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!
Leadership Perception Shifting Exercises
Are you ready to experience one of the most powerful leadership tools? Perception shifting opens up your leadership understanding and builds leadership prowess. When we add tools to our toolbox of skill sets, well let's just say that perception shifting is plugging in and using a turbo charged tool. As promised, here are some activities to help exercise your perception-shifting muscle:
Remember that perspective shifting requires awareness, choice, and the willingness to be open to other possibilities.
With love,
Maria
BTW - this is an excerpt from my new book!
Leadership Power Tool - Perception Shifting
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
Intentional Leadership
For many, intention is defined as a motivation, a drive, or an ambition to succeed. It can be a demonstration of force, determination, or your immutable will to attain or accomplish something indicates that you have a firm intention. These are examples of our Western mental model of intention. A deeper understanding of the power of intention, described by Carlos Castaneda, suggests, “In the universe there is an immeasurable, indescribable force which shamans call intent, and absolutely everything that exists in the entire cosmos is attached to intent by a connecting link”. This is not a model of perseverance or a mindset where only the fit (determined) survive, but a realization, again, of the connection to each other and to our Source, God. What this model of intention describes for us, as leaders, is that we are not alone in this organization, community, country, or even universe: but we are together, linked to the energetic force of intention.
Why is intention crucial to our leadership? It is the purpose, the why we are here, our belief in something greater than we are. Intention is how we derive meaning. In order to create a vision for our companies, or even our lives, we must first ask, why? Tapping into the power of intention requires clearing space in our minds and allowing and trusting our intuitive insights to flow.
Here are some exercises you can do to lead with intention:
Knowing your values helps bring clarity to what is meaningful to you. Identify ten important values. Narrow the list down to your top five and write a sentence or two explaining what the values mean to you and why they are important.
Look at your calendar and review how you spend your time. Do the activities on your calendar align with your values? If not, why?
Create a mind map on a clean sheet of paper, in the center of the paper write, “My purpose for living this life is…” and circle it. Now draw lines out from this circle with as many ideas that flow into your head and heart and draw circles around each one of those words or statements, always connecting the circles with lines to the center circle of your purpose for living.
Using the above information you have developed, write a purpose statement, including the activities involved in achieving that purpose, people necessary to support you, and the value you provide to others.
Enjoy the process and see what you discover!
Let me know what you unearth.
With love,
Maria
What Does a Love-Based Leadership Organization Look Like?
In an LBL zone, love of Self, Source, and Others are present. We live the words so the words may live. People want to go to work, meaningful work in an LBL zone. A paradigm shift occurs in an LBL zone, where we discover a new way to do business based in part on ancient and traditional wisdom. In The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran described work in what could be an LBL zone:
It is to weave the cloth with threads from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. 
When LBL is practiced in organizations, several characteristics are present. The organization is fertile ground for knowledge creation, a learning organization. Power is shared, as is ownership of the work. Significance and celebration of others is ever-present in an LBL organization, adding to a meaningful work experience. A holistic approach to life, work, and spirituality is a way of life for those leaders practicing LBL, because LBL leaders honor themselves, their Source, and those with whom they work.
How would you describe a Love-Based Leadership organization?
With love,
Maria
Leadership Awareness
“When you contain control of the internal direction of your attention, you will no longer stand in shallow water but will launch out into the deep of life”, as written by Neville in the Power of Awareness. 
Recently working with a client, she was so joy-filled in her practice of awareness. Awareness, as she described was like opening gift after gift. She couldn’t wait to see what the next gift contained.
We went on to discuss how amazingly simple is the concept and practice of awareness, and how the gift of awareness is an incredible tool for leadership and life. Sure, becoming aware and practicing awareness may seem awkward at first, but it is like a muscle that hasn’t been exercised for a while. And with practice, awareness will become well-developed and second nature for you.
