Women in the LEAD

The Law of Attraction

The “Law of Attraction” Adds Power to Both Problems and Solutions. . .

The realization that something is not as you want it to be is an important first step, but once you have identified that, the faster you are able to turn your attention in the direction of a solution, the better, because a continuing exploration of the problem will prevent you from finding the solution. The problem is a different vibrational frequency than the solution—and all thoughts (or vibrations) are affected by (or managed by) the “Law of Attraction.”  (from Abraham – Esther and Jerry Hicks)

The world has a close fixation on the “Law of Attraction” for good reason.  We must identify things in our lives that are not as we want them and then move towards a sense or picture of how we would actually like things to be.  The more we place our attention on our desired and intended life the sooner we will create it.

Maureen Simon

Two Wings: Grace and Action

"We come into this world with two wings; one is the wing of Grace, the other is the wing of self effort.  Use them both and you will take flight”.

Unknown

I recently learned that it is important to not only visualize and pray for our intended results in life but also to put forth specific effort on the earth plane, which will lead me to my desired outcome.  For most of my life “effort” is something that I have gone out of my way to avoid.  But it has become clear to me that when all of the things in our life are aligned and become things we love to do there is no effort.  I guess instead of the word effort, I prefer the word action.  For when grace and self-action are combined the outcome will be amazing.

Maureen Simon

Do Not Believe What You Have Heard.

“Do not believe in what you have heard; do not believe in the traditions because they have been handed down for generations; do not believe in anything because it is rumored or spoken by many; do not believe merely because a written statement of some old sage is produced; do not believe in conjectures; do not believe in as truth that to which you have become attached by habit; do not believe merely the authority of teachers and elders.  After observation and analysis, when it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and gain of one and all, then accept it, practice it, and live up to it.”

Buddha             

§         What agrees with your reason and is conducive to the good and gain of one and all?

§         Where do you want to tie your boat – align your values’

§         Who is the tribe that supports you?

§         What do you most believe in?

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: Soft is Stong Leadership

I see women demonstrate that they think ASSERTIVE, sometimes HARSH, actions are a show of strength as a leader. Ancient wisdom suggests otherwise. I read (The Tao of Personal Leadership by Diane Dreher) that leaders of the Tao draw on a power much great than the stereotyped strength of celluloid heroes society has somehow learned to admire. Dianne wrote that these flashy, tough, emothionally repressed, and ultimately unreal characters. "Real strength is strength of character."

In my own career, I learned from early mistakes that there was power in being kind, gentle, respect, transcending difficulty to create new possibilities. Interesting, the lessons were further imprinted by being "batted around" by a few women, who chose to model the more brutal approach to leadership. I learned most of all, I didn't want to inflict on others what their rath did on me. In reflection, they were sad characters.

It is perhaps our most feminine qualities that come as strength when they are partnered with our values, a forgiving and understanding heart, and good intentions.

What do you think? Let me know...

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Author and founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead

My New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work (June 2008)
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership, and High Performance
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com

Join me for monthly online dialogues --- Next DATE August 12

Our greatest teacher may be our body

“…Our greatest teacher may be our body.  If we have recurring problems with health or weight, the body may be communicating that we need to attend to our healing not only on a physical level, but also on emotional, mental, or spiritual levels.  For example, if we tend to push ourselves too hard, our bodies may get sick in order to force us to slow down, relax and take better care of ourselves.  If we learn the lesson our bodies are trying to teach us, and are able to integrate more rest, play, emotional expression, and spiritual renewal into our lives, perhaps our bodies won’t have to get sick in order to get our attention.”

Shakti Gawain   “Creating True Prosperity”

Our bodies can teach us more about ourselves than perhaps we realize, if we pay attention.  Too often our attention is external rather than internal.  The impulses our bodies send out can be subtle and easily go unnoticed but provide us with information about our health, emotions and overall well-being. 

It seems easier to ignore the minor annoyances of our bodies as we care for others in our families, our jobs and our communities.  Being in tune with our bodies allows us to feed ourselves self-respect.  When we value ourselves and listen to the quiet signs available to us daily we are more valuable to both others and ourselves.

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: Creating the IMPOSSIBLE

I love the act of cleaning out closets and drawers. Not the work particularly, but what happens in the process. The feeling of newness is addictive. I actually find it even feels better. Another benefit is finding "treasures" you've not seen for a while. Over the weekend after a long, twisting path of writing my new book for a year --- and seeing and experiencing it being published, I spent the weekend cleaning out everything, releasing all piles of stuff, blessing the hard work, and rejoicing at the empty places I was creating, making room for new dreams to grow.

