Link: http://www.gaian.com

Gaian Newsletter Volume 4.2

February 2007

Creating the Future

How many of us have wished we could predict the future? When I was a child, I was really fascinated with the aspect of traveling into the future and being able to know what the world would be like many years from now. Actually, I’m still fascinated by that.

There is one thing that I now know to be true. We can all predict our futures. In fact, most of us do it on a daily basis, some of us more than others. There is no real trick to this, just awareness, that whatever we think about all day, we get. If you want to know what the future will be, take a bit of time to write down what you thought about last week.

This means the things you think about when your mind is wandering, or when you are reviewing the day you just had, or the day you are about to have. What do you think about when you are getting ready to walk into a meeting, to greet a loved one, or to start the day?

These repetitive thoughts become the life we lead, the filter through which we view the world, and the energy that we attract into our lives. As a leader, this becomes even more important in groups. There is a concept of “shared mind” that involves the collective consciousness created by the stories and commonly held pictures of a group of people. Understanding this and engaging it is a crucial aspect of leadership.

So, take a few minutes, take some notes, and change your life – right now.

Shared Mind is the actual field of consciousness created when a group of people think together. It can be experienced through the stories of any group of people who have any amount of shared history. It is crucial to a leader to understand what these stories are.

The stories told in a group can be constructive or destructive. They can convey a spirit of passion for the future or a disdain for the past. When you begin working with these stories, you begin creating the future. Interestingly, it does not matter to the future whether the stories being told are about the future, the present, or the past. The subconscious mind, in individuals and groups, cannot really distinguish between them.

What is really important is the content of the story and the tone involved in the telling of it. As we discussed about the Law of Attraction, wherever our thoughts go, reality follows. Given that, if you think about the things in life that will most serve you and you experience those thoughts with the most positive and uplifting emotions, you will simply get exactly that. Moreover, if you have a group of people who are all thinking of the same things and sharing the experience, you will get it even more quickly and powerfully.

All that to say, our stories are vitally important. Take time to understand the shared consciousness of the groups of people you are part of, and start with the stories. Take time to really get a sense for what is truly being conveyed through that story. Then, look for a way to recraft that story into a positive and uplifting one that is in complete alignment with your highest purpose.

4.2 Cr

Link: http://www.gaian.com

Gaian Newsletter Volume 4.1

January 2007

Law of Attraction: Exude Energy and Inspiration

I trust 2007 is opening new and exciting possibilities for you. It certainly is here at the Gaian Group. We have many new clients coming in with interesting new challenges. One of the most rewarding pieces is to look back at 2006 and see the success stories of people with whom we have worked. It is a gift for us to be able to join people on their journeys of personal change and development.

This is the fifth newsletter that highlights the Law of Attraction as it gets lived out through the Five Competencies for Transformational Leadership. This one, on Presence, may come last on the list, but certainly is not the least. Our business focuses on a leader’s ability to create Inspirational Presence. Today, let’s look at why this is so important.

First of all, as a leader, we must absolutely own our thoughts and our emotions. As we know from the Law of Attraction, what we focus on, we attract. In any system, the degree to which we can create an open, enthusiastic, and positive environment directly correlates to the overall probability of success.

Leaders have a primordial role in any given group. They are responsible for group emotions. Interestingly, I have known many people in leadership positions who have argued vehemently with this. Those have also been leaders of troubled systems that had a number of problems. Most of these were looking outside themselves and were convinced that they just needed better people around them. However, they had the direction of causality backwards. It is clear through research in social systems that the leader’s emotional state translates directly into the overall feelings of the environment. At this level, a leader is responsible for spreading enthusiasm and clearing toxic waste from the system. Interestingly, I am personally continuing to learn just how many places where this is the case. While it is easy to see (through traditional thinking) a leader as responsible for making the hard decisions and setting the business direction, these are items more aligned with management. If we think about a higher purpose of leadership, setting an emotional tone where creativity is safe and supported is much more important for a system to have generative capabilities.

There are physiological reasons for this. When we look at human beings, we are strongly impacted by our limbic system responses, or those that relate to our emotions, our physical feelings, and our overall energy and enthusiasm. The unique aspect of the limbic system is that it is an open loop. That means, our limbic system responds openly to those around us. Feelings spread through social systems through contagion, and the leader must take responsibility for shaping that. The feelings spread can be either resonant or dissonant. Obviously, groups of people who collectively resonate with an idea create a much greater power for accomplishing a goal than a group that expresses dissonance.

