Meditation Tomorrow 12-1 pm: Synchronize Your Energy

All great things are born out of chaotic, forming – creative – energy. So this is a time of great transformation potential!
How do you manage yourself amidst the chaos swirling around you – whether it is the fluctuation of the markets, your business or the temperaments of those around y ou?

You get your own energy in sync and balanced – to stay grounded and nimble in the creativity space. Be – embody – the calm in the eye of the storm.

Tomorrow, I am leading a Naam Abundance Meditation at UUCD at 24 Clapboard Ridge Road, Danbury, CT . A $12 donation goes to the space.

This is a music meditation and we will focus on synchronizing your energy to optimally take advantage of these crazy times!

Open to the public – with or without prior meditation experience. Bring a pillow, yoga mat or something comfortable to sit on.

Naam Abundance Meditation Tomorrow at Noon: Discipline to Enter the Fall

I continue to lead a monthly Naam Abundance Meditation at UUCD, 24 Clapboard Ridge Road, Danbury, CT –  the first Saturday of the month. $12 donation.

We meet tomorrow 12-1 pm. Pending the weather and interest, we may be outside under the trees to soak in the last days of summer. This is open to the public – with or without prior meditation experience. Bring a pillow, yoga mat or something comfortable to sit on.

Our focus will be discipline as we leave the summer and enter the fall – rounding the last quarter for business professionals and starting the school year for teachers and students.

Co-Piloting, like Leadership, Requires Volleying and Complete Alignment

When the stakes are high, it’s necessary to be in alignment to get the right results.
During my flight lesson this week I sought a safe, informative and fun flying experience. I put my life in the hands of my pilot/instructor – what could be higher stakes? As I sat in the pilot seat my shoulders couldn’t be closer to my instructor.

Tight quarters – yes – but I also needed to be closely aligned in mind and spirit as well in order to heed his instruction. My motivations were a desire to learn, to not crash and stay alive and to keep Lloyd focused – our lives depended upon it.

In order to listen, I needed to have complete trust and faith in his abilities – skill and wisdom. I learned that flying not only requires understanding a vast amount of technical knowledge but also paying attention and listening to the view, movement and sound of the sky to know just how to adjust the wings. So too, with leadership, we need to listen to our environment and those we serve to know how to adjust our wings – our ego, our actions, our words – to have the impact we want.

All co-pilots know they need to be seamless, complementary and volleying with their movements and skill to act as one unit that propels the plane forward. It requires being a leader and follower.

As a leader, how do you engender trust in others? When you have a high stakes situation, how well prepared are you? Do you listen to, and trust your gut instincts? As a follower, how well do you listen and get your ego out of the way? How well can you volley control back and forth from leader to follower?

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

Flying: Learning a New Skill Keeps Your Brain Vibrant and Pliable

Yesterday for my (milestone!) birthday, my husband gave me an airplane flying lesson. I’ve wanted to learn since I was 17.

I had a one hour lesson with 30 minutes in the air. This occurred two days after Hurricane Irene yet it was amazing how calm, brilliant, blue and clear the sky was. I walked away with many insights related to life and work that I will be blogging about for the next week.

Within minutes of landing in the cockpit, I was on information overload: My instructor explained the takeoff checklist, the different dashboard tools, how to steer, keep the airplane nose and tips level, etc. I enjoyed the experience knowing HE ultimately had control of the vehicle so I didn’t have to retain everything. Whew – nothing like having a safety net! Like learning to ride a bike – this was as much a visceral as an intellectual experience. I had to steer with my feet. Talk about feeling uncoordinated! I needed to get in touch with my toes while my eyes made sure I was level with the horizon.

The only way that we continue to grow is to put ourselves in situations that are stretching or foreign. If life doesn’t present us with challenging experiences then it is up to us to actively seek them out. This is how we grow beyond what we know and can do. Otherwise, we replicate the same experiences which breeds complacency and ultimately, atrophy of body or mind.

