Designing Your Life for Love
In meditation this morning, in the midst of peacefully counting my breath I lost count. My mind struggled. I returned to my breath – lost count – found my breath again. As my mind quieted, this phrase arose:
“What is more important than a design for your life that engenders more love?”
All other considerations fell away.
In that moment, I understood that designing my life to engender more love is the real work before me.
When I express love I release the safety valves that restrict the flow of intimacy. My wisdom grows.
I yearn for intimacy more than safety, wisdom more than fear. I want to soften my desire to please, release my inner demands to perform, burn out my perfectionism.
In opening to more love, parts of me feel creaky, like an old door opening with rusty hinges. Most of me feels like a big smile.
And, love expressed isn’t just nice, it’s fierce resolve that dismisses lies and sears through resistance. The wise leaders I admire express this kind of love.
I’m a yes! I am willing to listen for, envision and design my life for love. Except, what does that look like?
I’m going to keep writing on this in my morning reflections this week. Will you join me?
Karen
Lynne Twist on the Wise Leader
Lynne Twist inspires wise leaders! She expresses and acts on what matters the most to her, often with tears in her eyes. It’s a joy to be next to Lynne. She doesn’t hold back. She leans into creating good with everything she does catalyzing, guiding and cheering everyone using their wisdom to lead change.
Lynne is feminine wisdom in action!
Listen here to an excerpt of a dialogue with Lynne that I hosted with Fay Freed at Conversations with Remarkable Women, December 2009. Lynne’s voice moves me to tears. .LISTEN >
Lynne speaks on becoming a wise leader: “Don’t separate yourself from the pain of the world. Deepen your heart and capacity for joy. Know that it will make you a more courageous person.”
“Leadership now is a function of listening. Listening has as much power as speaking. Listening takes skill and patience.”
Lynne Twist, Pachamama Alliance and The Soul of Money Institute and Wise Woman Leader
How were you wise today? I am so blessed to be contact with you and your wisdom!
Karen
Are you Ready for Change?
I just posted a new report in the Wise Leadership through Change series. Check out the 3 Keys to Cultivating Readiness for Change by clicking here. I know all of you are leading change in in your companies, community, or personal life and you’ll succeed more often when you work from the inside out.
Go slow to go fast. Focus what you most want out of the change before you involve others. Get clear. Once you discover the resonant change core, the essence of why you or anyone else should bother changing in the first place, you make the crucial shift out of reaction.
One of my clients called me at the boiling point of frustration because her new business partner seemed reluctant, hesitant to bring the business to the next level. She’d invested a lot in this. It was quickly apparent she’d rallied lists of everything that was wrong and prepared for a showdown. I called a halt in the diatribe. “Instead of focusing on all the negative points you want to make what is it that you most want from this meeting?” In her fear-based reaction, she’d lost sight of the change she was really looking for.
Turns out, she’d love her partner to walk into her office, ask questions, and be more proactive! That’s what being a partner meant to her and a specific request she could make. Her partner responded with YES – she’d be happy to do more of this. And, yes! She felt very committed. The only reason she’d been hesitant? She considered it the highest compliment to take her time and learn the systems my client had in place before suggesting a change.
This is wise leadership – creating the results you most want from leading change.
What’s the resonant core of a situation you most want to change? I’d love to know.
Wishing you wisdom,
Karen
The Wise Leader
Harvard Business Review published an article by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotake Takeuchi on The Wise Leader. It’s the newest “Big Idea”. I’m pleased. For almost 3 decades I’ve written on wise leadership in guiding organizational transformation, managing complex change, the invisible sides of leadership, and the relationship between spirit and business.
Wise leaders use a multi-dimensional leadership to inspire and guide wise decisions whether these are in service of the family, a hi-tech firm, or a start-up. Wise decisions include the multiple bottom lines of people, planet and profit (to put it the most simply) and look out at the ripples of long term consequences. Wise leaders appreciate what’s worked, maintain and build on that. They want to know what makes us strong and how to do more of that.
Nonaka and Takeuchi speak to why wisdom is important at this time: “In an era when discontinuity is the only constant, the ability to lead wisely has nearly vanished. All the knowledge in the world did not prevent the collapse of the global financial system three years ago or stop institutions like Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual from failing.”
