by Diane Gold

Corporate Tai Chi as with many other corporate wellness programs, has been rapidly integrated into the corporate environment, the academic world and organizations of all types. This is a result of the many studies that demonstrate how medical, biological and psychological health correlate with positive return on investment.

As we have probably read, Corporate Tai Chi, aside from being tai chi class in a group setting, is a technique of five minutes of movement training that develops focus, motivation and relaxation. What if we started our day off with some kind of stress, let’s say, about money, family, personal ability? And what if every morning, we walked into our office and did a five-minute strategy that took the stress away? We’d do it, right?

What if we were a high school student and we were being bullied at home and bullied at school? And what if every morning, when we walked into our classroom, we did a five-minute strategy that relaxed us so much that the bullies would feel so good about themselves that they wouldn’t want to bully any more and the victims would become so relaxed that they would feel and be courageous, productive and happy? Corporate Tai Chi is this technique.

Whether we call it Incorporated Tai Chi, United Tai Chi or Chi Dance, when people feel good, they do and create good things. They produce good work. They are kinder to each other and they enjoy what they are doing. Corporate Tai Chi makes us feel good. Its mission is to elevate all feelings to the positive range. This, in a matter of five quick minutes, at work, school or club, and repeated regularly until we are able to reproduce the experience with no leader and teach it to someone else.

We can all think of a time when we were negated, criticized, disagreed with, rejected. Since we always have a choice as to how to react, going forward we can choose to see the positive side, be gracious, humble and gain power from it. Corporate Tai Chi gives us the ability to do this, rather than cave to our gut reaction of sadness or anger.

Scientific data show(s) that negative reactions can drive us to produce less and do poorly in school, translating to the school’s getting less state revenue due to lower grade point averages and the corporate revenue’s dropping as a result of negative rather than optimistic and open ways of behaving. So, we will be better off if we have the training to find the positive side of the picture.

Here is a list of 9 applications that could and do benefit from regular mind/body tai chi training, given by a professional mentor of tai chi or by someone in the organization who has been trained by a mentor to pass it on:

(1) in the graduate school environment. As students advance in their studies, the concepts they consume become more complex. Instituting  regular 5-minute training (even 1 minute) creates a vacation for the mind.

(2) at the sales meeting. When employees get together to learn sales techniques, they need a clear and focused mind. 5 minutes of Corporate Tai Chi can give that extra energy needed to absorb information and be attentive to the learning process.

(3) at the government meeting. Government employees have stress and need a way to relax it. The first several minutes of a meeting should include this great technique for putting a little clarity on the table.

SIDEBAR: I heard this one today, relayed by the mom of a school girl quoting her elementary school teacher: The difference between try and triumph is a little umph. The interpretation is that if we are jazzed to do our work, we will quadruple our results and have so much energy (and shall have produced so much revenue) that we will want to and be asked to create anew.

(4) on the factory floor. OK, you can’t picture automobile workers doing a mind/body exercise at the start of their shift? What if they felt so good from it that they made 1.5 cars in the same time it took to make 1 car, as long as they were doing their regular morning five minutes?

(5) at the non-profit meeting of the Red Cross. By doing a five minute program before the onset of the regular meeting, people would become extra energetic and creatively come up with new programs to help the cause.

(6) before taking a test. Imagine the benefit of calming down before a test and what it would do for our ability to succeed?

(7) before a theatrical opening. Now we are seeing an application which is akin to centering ourselves. If the people in the play are focused and act well, their production will thrive and score big with critics.

(8) at the corporate office of the customer care division of a major telephone company. How do we think the customer care people would be after doing five minutes of Corporate Tai Chi? They would treat us with more respect, therefore, we would be customers longer because we loved their customer service and their revenue would increase, as a result.

(9) before instituting a peaceful rally. In order to implement a rally or movement, people have to be centered and focused. Five minutes of taking time out as a group is a great way to get it done.

CONCLUSION
I have presented this simple five minute program at an international sales meeting at the multi-national corporate level, in school environments, at organization meetings, always with similar reactions: we didn’t know that five minutes could make such a profound difference. We really feel supercharged.

