Women in the LEAD

Our Unique and Precious Gifts

Each life holds a precious and unique gift that carries its own meaning and reason for being here.  We need to learn about our uniqueness and build upon it.  No one else can do this for us. We have a responsibility to express these gifts. Only after we discover them can we experience a fulfilled life and begin to make major contributions to the world.

Here are some of the practical steps and questions that have successfully guided myself and my clients to a more fulfilling life...

Quieting the mind • Set aside time in silence at least 3 days a week for 20 minutes. Begin to get to know yourself, your needs, your desires and aspirations. Learn to identify and trust your intuition and inner voice. We all have an inner voice that guides and directs us. We just need to listen. • Question: Can you think of 1 way this week that you could actually create more calm & stillness?

Connecting with the body • Learn to become more aware of your body’s needs. • Listen more closely to the signs that your body gives you, i.e. where are there aches, sensations, and areas of tightness? Is your body sending you a message? What might the message be? • Explore these sensations through yoga & movement. Your body holds great information about its own healing needs and emotional state of being. • Question: What 2 things would you need to do differently to begin to honor and care for your body in a new way?

Expressing our gifts in the world • Begin to look at the day-to-day changes that you can make in your life to express more of who you really are. • Evaluate whether or not your day is made up of work activities and projects that fulfill you. • In the course of each day, do you fully express your greatest gifts? (For example, if you’re a writer, make sure that your day includes writing; if you enjoy people, make sure that your day involves social contact and is not limited to working at a desk job; if you enjoy nature, make sure that each day includes time outdoors.) • Question: How could you bring more joy, richness, and fulfillment into your life on a daily basis? What areas of our life could you improve?

As we learn to honor these small and simple things, we begin to connect more with who we are and what we’re here to bring. From these discoveries we begin to create deeply meaningful lives.

Maureen

Maureen Simon
Contributing Author, Women in the Lead
Create Your Blueprint for 2010
[email protected]
http://womeninfluencingnow.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/maureensimon
www.theessentialfeminine.com
Join our Facebook Group "Women Influencing Now"
twitter@maureensimon

 

WOMEN: The Law of GROWTH

What's on your mind? What thoughts do you carry with you from day-to-day? These are the "fortune tellers" of your destiny. There is a law of growth written about and talked about by many of the sages in history.

WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT GROWS.

If you want to do a quick self-assessment that will help you identify either the roadblocks holding your back or validate the momentum of positive thoughts that are opening the way for your important work and meaningful life, examine what you spend your time thinking about.

In my favorite book, mentioned before, written by Emmet Fox, he captures this idea clearly for us:

"What you think upon grows. Whatever you allow to occupy your mind you magnify in your own life. Whether the subject of your thought be good or bad, the law works and the condition grows. Any subject that you keep out of your mind tends to diminish in your life, because what you do not use atrophies.

The more you think about your grievances or the injustices that you may have suffered, the more you continue to receive. The more you think of the good fortunes you have had, the more good fortune will come to you."

I have to admit that this law has worked in my life. When my heart was breaking, there was no comfort that came in re-living it---or when stress, fear, guilt have temporarily consumed me, everything only seems to grow bigger than the sky. In my darkest hours many years back, it was Viktor Frankl's message in Man's Search for Meaning that really brought this Law of Growth into view and practice. He recounted how people who survived the holocaust had a common characteristic, they rose above the misery and despair to see a positive vision of their future----a faithful belief amidst the horror that they too had something significant left to contribute. So it is with each of us. In any given situation, we have the personal freedom to choose our attitude, which in turn, helps us discover new meaning and fulfillment in our lives and work every day.

Take time to evaluate what occupies your mind. Fill it full of thoughts of the best you can imagine. Let go of thoughts of the struggles or stresses or injustices that may exist and think instead, ponder anew --- think about what could BE and align your actions to support those thoughts. I know. I know, it is not as easy as it sounds sometimes, but it is powerful and with practice you will in a short time see how positive thoughts make powerful changes in your life. It grows!

