How are you really feeling?
The irony may be that you are “letting them down” with patterns of adapting rather than letting your authentically inspired self flow and call that forth in them.
A part of you feels you should take care of what’s urgently on your plate (or trying to spin plates). But trying to do a good job gets in the way of your greatest work.
You are not average. You’ve been a good achiever somehow since you were a kid
and school. You’re wired to be helpful, caring, bright, creative, and other unique strengths (that can become unintended, sneaky self-sabotage).
While you smile for the camera, your soul may be secretly crying and your real essence wants to come out to play!
Let’s face it, being a “good leader” is harder than ever.*
You’re “supposed to” be the inspiring leader and unleash greater potential in your people, while you may have lost that lovin feeling yourself. You’re told to be vulnerable but strong, compassionate yet commanding in a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambitious game.
You inherited hard work and responsibility. How are you really feeling when you look across a spreadsheet or across the zoom faces, or into the eyes of loved ones,
and when you really look inside your truest heart on Monday morning?
You might feel imposter syndrome, weary or weird if things that worked
before make things worse now. Understandably so!
You’re more awake than workaholic burnout or codependent pleaser
stereotypes. Yet, a full schedule (and well-intended, “adaptive achiever”
effforts) have you not fully in your joy zone or sharing your true gifts—ironically overworked and underemployed,
Even though you are super smart and savvy in many ways, you don’t feel in alignment with your inspired self; who you really are, and what you are here to do.
Your intuitive spidey sense might hear a whisper (or shout) from your Future Self to challenge how you define and create success flowing forward.
You don’t know how to change, never mind be the change you’d love to see.
* A little compassion rant - relate? Gallup reports tell us we have a worldwide employee disengagement crisis at 87%. Forbes reminds us we have a leadership crisis. How shall new headwinds stress thee? Let us count the ways. Climate, A.I. quiet quitting, loneliness epidemic, wellbeing crisis, budget cuts, retooling for remote /hybrid cultures, all the isms and an election year? Whoa. You’ve already been trying to keep up with changing market conditions, Covid uncertainty, more diverse diversity, discerning disinformation, taking care of human hearts and hitting your numbers, while juggling all your beeping devices. You've been taught to solve problems with strategic plans, and “killing it” in "war room” meetings. There's a cacophony of decent consultants and carnival barkers promising new ways to innovate, meditate & monetize. Self-help gurus want you to conquer, crush it and call now to get your ticket to paradise before the price goes up. You should be vulnerable but not appear weak, compassionate, yet commanding, but not too controlling. Be transparent but don’t let them see you sweat. Plan ahead, but pivot, prioritize self-care yet exceed shareholder expectations. And if you’re going to walk the talk of being conscious and sustainable, you better consider multiple stakeholders, including mother earth and your mother-in-law. To dress for success with the hippest, don’t wear a suit, but be careful to not be too casual. And, oh, you're supposed to be the Chief Inspiration Officer for all these people when you may not be feeling it yourself. What's up with that? Who’s got your back? How about your front, above, below and inside? No wonder we call this mastery and no wonder we need to wisely, deeply pause often to cultivate new sensitivities and operate in Jedi-like response-agility every day. Please don’t let it all get you down. We can turn this leadership around, and we are here now to do just that. With lots of love, laughter, patience and perseverance. None of this can hold a candle to the flame we’ll ignite in you, and teach you how to stabilize it and let it animate you anew. Shall we talk?
“More work to do on a tighter budget with a new team”
- Gallup:
Trends Leaders Should Watch
It’s not easy to shift gears from embedded habits in a system that has rewarded you with a sense of security and praise.
But, now, more than ever, you get to wake up out of an outdated seeker-achiever trance.
You've heard unleash your potential and authentic self enough that they may be empty platitudes or even painful. Let’s stop that.
I want you to taste the sublime nectar of a no shoulds and
no regrets life.
To wake up to your greatest joy. Now, not someday.
Perhaps you keep trying to be good according to our inherited success paradigm and insidious inner programming (you’re not fully aware of or how to change yet), because it’s worked before and it’s sold as the Amercian dream success recipe.
From early on, you’ve been programmed to try to earn your worth, get approval & appreciation, be productive & pleasant and other unique strategies (that reverse-engineer even back to in utero, new science confirms).
You’d love to feel more fully the real you. Maybe a tendency toward fawning has helped you succeed, and you’ve felt proud of your positivity & compatibility, but something does not sit well in your stomach anymore. (This is a good sign of healthy growth! )
You know about inner game, mindfulness and such. Yet, no matter how long we’ve been meditating or working on ourselves, we have some level of subconscious programming and cultural paradigm pressures still trying to run us. You’re also bombarded by increasing weapons of mass distraction daily.
Our inner technology needs upgrading more than ever. It’s NOT just mindset. We need to teach you how to shift into a different fuel and source of creative response=agility.
Yet, you might wake up, check your phone, get seduced by the familiar, formerly-winning norms, not challenge what’s running you from the basement of your psyche, show up to the next Zoom screen and the beat goes on.
Slow down, inquire within. What do you want to be feeling and celebrating at the end of 2025? At the end of your life? Ask from the depths of your heart, not your brilliant brain.
The MLA tools equip us to ACTUALIZE the Einstein idiom about how we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
