Connected Leadership — A Series — A Father’s Memoir On Life Applied To Business

In December of 2019, I finished the memoir, You Are Held In Love. Written as an offering to my children, it identified over a dozen patterns I had discovered about how life moved, about how life operated. After a life-altering spiritual awakening polished the lens of my internal vision, offering me the ability to see and feel beyond what I had come to believe was a horizon, I discovered what it meant to embody love, compassion, and empathy, to move from my heart, to align to my highest divine aspect. You Are Held In Love captured, for my children, the lessons my awakening enabled me to see. Within the space offered by completing the memoir, I realized when I applied these lessons at work I was embodying what I describe as Connected Leadership. Connected Leadership — A Series, shares the lessons and observations from You Are Held In Love through a work lens with work stories. My goal? Reframe what it means to be a leader by incorporating these universal truths into a work setting.

Patterns / Observations of Life (with linked articles)

The greatest gift you can offer is presence — It is your presence that offers the greatest gift to those blessed to encounter and experience it. It is equally important to understand that their presence in your life is equally significant. Our entire lives have to lead us to hear and now. Who and what we are experiencing in each moment is creation itself, and presence unwraps this gift for us to see.

• How judgment eliminates opportunity — An article describing how leaders miss seeing and engaging with those they invited into their meeting, resulting in missed engagement and missed gratitude due to lack of presence.
• The Struggled Search For Belonging — An article about anger, self-forgiveness, compassion & presence.

Within nothing lies everything — This lesson revolves around the truth that in order for everything to become available as an opportunity, nothing can already occupy space. Within the space of nothing, everything has an opportunity to be created.

• How judgment eliminates opportunity — An article describing how when judgment is present within leaders, when judgment is taking up space, opportunities to understand are missed.

It is what you unknow that will save you — This lesson couples well with the lesson above. It is only when we empty ourselves of knowing, when we empty ourselves of judgment, when we move to a space of nothing, or move to a space of wonderment, that transformational change can occur.

• How judgment eliminates opportunity — An article describing how when judgment is present within leaders, when judgment is taking up space, opportunities to connect are missed.

If you want to change your life, change your beliefs — This lesson couples well with the lesson above. Your life is driven, directed, and orchestrated by your conscious and unconscious beliefs (often referred to as subconscious bias). Identifying these is key to being able to apply the lessons above.

If you want to change your life, change your language — This lesson is the how, the starting point for nearly all of the lessons above. To identify your beliefs, listen to your language, listen to your thoughts. To unknow and move to nothing, listen to what you know and what you believe by listening to your language.

• The Power Of A Human Connection — An article about the power of being real, vulnerable, humble, and witnessing of ourselves and each other.
• The Struggled Search For Belonging — An article about anger, self-forgiveness, compassion & presence.

We create through being — Because we are, we create. Our beingness is what allows us to be creators. Since our beingness is what enables creation, what we are creating arises out of how we are being. Are you aware of how you are being in every moment? We create through being.

• How Judgement Hides Accountability — An article about how we are being influences what we are creating.
• The Power Of A Human Connection — An article about the power of being real, vulnerable, humble, and witnessing of ourselves and each other.
• The Inevitable Collision Of Life And Work — An article about discovering yourself, about being. An article about belonging, when longing to be is discovered.
• The Struggled Search For Belonging — An article about anger, self-forgiveness, compassion & presence.

Objects appear as you are — This lesson couples well with the one above. Humans have a tendency to project their feelings, their emotions, their fears, and their subconscious bias’ onto others. Another way of saying this is, I am not what you think I am, you are what you think I am. Are you aware that negative thing you are thinking about that other person or team is actually your own reflection? Objects appear as you are.

• How Judgement Hides Accountability — An article showing how it is less about the other and more about you.
• The Struggled Search For Belonging — An article about anger, self-forgiveness, compassion & presence.

The next moment is empty — This lesson couples well with the two above. The gist is, you are a creator through being, and every next moment of your life is empty of your creation, devoid of your contribution. Every next moment is empty, containing nothing, thereby providing the possibility for you to create anything, say anything, do anything within it. The next moment is empty.

• How Judgement Hides Accountability — An article showing that we can be in control of what we are creating, if we are self-aware.
• The Power Of A Human Connection — An article about the power of being real, vulnerable, humble, and witnessing of ourselves and each other.
• The Struggled Search For Belonging — An article about anger, self-forgiveness, compassion & presence.

I have never regretted being compassionate — When all else fails, be compassionate. Move from a space of love. Understand the blessing of the moment you are in and be compassionate. I doubt you will ever regret this choice.

• The Power Of A Human Connection — An article about the power of being real, vulnerable, humble, and witnessing of ourselves and each other.
• The Struggled Search For Belonging — An article about anger, self-forgiveness, compassion & presence.

The mind thinks. The Soul communicates — This lesson describes that intellect (the mind) and intuition (or wisdom) are different. Thought and intuition feel different, as an experience. The art is to understand this and know that sometimes the mind needs time to comprehend what the Soul already knows. It is also important to see that many of our greatest ideas arrive when we are silent when we are contemplating. Intellect occurs through language. Wisdom occurs through silence.

Movement circles stillness — This lesson points to the stress of work. It points to the lessons and the anxieties of life. All of these things pass. We remain. We are the stillness that is witnessing life, witnessing anxiety, witnessing stress. Movement circles stillness. It is from this vantage point that peace can be found, divinity can be seen and true meaningful conversations can be had.

Time reveals divine-timing — This lesson provides space for us to see that things always have a way of working out. Looking back we see what may have felt wrong at the time, was actually write after time. It points to compassion as well; if it didn’t occur, then there wasn’t space or time for it to occur. Something else was present. This lesson helps us understand that we are co-creators not just with other people, but with the time and space we are creating into. It also helps us see that it is all beautifully and perfectly orchestrated however it ends up being.

A body driven by the heart releases itself from the suffering mind — This lesson is about connecting to yourself and understanding what you want. It describes how following this, how moving from your heart, releases stress and provides comfort.

• The Inevitable Collision Of Life And Work — An article about discovering yourself, about being. An article about belonging, when longing to be is discovered.

It isn’t what you do, it’s why — This lesson couples well with creation through being. It is about being aware of what is driving why you are doing what you are doing. For instance, raking leaves for a prison because I am forced to, and raking leaves for my elderly neighbor because I am loving and I choose to are each raking leaves. It isn’t what you do, it’s why.

• How Judgement Hides Accountability — An article that demonstrates that the why for what is being displayed, is probably not truly clear.
• The Struggled Search For Belonging — An article about anger, self-forgiveness, compassion & presence.