Strong Heart, Strong Mind

Someone asked me, “How can you develop a thick-skin at work?” My initial response was “Develop a strong heart.”

Growing up, I was often teased because of my over-bite.  Called many names at school, I came home frequently collapsing into a pile of tears. My mother would tell me to ignore the bully’s hurtful comments and eventually they would stop. I did experience some truth in this, but what was even more impactful were her words, “Maria, you are beautiful, they just don’t see it.” Of course, she was referring to my inner beauty. I knew my outer beauty would catch up once I got braces!

Why is it that as adults we still feel the need to toughen up and not let other people’s words hurt us? Could it be that we forgot our inner beauty?

If so, don’t worry. Reclaiming our inner beauty and strengthening our hearts is easy to do. Developing a strong heart begins with self-love.

Practice these ten steps and in no time, you will not need a thick skin because you will have a strong heart:

  • List your strengths. Next to each one, identify how you may leverage your strong points.
  • Create an action plan for personal and professional growth.
  • Reconnect with your intuition.
  • Do something creative every day.
  • Spend time in stillness each day.
  • Get enough sleep. Six to eight hours are recommended for optimum health.
  • Move your body every day. Some days it may only be walking to the mailbox.
  • Eat foods that nourish your body in healthy ways.
  • List at least five things each day for which you are grateful.
  • Find ways to help others see their greatness.
 

I would love to hear from you. How do you strengthen your heart?

With Love,

Maria

Secrets and Challenges

The secrets of leadership include awareness, mindfulness, intuition, power listening, and perception shifting. These five skills are innate, although they become buried for many of us based on our cultural upbringing. The great news is that they never go away!  Reconnecting with and developing these five leadership essentials are key to successful leadership. These skills help leaders know themselves better, enabling them to understand and influence others. Let’s face it: leadership is about influence. We cannot influence others in an authentic and effective manner without first understanding ourselves as well as those whom we lead.The challenges that leaders face take on many forms.  When we peel back the layers of challenges or problems, we find that in most cases the same root cause affects everything – fear. Manifesting itself in many forms, fear shows up as ego, micro-management, misunderstandings, and reactionary behaviors. When we learn to recognize the underlying cause (fear), we then will know how to rectify the real problem instead of just putting on a band-aid or superficial fix. When we only treat the problems superficially, we experience the same issues repeatedly.What is your biggest challenge with leadership and what secret solution do you have? As always, I love hearing your insight.With love,MariaDr. Maria Church, CPC, is a leadership coach, speaker, and author of Love-Based Leadership: Transform Your Life with Meaning and Abundance and her upcoming book, A Course in Leadership: 21 Spiritual Lessons on Leadership, Love, and Life. Maria holds a doctorate of management in organizational leadership, teaches at several universities, and is CEO of Dr. Maria Church International LLC, a leadership coaching, development, and training firm. For more information, visit www.DrMariaChurch.com.

Leadership Secrets: Unlock Your Potential

While some of us demonstrate leadership skills naturally, I do not believe that leadership skills cannot be learned. I have seen many leaders who innately have great leadership potential, but do not use it; and I have seen leaders who choose to learn to be great leaders. I believe the combination of our authentic innate skills and characteristics (whatever those may be) along with proper education and training, and coupled with heart-based thinking, will produce fabulous, irresistible leadership.

The secrets of leadership include awareness, mindfulness, intuition, power listening, and perception shifting. These five skills are innate, although they become buried for many of us based on our cultural upbringing. The great news is that they never go away!  Reconnecting with and developing these five leadership essentials are key to successful leadership. These skills help leaders know themselves better, enabling them to understand and influence others. Let’s face it: leadership is about influence. We cannot influence others in an authentic and effective manner without first understanding ourselves as well as those whom we lead.

With love,

Maria

Dr. Maria Church, CPC, is a leadership coach, speaker, and author of Love-Based Leadership: Transform Your Life with Meaning and Abundance and her upcoming book, A Course in Leadership: 21 Spiritual Lessons on Leadership, Love, and Life. Maria holds a doctorate of management in organizational leadership, teaches at several universities, and is CEO of Dr. Maria Church International LLC, a leadership coaching, development, and training firm. For more information, visit www.DrMariaChurch.com.

Analysis Paralysis

In my corporate career, I saw many afflicted with analysis paralysis. In our “show me” culture, we want to see empirical proof of everything. If you can substantiate something on an Excel spreadsheet, you gain instant credibility.Historically, ever since we entered the Science Age, we’ve not really given anything much significance or credibility unless we could “prove” it.The prove it mantra has served us well in some respects, especially for the skeptics, but this practice has also stifled us. When we only rely on evidence and proof, we may overlook something even more powerful. Our insight and intuition is also proof—only it is intangible. We know something to be real or true, sometimes with an even stronger compelling feeling than the physical evidence that is in front of us. So why do some of us become paralyzed and in the cycle of evidence and analysis?Fear.Fear is what keeps us paralyzed. We want more proof, more analysis, and more evidence to substantiate our decision. If we are afraid to make a decision, then we want even more analysis and proof. This paralysis causes us to miss opportunities in our business, organization, and life.When you feel yourself wanting more and more proof, stop and get serious about some reflection and stillness.It is time to move into action. Do your due diligences, your homework, tap into your insight, and stop long enough to listen to your intuition—then move into action.With love,MariaDr. Maria Church, CPC, is a leadership coach, speaker, and author of Love-Based Leadership: Transform Your Life with Meaning and Abundance and her upcoming book, A Course in Leadership: 21 Spiritual Lessons on Leadership, Love, and Life. Maria holds a doctorate of management in organizational leadership, teaches at several universities, and is CEO of Dr. Maria Church International LLC, a leadership coaching, development, and training firm. For more information, visit www.DrMariaChurch.com.