These reactions parallel the statistical data showing the original correlation of health and revenue. And it is becoming mainstream information that corporate wellness dollars which would support programs such as Corporate Tai Chi generate three times as much as they cost.

Sometimes we balk at change. We keep the status quo longer than is sensible. We like social proof. Oh, those Boards of Directors are doing it, so we should do it. Oh, the State of New York has implemented it in the public schools, so we should do it. We like celebrity. Look what Governor Shwarzenegger did for physical fitness. Without it, often, our eyesight is poor to view the positive impact on our long term lives.

Finally, the technology that is Corporate Tai Chi is slowly filtering into society as study after study confirms its financial impact. Five minutes of perfect focus on ourselves. It removes stress. It pumps us up. It makes us prepared. It improves our mindset and our ability to reason. It makes us healthy. It makes us money. Let’s recommend Corporate Tai Chi.

To make kids calmer at school and in life, shouldn’t we use the same tools we use to calm ourselves? Yes. We, the gurus and generators of our ever-changing and wonderfully rich culture, know this, inherently but are usually too consumed with calming themselves to realize that our kids need what we need.

Why is it so important to go to the mani/pedi appointment or the golf game regularly, or why do we meditate or go on a retreat? Isn’t it to release, relax and rejuvenate? Of course, that is part of it. And the way we need it, our kids need it.

In order to have calm kids, we must understand how we are calm adults. Obviously, we have given thought to personal balance, healthy environments, peace of mind. All we have to do is walk down Main Street, Anywhere, USA and count the spa, tai chi, massage, yoga, acupuncture and other studios that dot the body of merchants to see how important serenity is in our lives.

Our ENVIRONMENT is a key to our serenity. What our location looks like, how spacious it is, the surrounding smells, our comfort level in the space and more factors affect how calm we are. The temperature of the building we are in or the placement and type of lights in the classroom all have to do with our peace of mind. When these factors are physically built into the arena where our kids spend their time daily, we are using the first way to calm kids.

POSITIVE SELF-ESTEEM. Although it is nice to be in a nurturing but empowering atmosphere, not all schools or institutes, where kids receive a large part of their education, provide these traits. Some believe in the tough love type of teaching, where the student must keep up with the teacher. Other teachers consider it a responsibility to reach the pupil. Depending upon how a student learns, these two standards make a tremendous difference in the peace of mind of the student. If the student learns and evolves well through “the very old school method” of getting the ruler to the hand for not understanding the lesson, and the school provides this; the student’s self-esteem will be positively affected by these lessons. Likewise, if the student learns well from an instructor who is determined to teach without embarrassment or learning from fear, and the school offers the more compassionate side, again, the student will learn. In the scenario where the student’s innate nature and the method are mismatched, the student can experience stress which may lead to negative self-esteem.

How to cause harmony to flow aka, The Fix: the discipline watcher, the teacher, the principal, the coaches must be on the lookout for students in stress. Some students will act out; others will not; some will look stressed or sad or angry. The knowledge managers, meaning all the staff in a school and parents for home schoolers, can notice, say, a kind word and provide a program that addresses peace of mind. This method depends upon the responsibility of the people in these roles. Is it possible to be a diligent observer and provider when everyone is multi-tasking and has multiple roles? The answer, IMHO, is, “Yes.”

MIND-SET. It is the school’s responsibility to prepare the student’s outlook on socialization, commerce, art, and fitting in or out, whichever the student chooses. It is also the school’s responsibility to discuss the state of well-being. Yes, this is work for “at home,” but it is not exclusive and must be discussed in school. Many public and private schools hide behind the banner of the fine line not to cross between what belongs at school and what belongs at home. Students can’t excel without personal balance. So the topic of how to maintain and accelerate calmness must be available at school (again, it needs to be available in an designed way for home schoolers).

Take writing and penmanship as an example. When we are in the process of learning it, we don’t really know how it will open up our lives. But after our knowledge of it becomes part of our life, only then do we see its benefit. The same goes for talking about the state of well-being. In school, we are told to put our heads down to rest, to run around the track, to eat nutritionally. Are we taught why all this is important? Do teachers realize that this has to do with mind-set as well as code compliance? It is crucial to mention the state of well-being topic so that the student knows it is normal to consider it and so that, when the student is offered a class in well-being (such as tai chi or yoga), the student will connect the training to the topic and both to her (his) life and gravitate toward it. Also, talking about the topic is an important part of generating the result.