Every leader (for that matter, every person) has presence. As we expand our personal consciousness and awareness, we begin to learn about that presence. How are other people impacted by us? Do they feel compelled by our ideas or repelled by them? Do they feel compelled by our presence or repelled by it? Exceptional leaders understand this and work to build their authenticity, and therefore create a compelling presence. The real gift in this undertaking is that by tapping into this sense of authenticity, it automatically begins to expand it in our lives. Everyone around us begins to brighten up, to open up, and to put off a bit more light (remember the Law of Attraction?).

Ready to learn more? Take a few minutes, take some notes, and change your life.

Exude Energy & Inspiration (Presence)

Cutting across all the other competencies is the pure presence that great leaders exude. This is not the same as charisma, but is the ability to be open and authentic enough for people around the leader to personally feel and be impacted by that leader’s passion. This is the sense that the leader has a direction, has energy to pursue it, and is genuinely enjoying the pursuit. It is the feeling of confidence in the intention of the leader. It is the recognition that the leader is indeed charting the course and is living towards it. Through this, people around that leader will also be inspired to take creative action towards the goal of the future. At the Gaian Group, we call this core area Inspirational Presence.

So, let’s take this apart a bit. First, let’s understand the difference between inspiration and motivation. Here are a couple of definitions.

Inspiration

Main Entry: ecstasy

Synonyms: Blessedness, bliss, delight, delirium, ebullience, elation, enthusiasm, exaltation, fervor, gladness, happiness, joy, rapture

Motivation

Main Entry: excitement

Synonyms: Action, activity, ado, agitation, drama, enthusiasm, excitation, fever, flurry, furor, movement, stimulation, turmoil, wildness

Note: Ecstasy – to stand outside the ordinary self

Roget’s Thesaurus, 2001

Let’s take that to an even deeper meaning

Inspiration – the divine breath of life

To live in the ebb and flow of a force that is greater than one-self – to connect to a purpose that is higher than one-self.

To make clear, we are not in the business of motivation, where only excitement and movement prevail. We are working towards inspiration, where our creative self can consistently draw the breath of life, and breathe that into our endeavors.

The other aspect we consider is Presence. Let’s take a look at that.

Presence

That portion of another human being that you sense without being asked to do so

Can be small or large

Can be compelling or repelling

Indefinable yet palpable

Is the basis of connection between beings

Let’s put that together into a meaningful and useable context with a simple definition.

Inspirational Presence

Inspirational Presence is the ability to connect authentically with others; to use your thoughts, feelings, and intuitions to inspire others towards your cause.

Put together, leaders with Inspirational Presence are connected to some greater truth for their own direction. They have gone through the journey of understanding what is important and where they draw their own passion and enthusiasm. They have become clear about their own sense of purpose and have come to live from there. In that certainty, they have developed the ability to be transparent, authentic, and present. You will see in the literature, being transparent is a positive attribute for leadership. However, it is not enough by itself. It is what people see when the veil is dropped that provides the inspiration. This sense of personal clarity, profound passion, and commitment allow people to lead from a place that is outside of their ordinary self. This is the power of Inspirational Presence.

Link: http://www.gaian.com

Gaian Newsletter Volume 3.15

January 2007

The Law of Attraction - Set High Performance Goals

Some years ago, I set a goal for myself to get a Ph.D. Now, that by itself is a pretty big goal, but I added on to it a few wrinkles. I was working full-time, and I was not in a place where I wanted to leave that position. Also, the only program that I found that fit my criteria was a mere 183 mile drive- one way.

Not one to let things like this discourage me, I set about brainstorming how I could make that kind of commute up to 3 times a week and meet my other responsibilities on a daily basis. So, I had this idea. I could fly. Not commercially, but myself, in private plane. That idea added a lot of other complexities. For instance, I needed to have the proper ratings and experience to do this safely and reliably. I also needed a dependable plane I could fly. Above all, I needed to be able to pay for all of that. So, I wrote another set of sub goals through which I obtained the proper ratings and licenses. I traded into a couple of airplanes that would get me back and forth. I carried an old bicycle to the University airport for ground transportation. Then, I started commuting by air and bicycle. I flight instructed to pay the extra cost. To top it off, I finished my Ph.D. a full year earlier than my goal, and faster than anyone had ever finished that program.

When I told people about my goals at the time, I had a very similar reaction. It was usually either a laugh or “you’re crazy”. My mindset was one that saw this as challenging and demanding, but not impossible. As it turned out, it was immensely rewarding and enabled me to accomplish goals I might not have reached otherwise. The surprise in the package was that it wound up being faster and easier. The things that were most required were commitment, planning, and consistency.

