but I recognize it as wisdom now.

Who has showered you with wisdom? And what was that wisdom?