How do we practice the art of awareness? Below are a few simple steps to move from the shallow water into the depths of life:
When you start practicing these activities, you will start to notice a completely new world. You will wonder when the birds moved into a tree near your back yard, notice how exquisite the mountains or sunsets look, and a host of other gifts that previously went unnoticed. You will find the beauty in new gifts arriving to and for you daily. You will find the extraordinary in the ordinary.
With loving awareness,
Maria
Leadership, Influence and Love
“I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.” - Roy Croft One of my favorite quotes by Lao Tzu demonstrates influence at its best:
Wow – wouldn’t it be cool to have your team say that about you?
Very rarely am I involved in a conversation about leadership that does not include the topic of influence. I believe that influence is what most leaders seek; although, many will confuse influence with motivation. Motivation is important in leadership; it gets the job done. However, influence, is lasting. Influence is legacy. 
Think about those people who influenced your life – in both positive and negative ways. We rarely forget the impact they had in shaping our behavior, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. I know we eventually forgive those that had a negative influence on us. But…how often do we acknowledge and thank those who’ve had a positive influence on us?
I recently had the great 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 are some steps we can take to grow our influence with others? Below are some sure-fire ways to increase our influence:
As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear, and the next the people hate. When the best leader's work is done, the people say, “We did it ourselves!"
What are some of the ways you’ve found to influence others?
With love,
Maria
Leadership Perspective a Year Later
“Wow! What a fantastic day! Yesterday, the meeting with Dr. Wayne Dyer elated me. Tonight, I feel a sense of calm excitement. Is that an oxymoron? Maybe, but that exactly describes how I feel.
I have decided to slow down – do maintenance work on my business, a few teaching contracts, and spend time on me! I am going to read, exercise, pray, and meditate. I am going to slow down and go inward. I am going to focus on me, now.”
I wrote this entry in my journal during a conference in Tampa, where many of my favorite inspirational authors spoke. It was the end of the year and the end of an era. The era of which I speak is my era in Corporate America. I left my comfortable, six-figure income to launch my own company, write, and to continue speaking and teaching about leadership. It was both exciting and simultaneously, terrifying.
Entering my 5th decade, I always thought of myself as self-aware. Yes, that is true to a point; however, I did not realize what the depths of having a relationship with myself really meant. I knew it was time to do the work, go inward, and take the deep dive. I was embarking on a journey of the most profound relationship in my life – my relationship with myself.
From a coaching and leadership perspective, I wonder how effective we can truly be in leading and coaching others without really knowing and leading ourselves? We know that most of our coaching clients eventually find the path of growth in their own relationship with self before moving forward in other areas. This is where all growth begins, for us as well as our clients, and we don’t call it “growing pains” for nothing!
Forgiveness
As I began my journey inward, I realized immediately that my first step to having an authentic self-relationship began with an exercise in forgiveness. I listed all of those people towards whom I harbored resentment and hurt, with the ultimate goal of forgiving them. Wow –I was surprised when the list got so long. It was a difficult exercise, and yet, so amazingly freeing. I swear I lost 20 pounds at the end of the exercise! During this time, I was working with an amazing coach who taught me a meditation of forgiving these people and myself for holding the resentment and fear. I visualized myself walking to the door of the person’s soul, their true essence, knocking, and asking if I could come in. I was surprised that one or two said “no” initially. That was OK, because I came back later, until they said yes!
Once in, we would sit down and talk, soul to soul, essence to essence. When we sought forgiveness, love filled our space and both of us were free. This beautiful exercise is very effective and simple to do anywhere, anytime, in the safety of our office, or our client’s home.
Time
Time was not my friend, especially in the early months of my journey. As a Type A personality, I was always in a rush, never in harmony with time. It was very difficult for me to learn to slow down and meditate, especially when I had so much to do. A funny thing happened on the way to a relationship with me – I learned a secret: You must slow down to move faster. I would have never believed this a year ago! However, I found that when I did slow down, meditate, and lavish myself with time to think, I became much more productive and completed tasks in shorter periods of time.
