Leadership goes both ways.

"If people are too intimidated or too reluctant to help their leaders lead, their leaders will fail."

-- Michael Useem, author of "Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win"

I have had this very conversation with several of you out there over the last few weeks. It is so important that people at all levels of any organization understand that leadership is not exclusively a "management responsibility." It is a personal opportunity for all of us and a responsibility for those who choose to lead, wherever we might fit in the org chart. When struggle is present and difficulties mount, it is a convenient excuse for us to blame our superiors and act like victims. What a comfortable prison that is. The truth is that we are all capable of "leading up," holding our leaders responsible to their highest principles and their best selves. They actually need us to play that role for them to be their best. Let's not let them or ourselves down.

The phenomenon that is Life Planning

One of the services I provide as a Life Coach is to help people create a Life Plan for themselves. It is a specific process that has unfolded naturally over years of doing this work. It's something I really love doing, and it seems to be of value to people who are undergoing some major transition in their lives. This week I will be working on Life Plans with 5 different individual coaching clients, my most intensive week of such activity since I formally started doing this over 2 years ago. I've now worked with over 100 clients on their Life Plans over that period, and people have started to ask me what I've been learning from this process, so I wanted to take this opportunity, with this community, to share my observations about the phenomenon that this has become:

It is not primarily about the Life Plan itself, either as a document or a plan; it is mostly about "structuring an ongoing conversation" that enables me to play a sacred role in another's life in a way that benefits both of us.
It requires that I be fully grounded in my love for myself so that I can be selfless in my love of and service to another person.
It requires complete surrender to "this moment" and "this person."
It requires powerful proactive listening for things not being spoken and/or buried in complaint or hope.
It requires "guided" speaking, allowing myself to be utilized for a purpose bigger than I can possibly know.
It requires helping a person (through co-creating) develop an approach for them to have a life they love, and then supporting them in owning it without drama or pressure.
It requires being a relentless stand for another person, no matter what.

What a blessing this experience has been and what a profound vehicle to allow me to do what I love - "helping people come alive, and thrive, in their personal and business relationships."

The Light of Integrity

The Light of Integrity

A soul is dyed the color of its thoughts.
Think only those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the full light of the day.
The content of your character is your choice.
Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become.
Your integrity is your destiny…it is the light that guides your way.


-- Heraclitus, Greek poet and philosopher

I'll be spending most of the day today with the person who shared this with me, so this is in honor of you, A.P., with a commitment to use it as the standard by which we'll measure our time together and what comes out of it.

A tribute to a circle of W.I.L.D. women

"A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture, and transform. A woman knows that nothing can come to fruition without light. Let us call upon woman's voice and woman's heart to guide us in this age of planetary transformation."

~Diane Mariechild

I had a rare opportunity yesterday to call forth, facilitate, and richly experience the immense power of women, and it was such an extreme honor to serve them and take in their beauty, passion, and wisdom. I particularly want to acknowledge and honor T.B., T.C., D.L., L.M., T.P., and P.V. for being the creative, inspired, and loving group of women known as W.I.L.D. who made it all happen. This is their charter:

About the Organization:
W.I.L.D. (Women In Life’s Discussions)
We are a courageous and dynamic community of committed women who care about the journey from girlhood to womanhood. We’ve found each other through the interconnections of our personal journeys.

What We Do
We create a loving environment for the healing and celebration of the girls within us. We establish an organization to allow us to share this environment, and then we oversee its growth. We anchor commitment, integrity, and vision through modeling all that we stand for. We empower and stimulate new conversations and expressions of positive creation. We guide creative experiments, inquiries, and inventions designed to challenge and unleash the potential of girls everywhere. We collaborate with support systems - parents, schools, etc. - to accelerate and energize personal fulfillment.

For Whom
We serve girls and women all over the world, and their immediate support systems, focusing on new stages of self-awareness.

Why We Do It
We do this work to affirm and celebrate powerful womanhood, to contribute to others through creating unlimited possibilities for growth and self-expression, to learn from each other, to raise awareness of unique issues, to stay in our own work, and to transform global families and communities.



It sure sounds to me like preparing women of today and tomorrow for roles meant "to guide us in this age of planetary transformation."

A tribute to M.U. on her 18th birthday

There's a young woman I coach who is a poet. She has a natural gift for self-expression. She also wants to be a life coach some day. I am honored to support her and pay tribute to both of these aspects of her being. In staying present to this intention, I happened across the perfect birthday card, with the perfect words for her, and I offer them to all of you in this public acknowledgement of her beautiful, indomitable spirit. She will be joining me today in a meeting in Galveston, at which I will be presenting Life Coaching & Life Planning to a group of women who call themselves W.I.L.D. - Women In Life's Discussions - as a part of her preparation for her life's work. What a great way to spend your birthday. So, Happy Birthday, M.! Here's to the poem that you and your life are.

"This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem ..."

-- Walt Whitman