In the process, I came across a favorite book (again). Funny I find it at just the right moments. It is entitled The Tao of Personal Leadership by Diane Dreher. I opened to this familiar story with a different twist.

"The Tao Te Ching tells us that all nature follows the process of zanshin (Moving with zanshin means not becoming fixated on mistakes or doubts, not letting them break our connect to the here and now), moving from conception to creation one step at a time:

Journey of Thousand Miles
A tree that grows beyond your reach
Springs from a tiny seed.
A building more than nine stories high
Begins with a small mound of earth.
A journey of a thousand miles
Begins with a single step.

When I was in China ... I saw a vivid example of this lesson. All over Shanghai and Beijing, massive construction projects were going up. My companions on the journey were astounded to see the Chinese using bamboo scaffolding to build these towering skyscrapers. Bamboo seems so light and fragile, yet the Chinese have relied on it for thousands of years. I smiled and though of the strength of bamboo, the ability to build on what we know, the courage to reach beyond what we know to achieve what was once thought impossible."

With gratitude, I reflect on the last year with all its "stretching lessons" and miraculous twists and turns --- and series of small miracles that surrounded its 365 days. What seemed impossible, like the strength of the bamboo, seemed to flourish in the face of courage to reach beyond when it seemed very difficult.

What reflections do you have when you've drawn upon this strength inside you?

Debbe Kennedy
Author and founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead

My New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work (June 2008)
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership, and High Performance
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com

Join me for monthly online dialogues --- Next DATE August 12

Eternity Is Not The Hereafter

“Eternity is not the hereafter…this is it.  If you don’t get it here, you won’t get in anywhere.”

n       Joseph Campbell

Planet Earth is the ideal place to learn the Universal lessons that are fully available to us through each experience that we live.  On this planet we have the ability to look at our deepest fears, to break through them and to contribute at the highest level.  The choice is ours.  Your life is a choice.  What choices are you making daily?

 

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: Leading Change in the Worst of Times

Leading change in the workplace, marketplace, the world or in our personal lives actually has a lot in common. I'm not sure I always realized this fact. Some years back in my book, Breakthrough!, I offered 10 Ways to Decrease the Impact of a Changing Workplace. As I review the list now with a more reflective eye, I realize they were valuable tools that helped me lead employees through sweeping changes as a leader in Corporate and business life.

Additionally, the same list helped me lead my family through unexpected changes, even some that were very sad and life-changing for everyone involved. I also now wonder how different our world would be if leaders everywhere used these simple practices? I share them with you...

1. Talk about it honestly.
2. Talk about it positively.
3. Talk about it often.
4. Look for the good in the change; help others see it too. Make it come to life.
5. Tap all available talents to create plans and a new direction.
6. Describe your vision of the future success. Look beyond the obvious or traditional view.
7. Celebrate progress regularly.
8. Reward contributors.
9. Re-evaluate direction together and recommit frequently.
10. Talk about the future every chance you get, illustrating the possibilities in a story helping everyone build a positive vision of the future. This gives meaning to life.

Leaders of all kinds set the tone by their actions and beliefs. Every day we have an opportunity to influence a positive outcome --- to give hope --- to take people to places they would never imagine they could go even in the most difficult of times.

Where could you put these practices to work?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the LEAD

Author, Putting Our Differences to Work:
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership, and High Performance

How To Succeed

“Pavlov’s advice on how to succeed – ‘Passion and gradualness’.  Even in those areas where we have already developed a high degree of skill, it sometimes helps to drop back, lower our sights a bit, and practice with a feeling of ease.

This is especially true when one reaches a sticking point in progress, where effort for additional progress is unavailing.

Continually straining to go beyond the sticking point is likely to develop undesirable feeling, habits of strain, difficulty, and effort.”

Maxwell Maltz

Where in your life do you feel stuck?  Anywhere?  Are your work relationships and day to day life as you wish?  Does your life make a difference?  What is your contribution?  What is your destiny or legacy?  It is so important to live with awareness and to make choices that support an ideal life – a life well lived.

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: Looking for WONDER?

With all our struggles, most of us search for wonder outside ourselves and where we are...

I ran across this message that seemed to confirm this TRUTH.

"People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long course of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and they pass themselves without wondering."   ---- St. Augustine

Where is your WONDER? Are you looking for it?

One realization I have is that there is wonder right here. I feel it every time I visit with all of you here.