They go on to explore why knowledge doesn’t result in wise leadership.
As I reflect on the wise leaders that I’ve met, knowledge is only one dimension of their wisdom – it leaves out the body, the capacity to love, to feel, to include, to collaborate. It leaves out attention to what is emerging, ready to be born. And guiding what needs to die with grace.
How are you a wise leader? I’d love to know.
Wisdom in a Performance Review?
Just imagine – you walk in to your next performance review and they ask you, “How were you wise today?”
When I suggest that in a speech, everyone laughs. It’s laughable because too many reviews feel punitive or focus solely on how much you accomplish. Is that your experience?
Yet, don’t we want our employees, our team members, our leaders to be wise in their decisions and actions? Don’t we want them to bring their wisdom to the table? I sure do.
I hope that the men and women deciding how to deal with the wildfires in New Mexico approaching Los Alamos nuclear waste dump bring their intelligence, experience, and their wisdom to the table. I hope they take a breath, continue to step beyond self interest or fear, and listen deeply for what else they might consider.
How were you wise today? I’d love to know.
Karen
How were You Wise Today?
“How were you wise today?” is our favorite question at The Wisdom Connection.
I asked my mom that question yesterday and she said something touching, “I should ask myself that every day because then I wouldn’t let other people’s criticism or worries get me down.” So true. My heart broke when I thought of anyone criticizing her. Even at 82, my mom is a business owner, wife, mother, and friend who feels things deeply.
We’ve asked hundreds of women and men this question across the US and in Europe. Every person has an answer. They describe moments of speaking up for what mattered, easing someone’s pain, showing they care, stopping an argument or easing a conflict. They tell about smart decisions, looking ahead to see the consequences of an action, and focusing on what really matters.
I was wise today when I took a long walk on the Northern California bluffs (I’m staying at Sea Ranch – big thanks to M’Lu!). Before the walk I felt like a pretzel, concerned and frustrated about something small. Frozen, not moving into solving the problem I felt only like I wanted to avoid life. Facebook surfing ensued.
In the face of ferocious winds and surging waves I re-found my wisdom and settled back into the grace of so much more than a tiny momentary glitch. All of a sudden I found my self in the present moment and I could feel my future once again.
Tell me – I’d love to know – how were you wise today?
Karen
Hello Wise Leaders!
Welcome! It seems to me that a global shift is underway. Do you also sense that the world is changing and that you, your team or organization, have a role to play?
As an evolving human, do you long for an inner shift to being powerfully effective as you work and live from clear purpose and a deep sense of fulfillment, even joy? I do. The call of our times is to be a wise leader, at every age. So, how do we develop as wise leaders? What does it mean to be wise?
To me, wisdom is a quality of being where you access truth in a multi-dimensional, holistic, embodied manner where being and doing are congruent and in sync with nature’s ways. Since wisdom is an inside/out thing – take some time to define it for yourself as you draw from the many different perspectives on wisdom included here!
This blog includes research, previous explorations and is where I’ll share my own edges of knowing. You’ll find:
- Tips, strategies, good ideas and thought-provoking questions on the journey to becoming a wise leader
- Stories, links, great videos and articles on wise leaders in general and wise women leaders (there is so much to be celebrated!)
- An exploration of wisdom – what, why, how to develop – and why it is important to specifically talk about feminine wisdom. Fresh excerpts from my upcoming book on women’s leadership and wisdom!
- Personal reflections – how it is for me as I lead a wise and sometimes an unwise life
- Business coaching
- And more.
Welcome. Together we’ll respond to the inner call to be a wise leader, a leader who is up to the task of creating a healthy sustainable world that works for everyone. I don’t know about you but the yearning, the longing in my heart is huge. It matters to me that I leave a world of beauty, health, and prosperity for my children and their children’s children.
I look forward to hearing your voice in the dialogue. What is wisdom to you? How do you develop your wise leadership? I’d love to know.
You can visit my websites to learn more about me:
- Jump into the free monthly tele calls on the The Wisdom Connection website!
- Learn about my approach to organizational development and change on the Communicore website
- Early thinking and forums on the wisdom and power of women leaders The Wisdom Leadership Initiative website
Blessings on your path,
Karen
Karen Wilhelm Buckley 