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How do you show up as a leader?

Each one of us is a leader. For some of us, our leadership is formal and acknowledged by the world around us; we are team leaders or managers or CEOs at our place of employment. Yet all of us, simply by being a member of the human race, by being part of a family or group of friends, are leaders. Someone, somewhere, is watching and learning from us whether we know it or not.

Think about that. Your actions, your words, the very energy you bring to each interaction – YOU are being watched and emulated.

How do you show up as a leader?
Are you willing to find out …
… and take responsibility for your impact?

We’ve all heard those famous words, “Be the change.” But do you know that being the change we want to see in this world begins at home, in you and in me? Being the change requires that we see ourselves as leaders who care enough to learn what our impact is and take responsibility for its ripple effect.

Today, I am challenging you to look deeply at one area in your life where you impact others. Then, learn about your impact by getting courageous and asking those who feel your leadership impact to help you be a better leader. For those who are willing to be honest with you, ask these powerful questions:

How do I show up as a leader (or partner, friend, parent)?
Where do I fail as a leader?
What is my unintended impact?

Our actions always have unintended impact. Growing up, my desire to do well in school, to perform well on stage, to be “good”, had the unintended impact of me being thought of as a snob! I didn’t know that until years later when someone got honest with me. When my leadership colleagues reflected on my playing small and scared as a leader, I heard, “Your unintended impact is …”:

You create disconnection.
Smallness enters the space.
Your magnificent voice is not heard.

That’s pretty powerful impact of the kind I didn’t mean to bring with my leadership!

What is the unintended impact YOU create?

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The challenge that will change your life!

CutToTheCore

Bring to mind a situation, relationship, belief that both challenges you and that you are ready to experience shift around.  

Got it?  Now:

 

  • Who would you be without this challenge?
  • What is the most powerful question I could ask?
  • What is your response to that question?
  • What needs to happen?
  • What steps will you take?
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Awesome Self-Care … can be a lonely road

RoadLessTraveled
I was asked to write about this topic … and I think I need to make it very simple.

Self-care: honoring what “I” need physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually — nourishing my body, allowing my emotions to be and flow, healing and expressing my spirit, speaking my thoughts without apology.

Look around you. Who do you know who practices awesome self-care? If you are fortunate enough to know even one such person or, better yet, to BE that person, what is their impact on those around them?  My guess is that they are generous, kind, loving, authentic, real and that the gift they give themselves daily can’t help but spill over into honoring everyone and everything around them.

If the impact of deep and powerful self-care is feeling great and being an amazing person to be around:

Why do so few people practice awesome self-care?

Just maybe some of this is true:

  • they live in the excuses of “no time for that” or “that is selfish”
  • they are unable to say no to others; they have poor or non-existent boundaries
  • they don’t love themselves enough

There is one more, rarely spoken of reason:

It can be very lonely.

Think about it. How many people do you know who practice awesome self-care regularly, who are truly devoted to their personal wellbeing and who say no to you when your request interferes with it? Not many! In our society and many others in today’s world, amazing self-care is the road less traveled. You won’t readily find a 12-step group called Amazing Self-Care Anonymous (though you could start one!) or an organization whose core values include each employee practices amazing self-care first. All too often, those closest to us, family and friends, are anything but encouraging when we put ourselves first.

So this practice of amazing self-care can be VERY lonely.

Yet, here is my truth, having been growing my personal practice steadily over the past 10-15 years:

  • The more I take care of me, the more I’m accused of being generous!
  • The more I take care of me, the more I have within me to give and the more I want to give it.

With respect to awesome self-care, I choose to be in this world, but not of it. I can’t imagine any other way to be anymore.

Please, don’t take my word for its value, but do give amazing self-care a try.  Please? If you can’t do it for yourself, consider doing it for those you love. Consider modeling extreme awesome self-care for your children, your friends and for those you work with who aren’t aware that it is a choice and perhaps don’t know how to do it.

How will your amazing self-care impact our world?
What loneliness are you willing to experience …
for the greater good?

Thank you.

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What is your YAY?

What is your YAY?

SignsOfTheTimes4By6

Yes, that IS what I mean! What are you celebrating? What are you proud of? What bit of magic or delight have you created today? Say it. Go on! Stand up and shout to world: “I just … and it is so frickin’ awesome!”

What? You’re uncomfortable?
Ain’t no way you would do that?

What’s that about? Why is it that so often conversations center around what’s wrong, what we feel bad about, what ails us or the world at large?

Rather than dig into the why which often doesn’t do much good, I am challenging you to break the mold and simply model something different:

Share your YAY!

Then notice. Notice the impact in you when you dare to feel proud, good about yourself. Notice the impact on others when you express it. Then, invite them to join you. Ask your friends, your colleagues, your partner, your children:

What is your YAY?

Imagine sitting around the dinner table and hearing celebrations. Imagine starting a meeting at work with each person celebrating a recent accomplishment. Imagine we focused on the positive more than the negative. Imagine!

What are you proud of today?
How did you brighten our world today?
What is your YAY?

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The Spotlight of Deep Listening

SpotLight

Deep listening is the gift of giving our undivided attention. It involves listening beyond the words to the emotion, the meaning, the essence of what is being communicated. It is listening with our whole body and hearing what the other may be feeling, especially when they are unable to speak the words aloud.

Unfortunately, deep listening is rare, yet so very needed in our world. Too often we are multi-tasking in our brain – thinking about what we’ll say next or what is on our to-do list when we are pretending to listen to the child or parent or colleague or friend in front of us.

Though rare, you know when someone is deeply listening to you! And, it is a skill everyone can develop. To enhance the power and impact of your listening, try this one simple idea:

Shine the spotlight over there!

A well-known expression goes like this: What you focus on expands. Now, imagine there is a listening spotlight that you habitually shine on your own thoughts. In this way, while outwardly focused on the other person, inwardly, that light is expanding your thinking rather than expanding your ability to receive what the other person is communicating. Experiment today. In each conversation, begin by pausing, turning on the spotlight, and pointing it in the direction of the one who needs your listening ear.

What do you hear when your focus is directed on them?
What do you notice in your responses?
What is the impact of your deeper listening?