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead
author, Putting Our Differences to Work (Berrett-Koehler 2008)

Raising Your Energy

One of the books I enjoy most is Wayne Dyer’s “The Power of Intention”.  In this book he says, “If you are experiencing scarcity, anguish, depression, an absence of love, or any inability to attract what you desire, seriously look at how you’ve been attracting these circumstances into your life.  Low energy is an attractor pattern.  It shows up because you’ve sent for it, even if on a subconscious level.  It’s still yours and you own it.  However, if you practice deliberately raising your energy level by being cognizant of your immediate environment, you’ll move rather rapidly toward intention and remove all of those self-imposed roadblocks.  The obstacles are in the low-energy spectrum.”   

Dr. Dyer goes on to list a few suggestions for moving your energy field to a higher vibration:

• Become conscious of your thoughts
• Make meditation a regular practice in your life
• Become conscious of the foods that you eat
• Retreat from low energy substances
• Become conscious of the energy level of the music you listen to
• Become aware of the energy levels of your home environment
• Reduce your exposure to the very low level of commercial and cable television
• Enhance your energy field with photographs
• Become conscious of the energy levels of your acquaintances, friends and extended family

When we make choices that raise our energy field our quality of life raises as well.   The first step in achieving this increased energy is to notice the things in your day that don’t feel good.  If things repeat or a pattern forms, consider making a change in this area of your life.  Small steps allow for large changes over time.

Maureen Simon

The POWER of SIX: How to get things done!

Last year, I posted a little wisdom I came across quite by chance. Have you ever noticed that the best advice is SIMPLE? I've been using the prioritization technique for many months now and I wanted to report it works! Let me again share the story:

I am by nature a goal-directed, fairly organized doer. This is both a gift and sometimes a challenge for the best of us like-minded souls. However, being overwhelmed is never far away from most any day. There is much to do and balancing it all out into a twenty-four hour day rarely happens as I hoped. The other day at a moment when I needed it most, I opened Hindsights: The Wisdom and Breakthroughs of Remarkable People by Guy Kawasaki. Interestingly, the page I turned to was part of an interview with Mary Kay Ash reflecting back on what she learned in building Mary Kay Cosmetics. My eyes focused in on her organization technique that she taught to consultants in her business --- "The Six Most Important Things".

"...I teach consultants to write down the six most important things they have to do the next day every night before they go to bed. I suggest that people organize things by priority. First, put the thing they most don't want to do at the top. Then write down the six most important things--not sixteen."

The most simple practices can lighten the load. I highly recommend this one!

Any others that you use?

Best...
Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Founder, Global Dialogue Center
www.globaldialoguecenter.com
Home of Women in the Lead

Work and the Success Syndrome

When you are intimate with life’s secret, your work becomes your calling.  The word vocation comes from the Latin, meaning, “I call”.  Begin to think of your work as a calling.  The creative process is calling, singing its song in you and as you…  So the work becomes easy and fulfilling, and you become prosperous and successful in it.”

Eric Butterworth “Spiritual Economics”

Successful, prosperous work is your birthright and readily available to you.  What is your calling?  Hint – you can find your calling in the things you love to do, in where you feel most creative and where the song lives in you.  As Eric says above, work can be easy and fulfilling.  Why make things more difficult than they need be?  

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: The Road Less Travelled - Do you take it?

What does is meant by the road less travelled? 
As you ask this question in the context of your own life, let Robert Frost set the stage with his famous poem. I'm thinking too..., knowing there will be remembrances that define it for me too. For me I think it was not the easy road. It was the one with many challenges. One with obstacles and bridges; long ways and sometimes dark and scarey passages, but in the end, it was always new and full of growth. It did always make a difference!

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Where has your journey taken you?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Author and founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead

My New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work (June 2008)
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership, and High Performance
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com

Join me for monthly online dialogues starting in July, 2008

EXISTENCE

Ecstasy, divine love, and beauty presuppose consciousness and existence.  Existence without consciousness is to exist with no purpose.  But when existence is endowed with consciousness, it can search for its own good ecstasy.

n       Swami B.R. Sridhar

And as we reach ecstasy in our own lives divine love and beauty become readily available to us.  To exist for no reason is not to live but to live a life that is awake and holds meaning is to live life fully.

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: Looking for wonder?

With all our struggles, twists and turns of life, most of us search for wonder outside ourselves and far from the place where we are at the moment...

"People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long course of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular otion of the stars, and they pass themselves without wondering." --- St. Augustine

The wonder is right here with you and me. For this I am most grateful.

