Speaker • Author • Coach • Consultant
Writing about gratitude is one of my favorite topics, as I have written blogs, articles, and chapters about the virtues of thankfulness. As we approach Thanksgiving, I cannot help but revisit this topic again. It warms my heart to see the 30-day challenge many people have taken in this month. I see tweets and facebook posts with gratitude expressed each day for someone or something in their lives. Woohoo! 
I would love to see the challenge extend another month, quarter or year commitment to keeping a gratitude journal or gratitude board in your home or office. Challenge yourself to find elements of gratitude in the mundane or laborious tasks we do on a daily basis. How about a super-challenge of finding what you may be grateful for with a challenging individual. In that difficult situation, try to see the spirit in them; or how you might be grateful for the lessons you are learning from that difficult person or situation. Forgiveness is a powerful door to open the flow of gratitude.
You know how much I love the use of acronyms, so here goes one for gratitude:
Giving
Receiving
Abundance
Thankfulness
Intention
Together
Unconditionally
Directed
Everyone
When we are in a state of gratitude, we give and receive love and abundance. We are thankful for the intentional way we choose to live our lives. This awareness brings us together to unconditionally direct our love and gratitude to everyone, all of our brothers and sisters.
With love and gratitude,
Maria
Someone asked me the other day, “How can you develop a thick-skin at work?” My initial response, “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, do not worry. Reclaiming our inner beauty and strengthening our heart 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:
What are some additional ways you strengthen your heart?
With love,
Maria
"Who exactly seeks out a coach? Winners who want more out of life.” - Chicago Tribune
Last time, I discussed mentoring. The focus for this post is on coaching. I understand that many people use these two terms interchangeably. Mentoring and coaching can be a nice compliment to each other, but we need to understand the difference so we may be effective with both activities in our leadership development.
Mentoring is typically sharing knowledge and experience, which equals wisdom. Typically, the mentor is older than the mentee, hence the experiential component. However, sharing of knowledge and information may move in both directions. In a mentorship relationship, advice is given to the mentee and the mentor leads the path.
Coaching is a partnership, whereby the coach walks beside the mentee on the path. The coach supports the coachee in the coachee’s self-discovery. Often times, the coaching relationship begins with awareness of self, including clarification of values, plans, dreams, and goals. In a coaching relationship, the coach is a sounding board, a mirror to reflect back, and an excavator to help the coachee unearth his or her own inner wisdom. A coach does not give advice, only support and resources. Coaches help coachees see additional perspectives, options, and choices that may be hidden from the coachee. Coaches work together with the coachee to develop action plans. Coaches are cheerleaders and accountability partners.
For many of us on the self-development path, we seek support from both mentors and coaches. Sometimes that person may be the same individual, recognizing the important distinction of when to lead, when to walk side-by-side, and when to follow. Knowing the difference is wisdom.
With love,
Maria
I love the word empowerment, which means a state of being “in power.” According to Merriam-Webster, the word has three definitions: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 
When we self-empower, we are the ones to give authority, enable, and promote the self-actualization of ourselves! We give ourselves permission to be the best we can be, to live the best lives we choose.
Stepping into your power includes the following actions:
One of my favorite quotes from Marianne Williamson describes self-empowerment:
Who are you not to be empowered?
With love and power,
Maria
I just got back from New York City and four days of meeting over 70 media including television producers, writers, agents, and editors. I gave 2-minute pitches to all of these people, which felt like speed-dating! This got me thinking about the impression we make in 2 minutes, and how we could possibly influence someone to take action.
This is not a whole lot different from leadership. What sort of impression do we make with our leadership influence in 2 minutes? What kind of impression do we want to make? What is the lasting or lingering thought we wish to impart on someone?
Follow these simple IMAGE steps to create a lasting, positive impression:
Integrity – Stand in your integrity, be honest about who you are and what you stand for, demonstrating this with your behavior.
Mannerisms – Be cognizant of your body language. Are you open or closed? Are you inviting? Are you demonstrating confidence?
Appearance – Does you appearance match the impression and image you want to portray? Show up in presence as well, remembering to practice active listening more than speaking.
Greeting – Greet others with openness, kindness, warmth, and a smile. People do not always remember what we say to them, but they always remember how they felt when with us.
Enjoy the experience. We are more attracted to fun and joy than anything else.
Be the master and creator of impression. We always leave an impression, whether we are aware of that or not; so step into awareness and consciously create your leadership impression by choice.
With love,
Maria
I love talking about gratitude! As promised, below are three activities to cultivate gratitude in our lives. 
I remember reading an article about gratitude several years ago. The author talked about keeping a gratitude journal. This idea intrigued me and I decided to commit to keeping this journal for a full year. Each day I listed at least five things for which I was grateful, big, or small. Some days the list was a dozen, other days I struggled to come up with five! Then something happened…I soon realized that I was receiving more of whatever it was that I was grateful! Abundance did indeed flow. Blessings surrounded me in my life; work, health, play, and love became much more rewarding than ever before. To this day, I still reflect on gratitude in my journal and continue to be blessed beyond belief. Keeping a gratitude journal has also enhanced the lives of many of my clients.