CALMNESS TRAINING. It’s one thing to talk about getting calm and another to be taught how to do it. Some type of mind/body training should be offered as part of regular curriculum. Although a period-long class would be great and should be an elective in phys. ed, the best training would consist of a five-minute segment on a daily basis. It should be part of the routine that goes along with checking into homeroom, saluting the flag, placing books in a locker, sharpening pencils, erasing the blackboard. These activities are daily, ongoing and are preparations for learning. This method of kid calming training is like erasing the internal blackboard so that the student is feeling well before taking the first step into the daily school schedule.

This regular mind/body daily training should be a standard in every educational institution. This training does not replace specialty training in a mind/body program such as tai chi, chi kung, yoga, meditation, kung fu. It is a separate tool.

KIDS CALMING THEMSELVES. The most important part of kid calmer training is for a youth or a teen to be able to take the kid calmer (aka corporate tai chi for kids training) from school into her (his) own life. Translated, this means that kids hear about peace of mind at school, are exposed to the physical training it entails at school and can easily use it to balance their lives away from school. This most important kid calming method is also the most challenging. What’s easy to do as part of a class is not always easy to do for ourselves. The purpose of training a small 5-minute segment of tai chi or chi kung training every day as opposed to one to three 40-minute classes a week helps us in consistency training. The mind gets used to daily work, the muscles start to remember the daily calmness, the student gets to consider the topic of peace of mind, the roller coaster ride of class, then no class, class, then no class is replaced with a daily, consistent body of work which makes the student calm.

IN CONCLUSION, relating in-school training to external life is what every good teacher tries to accomplish. When schools give kids kid calming tools, students can maximize their lessons and give them meaning. Students realize that going to the corner spa, tai chi, yoga studio is similar to what they do in school. They have some idea that working on a mind/body lesson is about beauty on the inside, rather than who can be the most attractive externally. They have established a small foundation in training for calmness. Because of this, they can call the training up when they are afraid to enter the next grade, when taking a test, when combatting peer pressures or bullies, when going to the college interview. when going on a job interview and other times because they like being balanced and peaceful.
We, as adults, find many ways every day to keep our cool, calm ourselves, balance our lives. The same opportunities should be afforded our kids at a much earlier age. If children begin mind/body training as 5-year-olds, they will have less stress and more temperance throughout their childhood, as teens and as adults. The experience of kids doing kid calming training will account for greater personal balance in kids today and tomorrow.

Jump start this type of thinking by going here to read about the grant I am applying for. You can also text 106422 to 73774 to vote for the project. Votes could mean adding 50 Kid Calmer programs in Florida School systems and more. IT’S FREE AND HARMONIOUS.

1. students in pre-school and K-12,
2. students in university or college,
3. residents in hospital, nursing home, prison,
4. government personnel,
5. military groups out of combat,
6. social clubs and religious group affiliations,
7. community groups,
8. corporations (factory/office),
9. volunteer groups,
10.alumni or alumnae groups,
11. family daily life, gatherings and reunions,
12. etc., etc., etc.

With this list, we can see how each of these groups is a unified group. So, the term “corporate tai chi” would correctly identify a tai chi activity with these people. In fact, the very purpose of tai chi is to unify. So, corporate tai chi is a perfect name. Maybe with an added asterisk like so:
CORPORATE* TAI CHI, always followed by the list.

This post was inspired by my phone call with Jeff Herring, the Article Guy, with whom I just spoke. I mentioned that I was looking for another name for Corporate Tai Chi since everyone relates it to business, instead of what it is, unified groups, such as schools, organizations, government, hospitals and business entities.

Jeff’s tag line, Go Use This Stuff (G.U.T.S.) led me to act immediately upon having a few unexpected extra minutes due to our call’s being cut short because of Murphy’s Law, karma and a local phone repair team.

From this point on, the Corporate Tai Chi brand will add an ASTERISK.