Fear
The next corner of my journey took me down a path I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to go – fear. As we do with many of our clients, I started to identify underlying beliefs that no longer served me. I identified beliefs about fear that held me back in weight loss, success, and putting myself out there for all to see. Again, with the expertise of my coach, I visualized myself on a track, running a relay. As I tired of the baton, representing a belief that no longer served me, I handed it to God, who ran the next leg of the relay. He was gorgeous with his long flowing hair – I have always been a sucker for men with long hair! As soon as I handed the baton to God, within the first few steps, the baton– fear – dissolved in his hands. As I sit here now, typing this visualization, I still feel the warmth of love filling me, where fear used to reside.
Stuff
Out of the fear-zone on the journey, the next section of road was a lesson of “stuff.” In June, we went to Detroit to celebrate my in-law’s 50th wedding anniversary. We had a wonderful time and two nights before we arrived home, my sister’s husband called to tell us there was a fire in the mountains and canyon where our home was located. He said we did not have to evacuate, but wanted to know what we wanted from our home in the event there was an evacuation.
As we arrived home, the fire escalated and within one hour of our arrival, a sheriff knocked on the door and told us we were on pre-evacuation alert. I immediately moved our clothes from the suitcase to the washer, dryer, and back in the suitcase. We were packed and ready to move. That night we “slept” in our own bed, but not really. We did not want to miss the mandatory evacuation call, should it come.
The next morning, we received the mandatory evacuation notice to leave our home. We went to my sister’s home, where we again, had to evacuate due to the rage and speed of the Monument Fire. The fire burned for over a week in our mountains and four canyons. Forty homes and a half-dozen business were lost.
One month after we returned to our home, spared by the fire, we had a major flood. Nearly five feet of mud, ash, and debris rushed down the mountains along with boulders the size of Volkswagens, because there was no ground cover or trees to hold them in place. Within 30 minutes of the sludge subsiding, neighbors and friends emerged from their homes, armed with shovels, smiles, and hugs to help those affected by the flood.
I lost much and gained more during this year. I lost my attachment to “things” and gained an appreciation for my family, friends, and neighbors. I lost my fear about money, and gained gratitude for the wealth and abundance already in my life. I lost a sense of arrogance, and gained humility in service to others. I lost my busy-ness, and gained the power of now and presence. I lost my mindless activities and gained awareness that my thoughts and feelings are my best friends. I lost my unconsciousness and gained awareness. I lost the ego view of myself and met me. The year of The Monument Fire...was a good year.
With love, joy, and gratitude,
Maria
Intuitive Leadership
Intuition is a power tool that successful leaders use. I found through work with my clients that many of these leaders have to re-learn how to use intuition. In most of our corporate and work experiences, we learn how to not listen to our intuition. I remember years ago in my early corporate career, the president of the company asked a question and I eagerly responded, “I feel that…”. He quickly cut me off and said, “Maria, I don’t care how you feel, tell me what you know”.
I am sure you too, have had similar experiences. These types of experiences shape the way we work. Many times over the years, I spent massive amounts of time creating spreadsheets to provide empirical evidence for what I intuitively knew.
I am not advocating throwing logic out the window. I am advocating that we use all of the tools in our possession to make the best possible decisions. We move into a danger zone if we hinder our decision-making process by not using both intuition and logic. Why would we want to stifle ourselves? 
So how do we re-learn intuition and develop this amazing power tool?
Just remember the acronym, I N T U I T I O N and follow these simple steps:
Imagery › Allow the intuitive mind to use the images and symbols of the right brain.
Non-judgment › Suspend judgment and honor the flashes of knowing from the intuitive mind.
Thankfulness › Practice gratitude and thankfulness. Gratitude is the portal through which abundance flows.
Uncomplicated › The intuitive mind is uncomplicated and brief. The logical mind is long-winded!
Impressions › First impressions are usually correct – honor those intuitive insights.
Time › Take time to relax and quiet the mind. Intuition flows more readily in a space free of tension and stress.
Instant › Intuitive insight can come to you in an instant. Recognize this phenomenon and do not dismiss it.
Open › Be open to new insights through free association. Allow your intuitive mind to take you on this journey.