Cultivate and live in a state of gratitude. A state of gratitude is an attitude manifested in our behavior and thoughts. Be conscious of your thoughts, always shifting from fear to love, scarcity to abundance. Soon enough, gratitude will become your SOP or standard operating procedure! To tap into gratitude and abundance, presence, awareness, and mindfulness are requisites. Think gratitude. Cultivate an abundance cycle with an attitude of gratitude. The gifts already surround you; with presence, you will become aware of their existence. Your resulting joy will only serve to bring more to you of whatever it is you are grateful.
Move your thoughts into action. Tell those employees, family members, and friends that you are grateful for their presence in your life. And make sure to tell them why you are grateful. I recently had the tremendous honor to thank two very influential people in my life. It felt great to thank them, and even better to see the looks on their faces and feel the love in their hearts. What I gave them by expressing my gratitude; I truly received back in my heart tenfold.
What are some of the ways you cultivate gratitude in your life?
With gratitude and love,
Maria
PS - This is an excerpt from my new book! 
How do you discover, nurture, and live in your passion? It’s not as hard as you may think! Below are 12 exercises to discover and re-connect with your passion and purpose. 
Let me know how these strategies work for you! Can you add to the lists?
With love and excitement,
Maria
BTW - This is an excerpt from my new book!
We cannot talk about passion without including heart in the discussion. When we are passionate about something, we often proclaim, I put my heart into it. When we want to place emphasis on something, we touch our heart saying we speak from the heart. This implies a deep core connection, a heart connection. The heart center, the core of our being is where passion resides. When we tap into our passion and lead from that space, passion ultimately oozes out of every pore in our body. People know it when they see it. 
Passion is an attraction magnet. We are drawn to people who enthuse passionate energy. Because passion is so appealing, it is a great energizing force for leaders. Leveraging passion motivates teams, as has passion motivated the masses throughout history. Passion fueled the migration of Europeans to the new world, independence from oppression, voting rights for women, the civil rights movement, and environmental safety. Passion has taken organizations to unimaginable success like Southwest Airlines, Microsoft, and Apple. We see passion demonstrated in great art. Passion is a differentiator. Passion is not complacency or conformity; it is a call to action.
When we think about passion from an individual level, we know we cannot not do whatever it is we are passionate about. Our minds, hearts, and bodies must fulfill the burning desire of passionate. To our passion, we are driven to say, YES! We may be able to put it off for a while, but it burns like a continuous flame inside of us until we extinguish it. The only way to extinguish our passion is to fulfill the destiny inside of us or die. Passion must be lived if we are to realize our authentic self. Passion drives and motivates us to come into fullness of presence and defies time and space through the lasting effects of legacy.
On Thursday, I will outline 12 steps to discover and re-connect with your passion.
With love and passion,
Maria
BTW - This is an excerpt from my new book!
I love the story of Plato’s cave! The shadows of the people outside the cave, distorted images from the fire flames, created a dark reality in the recesses of the cave. What dark reality exists within the confines of the caves of our mind?
Thoughts are powerful; they are the seeds to ideas, beliefs, creativity, attitudes, knowledge, wisdom, and reality. Thoughts can be our best friends or our worst enemies. Not by happenstance do thoughts come to us, these powerful seeds come to us through choice. Choice and thoughts are action movements directed by us whether we are conscious of these activities or not. The key lies in awareness of these two incredible gifts.
Negative self-talk are weeds that have grown in our minds. You know these voices, since many of us have cultivated these over years and decades: 
Sound familiar? We could probably add to the list with little effort! Often these voices are steeped in fear, anxiety, doubt, guilt, and shame. Our behaviors are a reflection of our beliefs. If we believe the negative self talk, how it that manifested in our behavior with ourselves and with others? Do we find that we become stuck, unable to accomplish that goal or unable to overcome our fear of something or someone?
Perception shifting is one of the most powerful lessons for leaders. Perception responses are deeply ingrained in our realities and are foundational to the way we think, see, believe, understand, and behave in our lives. In Thursday’s blog post I will share with you some activities to help exercise your perception-shifting muscle.
With love,
Maria
As I started preparing for the day, I read this statement:
I let go of anything and everything that could delay my good in any way.
Hmmm…
Of course, as I so often do, I contemplated how this might apply to leadership.
Leadership is the action that motivates people toward a vision. Therefore, if the vision is the “good” in the above statement, we need to ask ourselves, “What gets in the way that could cause delay of achieving your vision?” In other words, what no longer serves you?
We discuss this topic a lot with our clients. It is a great exercise to stop and check-in with yourself regularly, asking, what no longer serves me?
Some possible delays to our good or vision may include:
Once you’ve identified what gets in your way of achieving your good or your vision, it is time to let it or them go. Time to move into action, ridding yourself of anything and everything that gets in your way. This is the time to start exercising your backbone instead of your wishbone. You are the architect of your life, the author of your book. This is not a dress rehearsal. If you don’t like what you see…change it!
What gets in your way, delaying your good, or your vision?
In love, and without delay,
Maria