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Author and founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead

My New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work (June 2008)
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership, and High Performance
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com 

Join me for monthly online dialogues starting in July, 2008

Trees and the Life of the Planet

“Every tree is a living watercourse; its roots, trunk and branches conduct water up from the soil  to the leaves, from which it then passes into the atmosphere.”

The Celtic Spiprit, Caitlin Matthews

We recently had the experience of needing to cut some rather large trees.  I must admit it felt as though we were losing good friends.  In the Celtic tradition the tree symbolizes life and our connection to the underworld and the world above.  The tree holds its power beneath the ground in the unseen.  As spring develops and builds we have the joy of experiencing nature and its abundance.  Enjoy this special time this year.

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: Lessons from my dad: I Resolve...

It's Father's Day.

My dad was a Chaplain with two Bronze Stars for bravery. Unusual for a Chaplain, I understand. He never talked about his commendation to us, but I later read in his papers that his style of leadership was to be with the soldiers in the frontlines. He was definitely a people person and he spent his life always striving to improve himself. He collected quotes and stories. I still have some of his most treasured ones. Today seemed a good day to look through them again to see if he had left a message from a simpler time that I could share with you. He did. In a tattered little newsletter dated 1950, I found my dad had circle one small article entitled...

I Resolve...
In the interest of getting along better with myself and others, I resolve...

• To blame myself, not others, for my mistakes.
• To be quick to praise others, and slow to criticize.
• To maintain an optimistic, enthusiastic attitude.
• To free my mind from useless worry, anxiety and fear.
• To be of assistance to others in every way possible.
• To be able to say that I have done my best at the close of each day.

I think I will consciously strive to live up to these ideals this week. How about you?

Best...
Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Founder, Global Dialogue Center
www.globaldialoguecenter.com
Home of Women in the Lead

The Wellspring of Love Within

“You can search far and in hungry places for love. It is a great consolation to know that there is a wellspring of love within yourself.  If you trust that this wellspring is there, you will then be able to invite it to awaken.  The following exercise could help develop awareness of this capacity.  When you have moments on your own or spaces in your time, just focus on the well a the root of your soul.  Imagine that nourishing stream of belonging, ease, peace, and delight.  Feel, with your visual imagination, the refreshing waters of that well gradually flowing up through the arid earth of the neglected side of your heart.  It is helpful to imagine this particularly before you sleep.  Then during the night you will be in a constant flow of enrichment and belonging.  You will find that when you awake at dawn, there will be a lovely, quiet happiness in your spirit.”

Anam Cara, John O’Donohue

You hold great love within.  Always remember that.  Your spirit holds joy and this joy is available to you at all times.

Maureen Simon 

WOMEN and the BUTTERFLY: Claim Your Wings

Again for reasons I can't explain this lesson keeps coming across year-after-year in my favorite book by Emmet Fox. So I am sharing it again, thinking maybe you will benefit too. It's the one I've mentioned that I've been reading for seven or eight years over and over; its pages worn, tattered and loved. His story about the butterfly is a perfect reminder for this time of RENEWAL that Spring always brings with it. Funny how even amidst the tragedies of the world, RENEWAL is always a personal option. It is available to us at any time.

Anne Frank set an example of this human miracle in her famed Diary written in the worst of conditions of the holocaust, influencing a whole world in the years that have followed:

"Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!"
                                                                                         --- Anne Frank

CLAIMING YOUR WINGS
by Emmet Fox

"To me the butterfly teaches the most important lesson that we human beings ever have to learn. You all know his story. He lived what seemed to him a very long time as a worm---what we call the humble caterpillar. Now the life of a caterpillar could be taken as the very type and symbol of restriction. He lives on a green leaf in the forest, and that is about all he knows.

Then one day the little caterpillar finds certain strange stirrings going on within himself. The old green leaf, for some reason, no longer seems sufficient. He becomes moody and discontent. He feels the need for a bigger, finer, and more interesting life. His instinct tells him that where there is true desire there must be fulfillment.

And so the wonderful thing happens: the butterfly emerges beautiful, graceful, now endowed with wings, and instead of crawling about on a restricted leaf, he soars above the trees, above the forest itself---free, unrestricted, his own True Self."

Is it time for you to claim your wings?

If you are at all like me, this may not even be the first time you've claimed them. I find that sometimes I forget I have the option to soar. It is easy to get so entangled in life and work that we forget we have this freedom to rise above whatever our circumstances, choosing our attitude and our direction...deciding for ourselves to be GREAT in our own right.

I leave you to give it some thought as I take off once again, stretching my wings to soar again...

