Organize a meeting with yourself - put it in the diary, block off at least an hour, or even a whole half-day. Invest in yourself. Get away from your routine or habitual environment. Find somewhere to sit where you won't be disturbed but where you have a nice view - it could be a view of scenery or just somewhere where you can watch the world go by.

Do just that... watch the world go by. Empty your mind. Focus on what you're seeing as it happens. Simply soak up the magic of the moment.

The solutions to problems dawn on us when we're not wracking our brain trying to figure it out. New ideas spring to mind at the most unlikely times. Great things happen when we give them the space to happen. Give yourself some space.

This story comes from a good friend who, having spent the last few years investing heavily in the development of their own state of mind has increasingly realized just how bizarre normal behaviour really is.

He recently had cause to participate in a high-level meeting with well known business figures - a particular project in which the great and the good (at least in their own mind) are involved. What did my friend observe during the course of this high-powered meeting? Well, first of all, it started late - some of the participants were so important that they didn't care about others' time and arrived when they felt like it. Secondly, when they did arrive, it was in body alone... their minds remained involved in pretty much anything except the meeting's objective. They had arrived suitably equipped with iPhones, iPads, laptops, Blackberries - the only thing they were short of was a direct up-link to the International Space Station!

And, of course, the meeting overran - no surprise when you consider that they hadn't bothered to focus on the task in hand during the meeting... in life one things really does lead to another!

Of course, this story is being repeated in Boardrooms and conference rooms all over the world!

Given the choice between obtaining the ordinary or achieving the extraordinary, which would you choose? Well, only an idiot would choose the former but, taking years of research at face value, the world is pretty much full of idiots. And, although we're born and bred to stay close to the herd, that doesn't mean that you have to settle for a life of ordinary idiocy... particularly when you have to do very little indeed to achieve the extaordinary.

The extra that makes ordinary extraordinary is nothing more than taking care to ensure that, in everything you do, you take care. On the basis that life is lived moment to moment, so it is that it is in the detail of what we do that we become extraordinary. In other words, extraordinary attention to the moment is what leads to the achievement of extraordinary results. In saying this, I am, of course, assuming that, more often than not, what you're doing or attempting to do moment to moment is the appropriate thing to be doing within the context of your priorities and grander objectives.

That being the case, how can one develop this ability to be engrossed in the moment to moment detail of life? The answer is very simple and has been scientifically validated by research in the field of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. Oooooh... there's that word mindfulness. And, essentially, that's really all I'm talking about - being mindful enough in the moment to do what needs to be done effortlessly.

But back to answering our key question - how to develop the requisite mindfulness to deliver extraordinary results. MBCT reseach is quite clear - and I quote - meditation develops mindfulness and mindfulness delivers results. The medicine is freely available and the prescription is short, sweet and to the point: take at least once a day or, preferably, for five minutes three to four times a day.

Don't take the medicine if you want to continue to be an idiot.