A few years ago, on a fine spring day, I took a walk at the beach. It wasn’t just any walk, it was a walk with intention, a walk with a purpose.
That day while walking, I was asking for guidance from my Higher Self and the better angels of my nature.* It’s the first step I take with any project I take on.
When I’m hired to come and do a workshop or a speech, or help people hold their vision, or move past their obstacles, or if I’m hired to be a presence or advocate for the customer in a company, I start the project off with a walk at the beach. It clears my mind of the daily “chatter” and what I call the yada-yada-yada of repetitive thinking.**
It’s my intention, while walking like this, to tap deeply into my intuition.
It’s my prayer that I can have the ability during this time to remove myself (and my ego) so I might be able to deeply understand what my client, or my project needs. My goal is to get out of my own way. It’s a great thing for a Positive Leader to do, and in my experience it’s a s-t-r-e-t-c-h to accomplish! It was during one of these “wisdom walks” that I was seeking the next evolution of the message that I wanted to take out into the world. As I walked north in the late afternoon light, I heard these words in my head,”Get real, be real and stay real”.
Wow. Succinct. Powerful and clear. Now, the question: what did it mean?
My wisdom walks on the beach often open up the proverbial can of worms for me and give me much to think about. So that’s what I did – I thought on it. Two things happened: I got a strong clear message for the home page of my website and I got much food for thought on what that “Get Real” message meant for me personally. This thought and these questions arose:
Real positive leadership begins with the courage to go within and find your truth.
- Are you walking the path of mastery yourself as you encourage others to do the same?
- Are you taking “time-In” to reflect on how you are feeling and how you are showing up in the world?
- Have you created the image in your own mind of the positive leader you aspire to be?
- Do you have an idea of what attitudes, beliefs, values, behaviors and habits you need to acquire or get rid of to support the image of who it is you want to become?
- Do you frequently check your own alignment with your own values compass? Are you walking your own talk?
- Do you need to have a “Get Real!” chat with yourself and make some adjustments? (Oooh I got a big yes to that one..)
I told you what happens on wisdom walks – sometimes the can of worms opens and consciousness just pops out of the can going in different directions all at once – what an image! And what a gift!
My insight for you this week is this:
Leadership begins inside. Breathe deeply, walk slowly, notice what you notice and get out of your own way. If you want to know more about what positive leadership is and isn’t, read the story here, and if you want to know more about how Positive Leadership can activate the best in your team, read more here.
“This is not a program, this is a way of life. And the best part is you make it so simple to understand and easy to implement.” Graham Edwards, Former CEO, Midwest ISO
** Communication specialists say we think 60,000 thoughts a day. 90% of those thoughts are the SAME as the thoughts we had yesterday and 80% of those are negative.
