Women in the LEAD

THE GAUNTLET HAS BEEN THROWN DOWN

The gauntlet has been thrown down.  Last year at the 5^th Annual Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society, “what clearly emerged from the Women’s Forum…is the insight that with global economic crisis come global issues that are so complex and intertwined, no one party can hand off responsibility to another.  Business, professionals, academics, innovators, entrepreneurs, governments and public bodies alike have to care and have to take up these challenges practically. We need to find different models for social and economic progress or face repercussions and continued cyclical economic time bombs.  The Women’s Forum put women at the centre of this challenge and the heart of the solution.”

It was for good reason that the Women’s Forum put women at the center of this challenge.  Women have the natural talents and gifts to see things differently and to create different “models for social and economic progress”.  This is based on their feminine attributes of collaboration, intuition, relationship building, and communication abilities to name a few.  As recent studies have shown, diversity at the board level of companies and women holding decision making positions improves both the quality and soundness of decision making and quality of performance.  We must educate ourselves and our young girls to this fact. 

This is the time to believe in our feminine gifts and to develop them.  It is only through these gifts that we can empower change, contribute to our own success and that of the world around us. 

Maureen Simon
Co-Contributor
Create Your Blueprint for 2010
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P.S. The Forum was held on 15-17 October 2009 under the theme "Think again, think ahead! It is time for action change and hope." A review of the Forum was written by * Julia Harrison, Managing Partner of FD Blueprint (FD Blueprint is a leading EU public affairs company) and Member Founding Committee of Women’s Forum (Belgium) and published in the December 14 issue of the European Business Review.

What Are You Doing For Others?

Life holds so many synchronicities. I had not realized that Martin Luther King's birthday holiday is once again upon us – this coming Monday. Independent of this, I have been thinking about him. When I logged on today, I saw Debbe's most recent post on Dr. Martin Luther King! What better example of leadership and synchronicity can one think of?

I am of few words today and  but seem to be holding many questions as you may have noticed in my last few entries, I am grateful for this time of many questions. This morning I was pondering one of Dr. King's most famous questions:

“Life’s most urgent question is “What are you doing for others?”. MLK

As our nation has been founded on the principles of independence, we must learn to remember others. The American culture has become self –focused. How can we come out of our selves and begin to contribute to the lives of others.

We have many great inspiring leaders to model. The time is now. Thank You Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for your courage, wisdom and leadership. It is up to us to keep it alive in each of us daily.

Maureen Simon

Dr. King: Rosa Parks on Role Models

IN COMMEMORATION: Dr. Martin Luther King's Birthday
January 15, 2010

In the book, Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope, and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation by Rosa Parks, she shared several examples of people who served as role models. One was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She recalled:

"Martin Luther King Jr. set a profound example for me in day-to-day living. He was such a young man---just twenty-six years old---when I first met him at the beginning of the bus boycott. I was forty-two.

I'll always remember the way Dr. King would respond to violence. He would use the same words that Jesus said on the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Brutality was to be received with love, he would say. Though I knew we needed to strive for nonviolence, when I saw the brutal treatment some of us got, I had trouble believing it was always the best thing to do.

Dr. King was  a true leader. I never sensed fear in him. I just felt as though he knew what had to be done and took the leading role without regard to consequences. I knew he was destined to do great things. He had an elegance about him and a speaking style that let you know where you stood and inspired you to do the best you could. He truly is a role model for us all. The sacrifice of his life should never be forgotten, and his dream live on."

IN COMMEMORATION...

          I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true
          meaning of its creed - we hold these truths to be self-evident that all
          men are created equal.

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  - August 1963

What example do you set for others by your day-to-day leadership?

Photo: Academy of Achievement

Warm wishes to you all...

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead
www.globaldialoguecenter.com/women
author, Putting Our Differences to Work
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership
and High Performance

Twitter @debbekennedy

Are You Living and Working at Your Peak?

Peak performance is a state of mind. In the past ten years there have been hundreds of books written on how one can develop a high functioning and meaninhful life. It has become common knowledge that unless we take optimum care of ourselves it is simply not possible to reach peak performance, function at our higest level or to live a deeply meaningful life. I have found the book”Making It on Your Own” by Sarah and Paul Edwards to be a fantastic resource and reminder on how to make it in the business world and to enjoy the journey along the way. I strongly believe that the journey is as important as the destination. Here are some foundational but essential components of Peak Performance.

How many of the items on the list below from-“Making It on Your Own”, have you mastered? Go for mastery…the pay off is huge!!

”Step One: Remain Relaxed Under Pressure

• Learn to notice quickly when your body is beginning to feel tense
• Take several long, deep breaths
• Shake our the tension
• Take a break in a relaxing locale
• Take a mental mini-vacation
• Play relaxing background music
• Eat right
• Use your natural alarm clock
• Enjoy a pet break
• Take a short nap
• Meditate daily

Step Two: Get Energized!  Stay Energized!

