leadershipdevelopment

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Discover 8 Types of Courage

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Discover 8 Types of Courage

Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision, and a skill to develop.

Courage is often outside of our conscious awareness. The awareness of courage, when you or others are courageous, is a crucial skill for skillfully responding, intentionally appreciating others, and consciously leading.

A narrow definition of courage means we miss the ways our daily lives invite different kinds of courage—the courage to put aside hesitation and lean into a challenge, the courage to stand your ground, the courage to reach out when survival brain commands us to retreat, the courage to respond with care instead of a bitter retort.

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As the World Keeps Changing It’s Time to Update Our Mindsets

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As the World Keeps Changing It’s Time to Update Our Mindsets

Today, even with my years of intense training and practice, I regularly get trapped in less productive mindsets. When I hold onto fixed, often unexamined beliefs about myself and the world, they interfere with accomplishing and expressing what really matters to me.

I see the leaders and teams I work with do the same. Frustrated by their results, they don’t understand what holds them back. They struggle to understand how their inner frameworks direct the way they behave.

When the world has changed, and life asks something more from us, it’s time to update mindsets whose usefulness has expired and consciously strengthen mindsets that support our active participation in the emerging future.

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Embrace Disturbance: The Best Way to Look without Flinching

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Embrace Disturbance: The Best Way to Look without Flinching

Some days, it’s difficult to name the disturbances without focusing blame in a single direction, denying the extent of the problems, or feeling overwhelmed. It’s hard to know what we are responsible for. What we can actually change.

I really don’t like being disturbed. Nobody does. But I’ve discovered that embracing rather than turning away from what disturbs us is a skill, a muscle we can build. It’s a conversation we can initiate and a personal practice that builds resilience, a readiness to accept the next wave of change with more equanimity. The quicker we recover, the more capable we are of acting in meaningful ways.

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Leveraging the Learnings of Change

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Leveraging the Learnings of Change

A fundamental axiom of change is that we are constantly faced with the unknown. Sometimes we need to do the best we can while we don’t know what to do.

When we invite dialogue, we expand the frame of what and where we pay attention. We can apprehend what we do know and put our attention on what we don’t yet know. Approaching the not knowing directly through good conversations, we can shift from reactive to proactive, gain critical insight, and exchange feeling alone for working together to act with care, compassion, and courage.

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Love and Connection in a Time of Physical Distancing

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Love and Connection in a Time of Physical Distancing

In this time of physical distancing it’s easy to disconnect, isolate, hunker down, and wait for this to be over. While that is a viable choice, we could also use this time to lay the groundwork for a more fulfilling future.

It may seem like a contrary idea, but this is a great time to discover what we haven’t seen, heard, or experienced in the vast world of love and connection.

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In the Tumult of Change: Conscious Endings and Our Emerging Future

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In the Tumult of Change: Conscious Endings and Our Emerging Future

We are settling into a new reality, a time of change. I find myself going back and forth between embracing and resisting the reordering of our lives. By consciously engaging we can use this in-between transition zone to adapt to the changing circumstances, and help others do the same.

We can strengthen what’s positive, caring and fun — virtually hug over Zoom; smile at strangers and friends from six feet away. Or you can join our neighborhood in the Mill Valley Howl.

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Will you Repeat the Past or Create a New Future? A Commitment Makes the Difference

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Will you Repeat the Past or Create a New Future? A Commitment Makes the Difference

My friend Ramona has always been interested in protecting endangered species, so much so that she traveled to Tanzania to meet the elephants there. She was enthralled by these incredible beings. But her feelings changed when she learned that in Tanzania up to 100 elephants a day are massacred for their tusks that get turned into billiards balls, piano keys, and other items for human enjoyment.  She transformed from elephant enthusiast to elephant protector as her lifelong interest shifted into a powerful personal commitment to defend the elephants with all her might.

Changing the design of your future starts with a commitment.

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A Step-by-Step On-Ramp to Wisdom

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A Step-by-Step On-Ramp to Wisdom

A flowering tree opens, expands and grows with simple encouragement – water, light, mulch.  Keep it in the dark, or expect it to grow without attention and we get a weak spindly tree, bearing little fruit.

Like the tree, without mindful awareness, our wisdom languishes until it is nothing we can count on in tough times. What’s your on-ramp to cultivating wisdom?

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What I Learned from my Turning Point

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What I Learned from my Turning Point

For some reason, this particular day, this moment, this choice felt like a Turning Point—one of those forks in the road.

It’s hard to admit, but every now and then I slide into an outdated, yet familiar, groove of insufficiency: “Nothing is enough. I’m not enough.” I lose confidence, feel inept. It’s not much fun…but I don’t stay there long. Usually I slide back into a groove of confident enthusiasm and focused intention pretty quickly.