As is typical in this world of “get it now”, many of us think that working our bodies for an hour in an eight-week class and then sitting dormant for a year is helpful. As any athlete, scholar, philosopher will tell you; the work must be continual so that the foundation of knowledge we build becomes usefully available as we train our subject. Not possible with the one-shot workout or the eight-week session. The actual one-shot thinking, IMHO, is part of a downtrodden mind.

Picture only using our right leg 50% of the time. Our lives would be vastly different. Or, how about taking up a new language, studying for eight weeks, an hour a week, with one hour of study a week, and then stopping for three years. What did we accomplish?

Many CEOs used to balk at the idea of approving physical fitness training at work, either giving money or facility to employees. Now, since it is common knowledge that $1 invested in the employee brings back between $2 and $6, we outlay money for “the gym” with little sales pitch necessary.

So, what about outlaying money for Corporate Tai Chi which will double corporate money? Corporate studies show how financially beneficial it is to have a daily stress relief component. Corporate Tai Chi, five minutes of daily training, same time every day is such a technology.

My Corporate Tai Chi/Stress/ADHD Relief Pepsi grant (resubmission), votable on April 4, is a project that will gather financial data to show how productive and how happy people feel with the program compared to without.

The answer to how to get this program standardized at work and school seems simple enough. It’s a combination of the Carnegie Hall and real estate cliches: implement, implement, implement. Or then there’s the edited Jerry McGuire quote, “Show me the numbers.”

Do we want to be happy and make happy people at work and school? Yes.

Do we want to be more productive and facilitate more productive workers and students? Of course.

If we have a guarantee that we won’t lose money, should we add Corporate Tai Chi? Definitely.

Time in gets us those guarantees. Since it is so difficult to devise a study that measures the money generated by increased production and good attitude through corporate tai chi which falls under corporate wellness and work-life balance, we need to install the program and watch what happens. it’s not a Kierkegaardian “leap of faith,” since we already have the stats from corporate wellness studies. It does take a visionary to install it. The more visionaries we get onboard, the more programs will become proof. The more proof we have, the more standardized the program will become. The more standardization, the less stress.

Look at Facebook, whose offices border a beautiful, green outdoors, visible from employee’s seats and available for a quick stress relief walk.(That would be if the ping pong table were broken at lunchtime or they decided to install cubicles). Notice the Barack Obama Green Charter School in NJ where the day begins with meditation.

Most universities and some corporate entities offer fitness centers. All should offer Corporate Tai Chi in some form where people get it first thing before task or can access it at their leisure for their leisure. As we human beings value our lives more, that is, we are becoming more diligent, we take time to enhance what we do on a daily basis. With Corporate Tai Chi in the equation, the quality of life is surely improved. There is no rush for something good to take hold. It is the nature of what makes it good.

In conclusion, the standard means keeping up with the times. Therefore, making Corporate Tai Chi available through mobile and online technology is currently in progress. That is the way of the now, until it, too, changes.

This was an exciting month

with new people hearing about the concept of taking five minutes a day and decompressing, rejuvenating, removing stress, regenerating time, confidence and energy through simple focus of the body and attention using tai chi/chi kung/flowing movement.
Here are 5 accomplishments of this grant entry.


1. THE POWER OF ONE. The Stress/ADHD Relief Project vote showed how one idea can germinate across continents, not cities, continents, to create positive world action against stress and other universal issues.


2. UNITY. The Stress/ADHD Relief Project vote demonstrated how people who are as productive and busy as you are could take a moment to read about a possible world solution and, ultimately, vote for an idea that could make a huge impact on stress and health.


3. AWARENESS. This project has raised awareness for the need for stress/ADHD relief programs in schools, at work, at home. It is my mission to continue spreading it.


4. CROSS-COMMUNICATION. This project has begun a cross-communication with other project leaders including Michelle Obama and the childhood obesity project, psychologists working to diminish stress, school professionals working on methods that make sense within the school structure that will enhance academics rather than take time away.


5. MOTIVATION The final step to the equation of pulling together and making headway in a global direction is motivation. The Stress/ADHD Relief Project Grant Vote has created motivated people to continue working on the project for the sake of humanity. The precepts of this program are based on simple concepts: that we need to take time out for ourselves, that we need to refuel, that taking a small amount of time away from “standard” daily routine will positively impact us so that being part of this type of solution will become the “new standard” of the future.