• Get plenty of R & R
• Keep the pressure in bounds
• Know how much sleep you need and make sure you get enough
• Insist that you take at least one day off a week
• Make sure you are enjoying what you do
• Eat high-energy foods
• Get plenty of exercise

Step Three: Build Your Concentration

• Make adequate child care arrangements
• Set up time signals
• Use an answering machine or answering service
• Take definite action
• Get the cooperation of family and friends
• Locate your office or work space away from disruptions and distractions

Step Four:  Become an Optimist

• Stop hoping and start anticipating
• Associate with optimists
• Listen to upbeat songs

Step Five:  Be There Now

• Become an observer of your awareness
• Focus on each area of awareness”

Give some of the above suggestions a try. You, I believe will see a marked improvement in you performance and in your life!

Maureen Simon

2010: The Precious Present of a New Year

The idea of the NEW BEGINNING has been a very important part of my life over the years. It started with Weight Watchers. I had been a chubby young girl and the program taught lots of things. Most of all, I learned to set goals. Losing 72 lbs was my first big goal achieved in life. I was in my twenties at the time and it truly changed my life. It also led to many other achievements, big and small, for which I am grateful. I am assuming that you to can point to that first point in life when things just went right. You pulled out all the excuses and went after something that you wanted very badly and ACHIEVED IT.

Since that early achievement, I began to experiment with creating a VISION every year. Each year, I am amazed to discover how much was accomplished just from claiming the goals I had in mind. A few years ago, I wrote an article to share what I do each year. Hope you'll find it inspiring or even affirming of what you are already doing...

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/anewbeginning.pdf(PDF)

My first goal this year was to begin it by getting a head-start on getting BACK TO BASICS in as many areas of my life as I could. Cleaning out. Clearing out. Focusing on only what is good and true --- and throwing out all the excuses that are so easy to pile up in times when turmoil and struggle are all around us.

It is hard to look at yourself objectively, especially if hard things are going on around you, as I think is happening for so many of us right now. However, it is in tough times that we need to be at the "top of our game." It helps us weather the storms. Eating well. Getting a little fresh air. Taking a little quiet time for spiritual practice in our own way. Moving. Dancing. Clearing out the stagnant stuff. Feeling good. Looking good. Striving to regain discipline around what we CAN DO for ourselves. This all happens by focusing on the things that we can control. In the process, it will lift you up! Try it!

What have you got planned to ACHIEVE for yourself this year?

Is your VISION SHINING BRIGHTLY?

Warm wishes to you all...

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead
www.globaldialoguecenter.com/women
author, Putting Our Differences to Work
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership
and High Performance

Twitter @debbekennedy

The Calender: A Measurement of Time and Life

“Looking at the calendar conveys a suggestion of a perpetual fresh start. The calendar is the symbol of death and resurrection, as well as the comprehendible order which rules the passing of time…Calendars offer the means of recording the stages of ones own inner or external development and of being able to celebrate at fixed times human intercourse either with the Gods, the universe or with the dead”).

From: The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols

As we begin a new year we are offered the opportunity of starting anew. Today is a day to evaluate old habits and beliefs that we have been carrying around with us from previous years or lifetimes. We can choose to view the turning of last year’s calendar to these new years as fresh start.

• What aspect of your habits, actions or beliefs do you now want to eliminate to make way for a resurrection of the new and the fresh?

• What milestones, objectives or intentions do you want to measure during the New Year?

• When you look back from 2010 and evaluate how 2009 went… what will you say your greatest accomplishments or joys were?

Have a wonderful New Year full of conscious living and joyful choices!!

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: Shared Wisdom

Have you ever noticed that the great thinkers, sages and doers in history are in dialogue with us --- sharing their wisdom with us ----if we just pay attention? Once you tune in your ears to listen, they seem to be constantly whispering to us, teaching us lessons from their journeys through this life.

Today as I approach what I know is a day asking much of me at this beginning of a new decade, I hear Horace in the distance. He says...

"Carpe diem, quam minimum
Credula a postero.
Seize the day, and put the least possible trust in tomorrow."

I hear Rumi in his mystic dance...

"This is not a day for asking questions,
not a day on any calendar. This day is conscious of itself..."

So I begin it, letting go the anxieties of night, remembering...
each task completed
each act of kindness given
each piece of work started and maybe left unfinished
each moment experienced in love and gratitude
is perfectly planned for today.

What contribution will we each make during these new days of 2010?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead
www.globaldialoguecenter.com/women
author, Putting Our Differences to Work
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership
and High Performance

Twitter @debbekennedy

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