Do you want to be renewed or get a fresh perspective on your career, relationship or work project? Take on learning something new, however small. You’ll be amazed at what else you’ll learn as it keeps you young by creating new brain cells which gives you access to new insights and actions.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

Savoring The Incremental Creates Sustained Behavior Change

Deep insight, intensive workshops, breakthrough coaching sessions, a cataclysmic life event… these all are catalysts for change. These are the events that many wanting change seek.

We can come off these events with a high, with a great uplift in our motivation or a low searching for meaning, answers.
THEN, reality sets in and the heavy lifting of integrating these events – emotional and mental shifts and behavior change – into our daily living sets in.

This is where I see the need for an uncommon practice to take root: realistic optimism. How do you stay optimistic and steady with your practice of behavior change despite what you know, despite how hard it may be, despite the lack of support you may face in your environment? How do you keep the faith and believe you can do it? How do you acknowledge the incremental, daily changes you do make?

Regardless of what others say, savor what you know to be true. Savor your improvements. These are the roots that grow great fruit.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

Where is Leadership in Healthcare?

It rests not just in legislation but with how providers choose to behave in their day-day patient interactions. Thomas Dahlborg has a great blog that reflects on putting “care” back into health care and that this is what doctor’s promise when they take their oath.

This week, I had a follow up appointment with my surgeon on a benign biopsy. In a cost-conscious, productivity-minded system, I experienced my doctor as a humble, accountable human.

My appointment last week was cancelled last minute because he had emergency surgery. I rescheduled this week and his office called me the morning of my appointment – they had a cancellation, did I want to come in earlier? I said yes.

After sitting in the waiting and then patient room for 50 minutes, I still hadn’t seen the doctor. My time is valuable and sitting around during a weekday is money spent for me. I poked my head out of the room to see if he was in sight. As I opened the door, the doctor came in. I shared my experience: “I’m flexible but this is enough waiting.” He immediately said, “I’m sorry. I take full responsibility.”

Wow. This stopped me in my tracks. How refreshing. He then took his time to explain everything to me in language I could understand. He was not arrogant, curt, or harried. He was slow, focused, deliberate and present with me. I was a real human in front of him. He spent whatever time I needed to answer my questions.

This is all we ask of our healthcare providers: To remember that they are treating a whole person who has an ailment, not an ailment attached to a person. My doctor demonstrated empathy, care and compassion – an often low-leveraged human technology that shifts one’s experience. His behavior may have been helped by the fact that he was just back from his own medical leave after having surgery. Perhaps he could more easily walk in my shoes.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

Leading Through Information Overload

This requires Downtime, Discipline, Rewiring your Brain.

I went away in January by myself on a caribbean retreat. I was offline, completely disconnected for two weeks. I had coverage at home and work – worry-free! I did a lot of thinking, writing and walking on the beach. Ah – no more noise! My system calmed down and I found my own voice again. It was heaven.

This was a stark contrast to what I experienced upon “re-entry” back into the atmosphere of 21st century constant availability. I came back to a snow crisis, client needs and a backlog of emails. I tried to do too much, too quickly. I got sick. This slowed me down. It helped me see that I need to be more disciplined in saying “no,” deferring or delegating. I continued my meditation practice.

McKinsey’s article Recovering From Information Overload offers some additional strategies.

If you’re already overloaded, here are the key points – information overload makes us anxious and we need to focus, filter and forget.

Easier said than done!

The “need” to be connected constantly is an addiction – we get hooked into fear – of missing something, not being current, etc. We can rewire ourselves for greater capacity and reduced reactivity which allows us to be more selective, proactive, clearer thinking.

My (edited) McKinsey comments:
Changing this behavior comes down to better self-management.

1. Understand and manage your own motives,
2. Enforce team norms for support – initially this may require outside support,
3. Rewire different neural pathways in the brain to not be reactive.

We give our clients concrete tools to calm down the mind and rewire the brain for response versus reaction. When one leads by shifting their energy, it impacts everyone around them – their family, their team, department or organization.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com