My learning was this. High performance does not necessarily mean harder. It does not necessarily mean that it takes longer. It does mean that you expect high performance. As you know, a high performance automobile can get to your destination faster and you can have a whole lot more fun while driving it. Transformational leaders expect things to move faster, be more efficient, and tend to have more fun getting there.

So, as we talk about the Law of Attraction, we can add these ideas. If you look at a goal and expect it to be hard or take a long time or to barely get accomplished, you will get it. If you look at a goal and expect it to be accomplished the same way everything has always been done, you will get it. Instead, choose to look at the world and see amazing results. Choose to experience processes that work smoothly and easily. Choose to see timelines that happen more quickly than you ever dreamed. Remember, the Law of Attraction is simply put, that what we think about, we get. Now, choose to think about living peak performance. The Law of Attraction is that – a law. You are using it whether you know it or not – whether you believe it or not.

Transformational leaders have high expectations. They set lofty goals for themselves and push to be different. They are not necessarily drivers in style, but they are always looking to a higher level of performance. Moreover, they challenge the status quo, both in themselves and in others.

Here is a key area where transformational leaders differ from a transactional leader. In leading transformation, you must constantly support active and creative questioning of your core processes and practices. When we imagine the future, we only get clear about a very small fraction of what it will actually be like. Consequently, it can happen that people begin to try to create a new future by constantly doing what they have always done. A transactional leader tends to focus on stability and predictability, and aligns people actions effectively with that. A transformational leader supports people in aligning themselves with an indefinite (but becoming more definite every day) picture of the future in which they essentially re-think everything they are doing. The best way to find the disconnects is to put a real stretch on the system through active goal setting.

A transformational leader spends time connecting people to the mission and vision of the organization. They connect actions and intentions within the organization with what is happening in the environment. A transformational leader will look at a goal, then ask how that can be accomplished in the peak manner. From there, they will work on helping others see these possibilities as well.

Link: http://www.gaian.com

Gaian Newsletter Volume 3.14

December 2006

The Law of Attraction – Enable Inspired Action through Teams

This is the third article in a five part series on the Five Competencies for Transformational Leaders. Literature on leadership is filled with information on what it takes to lead others. You will find a mixture of behaviors, competencies, beliefs, approaches and stories about leaders. At the Gaian Group, we keep it simple. Yes, we talk about behaviors, we talk about competencies, and we talk about beliefs. For us, keeping it simple means that we keep it within a framework that we know to have the greatest impact. This allows you to truly focus your energy.

The Five Competencies represent areas that most relate to creating transformation within yourself and with others. Within those competencies is an underlying belief set that fundamentally drives what we manifest in life. This is called the Law of Attraction. This law states that whatever we think about, we get. We create sub-conscious pictures of our life, through our training, our experiences, and our up-bringing. By focusing on these, we tend to create them. This is actually fairly simple to do, as we are using this law every day, whether we know it or not. By definition, lawful means it happens whether or not we are aware of it, or whether or not we believe in it. So, your life is already being shaped by your thinking, whether or not you are aware of it, or whether or not you believe it.

Understanding this law allows us the power and freedom of choice to begin creating the life we want in an active and dynamic way. As you might have heard me say before, the first and fundamental act of leadership is to lead yourself. At the core, that leadership act begins the moment you take charge of leading your thinking. You can only lead others to the extent you have taking this journey for yourself. I believe that the framework of the Five Competencies for Transformational Leaders, coupled with the Law of Attraction, is a fantastic place for leaders to begin. Even so, if you want to get really simple, just take on the Law of Attraction.

The first agreement you have to make with yourself is to take responsibility for your thinking and the impact that has on your future. You may have heard the saying “Expect success and you will get success.” That is fundamentally true, with a huge extra part. You must also have a congruent set of thinking along those lines. I often find self-sabotaging thinking that follows this expectation. Very often, people will hold a pocket of thinking that is completely out of alignment with their overall beliefs, which will turn up in the surprise turn of events when things have seemed to be going very well.

So, here’s an opportunity for 2007. Get clear about your thinking. Get aligned with your overall path. Take on your worries and ruminations and shift that energy into something positive and creative. You will be very glad you did.

Enable Inspired Action through Teams (Collaboration)

Any time a task is larger than one person, some sort of team is the best structure to accomplish it. Leaders create environments where teams can take informed and creative action. Research clearly supports the effectiveness of team structures (when properly led) in accomplishing all varieties of work.

To lead a team environment, the leader must think and act with true collaboration. This involves actively building trust and creating emotional safety for communications. Besides having a clear sense of mission and purpose, teams must have clear, timely and relevant information and must work together to make decisions and act on the results. Teams can only pull together to the extent that they are clear together.

