I find myself in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, the chill of winter is in the air.  I am sitting in a café opposite a young, urbanite, student from the National University of Mongolia, named Binderiya. She is longing for the vastness of the Mongolian Steppes and the rolling graceful golden dunes of the Gobi Desert.  She said, this is where freedom is.  You need to be adaptable, agile to see the possibilities from an expansive viewpoint.  I can see in her big brown eyes, her lament for her nomadic past as she feels that she has lost this being an urbanite.  She pauses, and then says, nomads ‘Think Vastly, Act Narrowly’.  Inside of me an explosion goes off.  Wow what a great insight.

What does this mean to nomads?  What does this mean to you?  How can this help you transform how you make decisions in your life or business or simply see the world?

For nomads, she says, this means they are able to see the wide angle, the global viewpoint, big picture perspective. Translated into contemporary life and viewpoint, they gather all possibilities; viewpoints on situation; ideas on a creative project; topics of a meeting and more. Then they narrow in and rapidly make a focused decision and move forward towards that destination.

This means starting wide, standing back and looking a situation from a separate and distant position physically, mentally and emotionally.  Kind of like standing on the top of a mountain and looking at the 360 view point.  Most of us, harbour all things in our mind, body and soul which put you in a narrow, often constricted position, and things can seem quite entangled.  Like the saying, ‘you can’t see the forest for the trees’.  When you are entangled, it is hard to remove yourself from the narrowness to disentangle whatever you want to solve or how you want to be.  Luckily as humans, we are able eventually able to sort things out … or not.

Try this physical body scan to expand yourself and disentangle!

  1. Stand upright with your arms held out sideways at shoulder level.  Feel what this is like – is it light or heavy; can you breath freely; how does your mind feel; what about the rest of your body – is it strong, flexible and loose – does it feel freeing?
  2. Next, with your arms out stretched slowly bring your arms together in front of you (at shoulder level) and again go through the body referral scan.
  3. Then fluidly flow your arms back and forth wide narrow, wide narrow a few times. Feel it. Now, look at your situation from the ‘vast’ position.
  4. When you wake-up, start the day with your arms wide and in your mind – looking at your day, before you narrow into your activities, meetings, conversations.
  5. When you are at work start wide with your plans, projects, meetings before narrowing in.
  6. During the day, take time to stand at a window and look out with your arms wide. – Just practice the width more than the narrow.

Just remember you need both – ‘Think Vastly, Act Narrowly’ by Binderiya – this will make a difference in your well-being, decisions, clarity and much more.

 

#thenomadicmindset, #leadership