Again, I am grateful for those of you who took the time to read the project information, to vote for the project and to take the time to comment.


If you are interested in more info about the next round of project grants on April 4, 2011, please make a comment or follow this discussion through RSS.


The Stress/ADHD Relief Project thanks you.

See you at the finish line.

Review more here: overview.

On January 1 through January 31, 2011, you can review the grant directly at corporatetaichi.

People who believe the grant is a good idea can vote 1X a day for all 30 days here. The grant with the most votes wins. If you like the idea, please tell a friend. It will help corporations, schools, organizations have proper work-life balance. It will give people stress relief and happiness throughout the “working” part of their day.

Here’s what Corporate Tai Chi can do:

For further information, you can go to grant info. This grant needs your support. For personal, corporate, academic, organizational balance. Thank you you in advance for reviewing it.

You can visit the voting website now, but you will not see the corporate tai chi grant info until Jan. 1, 2011.

Go Corporate Tai Chi!

If you leave a comment below, we can share more with you.

Corporate Tai Chi, five-minutes of impact training at the work station, is an economy changing technology whose time has come. If our organizations, institutions and schools have more focused, less stressed, more inspired children and adults in them; the work they produce will be worth more to the organization, build confidence and gratitude in the individual and add to a positive influence on humanity, as a whole.

Because this special training is not part of the “old guard,” established infrastructure; decision makers such as CEOs, government officials, superintendents and provosts want to see the report that says, “For every dollar spent on corporate tai chi, you can expect to receive a return three times our investment,” as has been found with other mind-body installations and corporate wellness programs.

We don’t have that yet. BUT, we applied for a grant from Pepsi, one of the companies that lists the “spend $1, get back $3″ statistic in their literature. This particular grant is won by YOUR VOTES. That means, if you go and vote (10X a day is allowed), then we could get the grant. Starting November 1, you can go to www.refresheverything.com/corporatetaichi, and VOTE FOR THE GRANT; we can win with your help. If we win, we will launch a national corporate tai chi program.  So, we ask for your support.

SPECIAL NOTE: THIS PROGRAM WILL CREATE JOBS FOR TAI CHI INSTRUCTORS NATIONWIDE.

In the meantime, who else has the vision to see that we must marry one industry with another in cooperation with the other, one idea to the next, one community to the other, innovation to innovation? Who realizes that, by non-alliance and non-colleagueship, we are building islands rather than an integrated, well-oiled (no pun intended) engine to drive our world. Who sees the integral value that corporate tai chi has as an innovative technology?

Next-Gen-Expo sees it. Steven Zuckerman, its executive producer sees it. Next-Gen is an un-conference of innovators and innovation in science, education, music, film, art, media, alternative health, energy, infrastructure, technology, finance, human rights, climate, transportation and social action. The mission: action for the benefit of humanity.

Corporate Tai Chi will showcase there because it benefits people. Many change makers from around the world are coming to build a network of synergy – speakers and audience working together, learning and contributing. Next-Gen is about taking continual action through a process built by a producer with vision. This is about building together to empower us all.

Here’s your invitation to Next-Gen at G-Star Studios
on Oct. 15-17. Here’s a special ticket link for my readers: Next-Gen Best Tix . We’re making a movie. We’re creating a network. Corporate Tai Chi will be unveiled.

For more info on Synergy Building, see my article here.

balance at work

How would you like to be free to work creatively, school creatively, free of the doctrines of government, religion, society? Would you be lost because we were raised within these fences? Do our laws and our mores bind us or give us freedom? Fortunately for most of us who could not write a new body of laws or create a new society, we do not have to abandon what we have built. We can add to it.

Does the reflection mirror the reality?

Much as this photo shows a mirror inside a mirror inside a mirror, where light is free to reflect multiple times, corporate tai chi can allow our stress, boredom, lethargy, burn-out to become freedom, power and focus through five-minutes of training at our desk that will make us alert as a tiger while removing excess thought so we totally enjoy what we’re doing and have crystal-clear concentration.