Namaste › Honor the soul knowledge of others.
What are your experiences using intuition? Again, thank you for sharing your insight!
To your intuitive success,
Maria
Fear, Love and Leadership
I write and speak a lot about fear versus love. Fear is easy to identify. We definitely know when fear starts to creep in; our body becomes tense, blood pressure starts to rise, and feelings of anxiety emerge. Fear is not a good feeling! Why would we continue to go there repeatedly? Where love and spirit are internal to us, fear and ego are external. Turning to others for approval or acceptance, points us in the direction of ego, external to ourselves.
When we live in the past, we live in the ego. Reliving those events, involving externally generated relationships, can cause tremendous pain or hurt. Each time we choose – yes, it is a choice – to live in the space of fear, we give away our power. We give it away to people or circumstance – an external event. When we retain our power, we are empowered, living in a place of love and spirit. 
Fear paralyzes us. True, fear can be a motivator, but it is not sustainable. We cannot be motivated and live in fear for long periods without paying the physical, emotional, and spiritual costs of fear and stress.
Moving away from fear is one thing, but how do we actively develop love and ultimately integrate it with our leadership? In Love-Based Leadership: Transform Your Life with Meaning and Abundance, I outline eight steps to help develop love of self, love of source, and love of others:
When we align ourselves with love and spirit, abundance and joy flow into our lives. What other steps would you add to develop love of self, love of source, and love of others?
With love,
Maria
Leadership Discomfort
As a leadership coach, I am always excited when a powerful question or statement crosses my path or better yet, slams me in the face! Yesterday, I had such an encounter. Seth Godin got my attention when he stated, “If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader”. He was talking about the discomfort we sometimes feel as a leader and furthermore, when we identify the discomfort, we’ve found a place where leadership is needed. His list includes: 
I DO love those moments that move me out of my comfort zone and into what I call a “seat squirming” state. I know when I start squirming, I am onto to something, and that something is usually growth!
Of course, I also like to state things in a positive frame, so my list may look something like:
My list not only feels good when I put it on, but it moves me beyond comfort to electric energy. What are your thoughts? Comfortable? Discomfort? What would you add to the list? As always, I truly appreciate your insight.
With electric energy and love,
Maria
Leadership and Marketing - The Same?
While teaching leadership or marketing courses, I often have the thought…Leading people and marketing are really the same activity. Isn’t the primary objective of both to influence people in the direction of a goal?
Now some of you may challenge that statement! True, marketing and leadership could sometimes be an activity of manipulation, and not of influence. We have seen and experienced this many times in both marketing and leadership. 
Influence, on the other hand, is nurturing, motivating, and full of momentum. Great, so how do we do it? How do we really influence others? Reflecting on the power of influence, I’ve come up with some key ways we can gain influence with those we lead:
What else would you add to the list?
With love and respect,
Maria
The Leadership Revolution: A Call to Hearts
Welcome to my blog about leadership – specifically, leading with our hearts, with love. There is a movement among us, and that movement is an evolution in leadership. This evolution is so important and leaders across the globe are so passionate about the movement that it is a revolution…a leadership revolution with a call to hearts.
We know historically that a revolution is a revolt, an uprising against the standard, the status quo. That is exactly what we are seeing in leadership. Leaders are recognizing the power of this shift and smart leaders are getting on board, and finding great results in this movement.
Leaders are shifting from:
- Competition to collaboration
- Coercion to influence
- Secrecy to transparency
- Information gathering to information distribution
- Scarcity to abundance
… and this is just the beginning!
My hope is that you will join in this discussion and share your insights with all of us. I also hope that you will find great value in our information exchange and will share these resources with those in your sphere of influence. When we are empowered, we are powerful.
The plan is to post information, resources, food for thought and to facilitate a deep, rich discussion on three of my greatest passions – leadership, love, and life. After all… aren’t they one and the same?
I am looking forward to your thoughts about this leadership revolution, "A Call to Hearts".Viva la revolution,Maria