The significance of leadership as opposed to management or delegation to a team is in the degree of inspiration that you provide to the team. All groups need elbow room, but more importantly, they need to be able to connect their own passions and commitment to the larger work of the organization. As a leader, it is required that you first believe that a team will provide more depth and quality of work than you can do yourself. It means that your job is to work with the container of a team and focus on the elements that are most important for team success. This is the element of leadership that is most important with a team.

As a leader, here are some questions you need to ask yourself about how you will actually engage with teams.

Trust

How will I build trust?

Conflict

How will I resolve or heighten conflict in the team?

Commitment

How will I act out my commitment to this team?

Accountability

How will I demonstrate my accountability to this team and the members?

Attention to Results

How much attention to results will I pay?

On which results will I focus?

In summary, there are two parts required for the leader related to teams. First, have a consistent and supportive belief set about what the team can do and the absolute creative power they hold. Second, focus on the aspects of the team that are truly supportive of collaboration, not those related to control. Getting this sort of focus is the groundwork for getting amazing results from teams.

Except where otherwise noted, this content is
licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Link: http://www.gaian.com

Gaian Newsletter Volume 3.13

December 2006

The Law Of Attraction: Commitment to the Future

We are continuing with our series that highlights the Law of Attraction in use through Five Transformational Competencies for Leadership. Again, this is discussing how the things a leader thinks about and talks about creates, or manifests, the physical reality around them and how to use that force to fabricate an amazing future. We use this framework to provide some order to the process of leadership, allowing the leader to focus on the things that make the most difference with their time and efforts. These competencies, by themselves, can make a really big difference in the success of a leader. To get a huge difference, we also work at a deeper level of how we create our environment, our present, and our future. It is not only what we do every day, but how we think about it, plan it, and talk about. It is how we actually feel about the things that are going on in our life that determines what comes to us or does not.

The basis of this conversation is the Law of Attraction. Simply put, this law states that what we think about becomes our reality. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it is simple. All we have to do is become conscious of the reality we create through our thoughts and words. This is the deepest and most spiritually connected piece of work for the leader. Now, it is not enough to just know what it is that you are thinking about. A true leader, in first leading their own path, will take the brave step of taking absolute responsibility for their own thoughts and consequently their own circumstances. From there, that leader will begin to create a new future.

As well as knowing your thoughts as a leader, you must also know your feelings. In the largest sense we are really only concerned with two sets emotions here: love and trust, or fear and doubt. Understanding how you can create a different path depending on the emotional state you are in supercharges your ability to lead.

Today’s article talks about the second competency, Commitment to the Future. While we call this the action part of transformation, it literally refers to the conscious act of starting to live out your vision of the future. I once saw one of my teachers at an event celebrating the end of a long development process. He was in his late 70’s at the time, jitterbugging away at 2 am. I was inspired and thought to myself, I want to be dancing like that when I am that age. It later occurred to me, when would I start? If I’m not dancing now, what are the odds that I will be in 30 years? Commitment means starting to dance now, today, rather than later, someday.

So, take a few minutes, take some notes, and change your life – right now.

Commit to the Future (Action)

Beyond imagining the future and what is possible, our transformational leaders take their own action to immediately “step into” that picture and begin to live it as soon as they possibly can. These leaders do not stand by and point into the future, they move to the future and beckon others to join them.

This commitment amounts to the leader’s moving quickly away from the current state to more clearly resemble the picture of the future they espouse. They walk their talk and live the image they present. Moreover, they strongly and supportively coach others to do the same. They turn imagination to reality through aligning all parts of their lives with the future.

It is profoundly different to talk about “the then and there” of change, or to create the “here and now” of a change. The first puts the change into the future, where it can be contingent or conditional on some other events. The second makes changing a concrete reality, anchoring it in the present.

Here’s a simple example of how this works. In our story, our mythical leader, Joe, has taken the stance of moving the business from a technology focus to a customer focus. After working to get clear about the vision and beginning to communicate it, the leader turns immediately to the first place change needs to occur – himself. Joe sits down and makes an honest evaluation of how he is currently spending his time relative to the new vision. He immediately identifies all the things he can start doing immediately to begin living out the vision. Then, he identifies all the things he needs to stop doing immediately to disengage from the current state. Of course, he does this with integrity, identifying critical stakeholders and finding transition plans for things that must continue for some time. Most importantly, he immediately commits as much of his time as possible to the vision. From there, Joe now begins to engage employees and others in a dialogue about doing the same themselves. Joe now stands in the future and brings people along to join him.