"We never know how high we are till we are called to rise; and then if we are true to plan, our statures touch the skies." --- Emily Dickinson

May your way be blessed with only the best...

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

To Grow Is To Change

 

Spring is just around the corner.  Here in Northern California, there are daffodils blooming despite the cold, wet, windy winter weather.  As the newness sprouts from the ground, we too are offered the opportunity to embark upon newness in our lives.  It is our choice to change our lives, to grow. Take a look at your life and notice where you could grow or change at this time.  See the areas where you feel stagnation or stuck.  They are the opportunities for growth and the expression of your full potential.  It is important not to avoid risk but to be faithful to ambivalence and growth, for it is in these areas of our lives that we become fully expressed and alive.

 

One of my favorite authors and thinkers is John O’Donohue.  In his book Anam Cara he writes, “Deep within every life, no matter how dull or ineffectual it may seem from the outside, there is something eternal happening.  This is the secret way that change and possibility conspire with growth.  John Henry Newman summed this up beautifully when he said, “To grow is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.” Change, therefore, need not be threatening; it can in fact bring our lives to perfection.  Perfection is not cold completion.  Neither is it avoidance of risk and danger in order to keep the soul pure or the conscience unclouded.  When you are faithful to the risk and ambivalence of growth, you are engaging your life.”

 

Now is the moment for change.  Take the steps to bring forth your feminine attributes and feel truly alive.

 

Maureen Simon
Co-Contributor
Create Your Blueprint for 2010
[email protected]
http://womeninfluencingnow.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/maureensimon
www.theessentialfeminine.com
Join our Facebook Group "Women Influencing Now"
twitter@maureensimon

WOMEN: In the Process of BECOMING

When I was coming up the corporate ladder, there were few women role models. I was one of the first women managers in the U.S. Northwest in IBM and it was lonely. My first leadership assignment was in ALASKA. At the time, it was always a bit of a joke for others to see me as a women manager in such a seemingly distant place. "Oh, is that where they send women?" people would joke. Actually, it was one of the best professional moves I ever made. We were the TOP revenue producing office in the nation, which meant we got lots of visibility from the top. ALASKA was booming, as I blossomed into a leader in my own right in the environment of its success. Living and working there was a tougher existence than I was used to having come from the metropolitan city life of Los Angeles. No family. No lettuce. Lots of snow. My mentors were a bunch of rugged, dedicated, talented "bush pilots" outdoor types. Much of what I learned from them stays with me. I took their subtle suggestions that following their example would be good ---- being tough-minded and all business, including the navy blue suit, white "shirt and tie" that defined business attire at IBM at that time. For my early beginnings, it worked.

Some years later, after I had moved on to assignments with more responsibility, another mentor said to me, "Now that you've established yourself, how about being more like a women in your approach?" His question came with a bit of a sting that I still remember. He also offered ideas for dressing and bringing out the softer side that he felt was much more a natural way, knowing me. His counsel became the catalyst for me discovering a whole new side of myself as a leader. I worked on developing my own style of leadership----learning to not be afraid to project more of the person that lived inside me. In the process, I began to use all the lessons learned in my early years, adding my feminine qualities as key asset. The combination helped me shape a distinctive message and influence in my work. I've always been grateful for the courage it took for him to ask that very personal question. I wonder now if he knew his influence and how grateful I was for his help? Looking back, there were few men in my world bold enough ask any woman such a question.

I ran across a wonderful quote that brought this memory to mind. I thought it might help you think about your own style of beauty as a leader in your own world and how you share it with others. Remembering that leadership is an opportunity that presents itself at home, in our work, in the community or anywhere we have the chance to have an influence or set an example for others.

Instead of getting hard ourselves and trying to compete, women should try to give their best qualities to men -- bring them softness, teach them how to cry.

--- JOAN BAEZ

What have you learned in the process of becoming...

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 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
[email protected]
http://womeninfluencingnow.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/maureensimon
www.theessentialfeminine.com
Join our Facebook Group "Women Influencing Now"
twitter@maureensimon

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