Janice Marturano was a
high-achieving, burned-out
executive at General Mills
when a friend convinced her
to spend a week at a spa.
Marturano had just overseen
a high-stakes acquisition
that was supposed to take
six months to complete, and
took 18 instead. During that
period, both her parents died.
“I did what most profession-
als do: We play hurt. We keep
going because that’s what
we do. We still have children
to care for, and spouses, we
still have our responsibilities
at work.”
That spa, though. Martur-
ano scoffed at the idea, only
softening when she saw one
of its offerings. “The power
of mindfulness, an intensive
retreat for executives and inno-
vators. And at that moment, in
my very warped brain, I said,well, maybe if it’s intensive,
it’s OK to go to a spa.”
That retreat changed her
life. She went all in, looking
at neuroscience research,
and studying the way other
cultures use mindfulness.
She began to see overlaps
between this new passion
and a longstanding one:
leadership. She worked with
a friend to develop the very
first mindful leadership cur-
riculum at the University of
Massachusetts.
Marturano also founded
and leads the Institute for
Mindful Leadership, which
offers retreats and courses
to leaders and employees
at companies and organiza-
tions. For Marturano, key to
mindful leadership is what
she calls the “win-win-win,”
which refers to a business
decision that benefits the
company, the employees, and
society. She believes mindful
leadership is not a luxury.
“It’s an absolute imperative
if we want professionals to
do the work we need them to
do—for themselves, for their
organization, and for that
big picture. Boy, do we need
it. Government can’t do it.
Nonprofits don’t have enough
money to do it. We need these
folks to have the spacious-
ness to find the win-win-win.”Find the
Win-Win-Win
JANICE
MARTURANOA high-powered lawyer for a national television
network, cofounder of the Inner Kids Foundation,
author of multiple books on mindfulness, and a
mother of two, Susan Kaiser Greenland says mind-
fulness has been a lifeline for her. “I truly believe
mindfulness-based self-regulation strategies are
crucial at all ages, to give people the bandwidth to
have open minds so they can learn and listen,” she
says. “Once people recognize their nervous systems
are getting overly burdened and they can dial that
back, the worldview piece comes into place.”
But, she believes, there’s still plenty of work to be
done. “The situation we’re in now keeps me up at
night. No one’s talking to each other, they’re talking
past each other, hand-wringing and finger-pointing.
Everyone’s nervous system is jacked up, everything
they do jacks it up further.”
She recognizes that in her own past. “The gen-
eration of women who were coming up through the
corporate world when I was there, in order to get
where we were going, you had to take on a lot of male
characteristics. I used to come home like the termi-
nator,” she recalls. “I know mindfulness has helped
me soften that edge and be more confident, but that
was a price of trying to break through to certain jobs
that just weren’t open to women at the time—you
had to develop a male way to navigate.” Now, Kaiser
Greenland knows “there’s a different way to navigate,
kinder, more compassionate, more effective.”Un-hijack Your
Ner vous System
SUSAN KAISER
GREENLAND“People can
recognize their nervous
systems are getting
overly burdened and they
can dial that back.”SUSAN KAISER
GREENLANDPH
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August 2019 mindful 43