Similar to the light, which has no restrictions but those of the eyes that see it, corporate tai chi training causes limitless positive effects. For many reasons, including accelerated and comprehensive blood flow, it takes less effort for us to produce more, create more, and be more committed. This “letting go” that we accomplish through corporate tai chi has a colossal chain reaction on academic and professional work, the revenue that is produced there and on our community, family and personal lives.

ripple effect

The FREEDOM tai chi creates brings to mind the concept of flow from letting go depicted in these ripples from a droplet of water. I am also reminded of the new novel, written by my spiritual brother, Bill Douglas, 2012 where the words of the book seemed to turn into the freedom from tai chi, even though the plot of the book had nothing to do with doing tai chi.

2012, this multi-cultural action novel, talks of the importance of letting go of archaic ways to thrive in the modern world and how necessary it is to break the bonds where fear drives action and motivation. The heroine speaks of how letting go rids us of fear, inspires creative action and  can balance the world in 2012. A good read.

free

So, are we free if we act from the social rules, and are we controlled by the mores, convictions and laws around us? Do we cherish the social, business, military and moral controls that have been implanted for our betterment? An idea to ponder repeatedly. But, it is time for me to segway back to why I wrote this on the corporate tai chi blog. Here it comes.

Tai chi is based upon the principle of continual flow of movement and energy. To become this concept is to become the art. Same with music or preaching or doctoring. If you are absorbed in your task, you have become your task. It seems to make sense that to let go brings you closer to your intention.

Let’s look at what happens if students, both children and adults; if officer workers; if executives; if laborers intentionally are given five minutes of training at the start of each day and this training causes them to let go of tension, of internal conversation, of resentment, of distraction – so that they will be in a better position to work, learn, develop, which translates to succeeding at their task, generating revenue, recognition and enjoyment.

Corporate tai chi, five-minutes of tai chi at the start of work, school, group meetings, consists of standing and doing simple, at your desk exercise, in work or school attire. It is professional development for the purpose of sharpening your day for the further purpose of raising productivity and accelerating the mind to increase revenue.

This five-minute method is so easy that it might just be the missing link between balance and instability. Using it can produce free and clear individuals, better work and school culture, super productivity and high academic achievement, and, ultimately, higher profit, better jobs and happier people.

Do we shy away from this type of method because it is not mainstream, even if we look at studies that show how every dollar spent on corporate wellness returns between $1.50 and $4.00 and schools that institute these types of programs return notable scholastic differences? Or do we go forward with the information we have obtained and run with it? Do we take a step outside the corporate box and install new programs that belong in a new time in history?

It is time to free ourselves through corporate tai chi. If we let go before starting our first task at work and school, will we not be in a better position to complete it and be in a better frame of mind? It stands to reason that if grades are higher, schools receive more money, students get better jobs. If employees produce more, corporations make more money. So what are we waiting for?

Corporate tai chi is just one example of a newer concept that deals with relaxation and flow. There are many. Music is a perfect example of how changing the rules that traditional harmony teaches created certain variations of jazz, rock, then electronic music. (I say variations because much of music follows traditional harmony to this day, although it sounds different from the old.) And now there are specializations of 50 plus genres, each with 50 divisions.

All this came out of letting go. The internet is another example of letting go of boundaries. And it is why all the genres of music are present in our minds, rather than living in their respective countries and cultures. Because, thanks to the internet, we have the opportunity to hear it all and hear freedom.

What do you think? Whether you are a sponsoring organization of corporate tai chi and watch your employees or students raise their productivity levels, or whether you have a new concept you are using to meet the needs of today’s people, embrace what you believe maintaining consideration for humanity. Look in the mirror and see what is right for you.

Community Tai Chi

If you have any comments on installing corporate tai chi in your school system, government office, community, place of business, or if you would like to be considered for such a program, please let us know at doitnow [at] dianegold [dot] com or at 866.445.2121.

If you are interested in checking out Bill Douglas’ book, 2012, The Awakening, you can get it here: dianegold.com/bd2012. It was worth my time, which is why I’m recommending it.

If you have tried Corporate Tai Chi, we’d love to hear your comments.