Join me?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead

Money is Divine

“…money is divine, because money is God’s good in expression…my whole purpose in teaching the spiritual and mental principles of prosperity was to help people to learn God’s good truth about prosperity being their divine heritage, so that they might be freed from failure, poverty and all the other sins of lack. I realized that sometimes the process was a shock.

Most people are sensitive about their capacity to earn money.  In most instances, a person’s capacity to earn money would increase if his attitudes toward money were positive and friendly.  It was the late Mike Todd who has been quoted as saying, “I’ve never been poor, only broke.  Being poor is a frame of mind.  Being broke is a temporary situation.””

n       Catherine Ponder “The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity”

Examine your thoughts concerning money.  Does it shock you?  How do your thoughts dictate your relationship with money?  What would you need to change to have positive and friendly relationship towards money?

 

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: Rising UP

Rising up has been on my mind lately for many reasons. I suppose it takes courage to step out and choose a new way --- to try on LIFE differently --- to ponder anew. I actually have learned to love this great part of life.

Today I had to have a large tree removed in my yard. It was in a dangerous place and for the safety of all, it had to be taken down. Watching it reminded me of an unexpected life lesson about rising up that came my way. I share it with you.

RISING UP

by Debbe Kennedy

A few years back, a large pine tree in my yard, beautifully wind-swept into a living sculpture from years of seaside gusts, was taken by a storm of beetles and died. For years, it was the tree that was in view out my window as I’ve worked every day. I won’t be maudlin and say I had a deep emotional attachment to the tree itself, but it had been a welcoming refuge countless times, when I found myself a prisoner of creative block and blank computer screen. To save the other trees, the majestic old pine had to go. Watching it be cut down and chopped up was sad. It left a gaping void in the soul of the neighborhood. Neighbors slowed as they passed in their cars, taking in the unexpected change and loss. Some even stopped by to question why? and what happened?

Six months passed. We planted a new cypress tree in its place. It was hardly a substitute. A short while later, I stopped, before going into the house one evening, to see how the new cypress tree was doing. The real miracle was in discovering that two new little pine trees had sprung up all on their own. They had made their way up through all the might of the rocky soil pressing heavy on them---responding to Life’s Calling to rise up!. Today, they are standing two very proud feet high. They made the choice not to give up---to accept responsibility for their own destiny. The same calling that comes to each of us when we stand at a crossroads that we didn't perhaps expect.

Excerpt from After a Storm the Birds Sing by Debbe Kennedy.

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Author and founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead

My New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work (June 2008)
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership, and High Performance
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com 

Join me for monthly online dialogues starting in July, 2008

Millennium Development Goals – A Guide The World Needs To Live By

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) include –

v      Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

v      Achieve universal primary education

v      Promote gender equality and empower women

v      Reduce child mortality

v      Improve maternal health

v      Combat HIV/AIDS malaria and other diseases

v      Ensure environmental sustainability

v      Develop a global partnership for development

As a founding member of the Global Women’s Leadership Network, I received a newsletter draft from the founder, Linda Alepin today. She wrote a great article on the importance of building the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations into our daily conversations.  As I read the above list, I began to daydream about what the world would be like if these issues were resolved and if the pain that these issues cause were behind us.  Is there any role that you would like to take to support the Millennium Goals. Explore the above link.  These goals are critical and important to the future of our world,

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: In Search of Abundance

Recently, I've had many people bring up their quests for abundance. Interestingly, most devulge it really means more money. One friend sent me a little process, where you write a check to yourself the day after the Full Moons during the year in some big amount. It is suppose to bring you abundance in your life in some way (no guarantee it will be money). Reports are that "it works!"

What was good about receiving this like tip is that it really got me thinking about how I feel about abundance. For me, it has come when three conditions were present:

-- my intent was pure
-- my focus was on doing something meaningful for others
-- my faith was strong and steadfast

I realize in reflection that abundance has come in many forms opening the way for my intended contributions and life --- such as courage, love, health, wealth of ideas, connections, friends, creativity, determination, knowledge, adaptability and money for support of life, work and sharing ... and more. I feel so grateful as I think.

How have you been blessed with abundance?

Best...

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Author and founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead
New book...www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com

The Many Faces of Women

As I looked at the link below, I felt a strong pride as I took a journey through the history of art and women.

Please take a moment and explore this absolutely beautiful link.  It will be a true gift to yourself.  Enjoy.

http://miraulam.multiply.com/video/item/38/Women_In_Art 

(May take a moment to load; be patient.)

Maureen Simon