Living is my word for the new year. Living is one of those words that is typically followed or preceded by other words or phrases. Although inspired by the subtitle of our upcoming book, Midlife, New Life: Living Consciously in Midlife and Beyond, many positive words and phrases can precede or follow the word living: Living Well, Living Life Creatively, and Living with Technology, are all chapters in the book; other phases that may come to mind include living space, living wage, living things, living peacefully,  living the dream, or senior living, sustainable living, purposeful living, v ..read more

Sacred Changemakers was the topic of my recent Conscious Leadership in Action video podcast conversation with Jayne Warrilow. Jayne is the founder of the Sacred Changemakers University and the Changemakers Society, and also founder and CEO of the Coaches Business School. I am one of the founding members of the Changemakers Society. During our conversation, Jayne talked about the sacred invitation she received from her spirit guides, the formation of the Sacred Changemakers University and the Changemakers Society, and the giving projects aligned around the United Nations Sustainable Development ..read more

In my recent Conscious Leadership in Action conversation with guest Eric Kaufmann we talked about his new book, Leadership Breakdown: How to break the vicious cycle, release the struggle, and succeed with conscious leadership. Eric has made awakening and expanding the consciousness of leaders his mission in life. Eric says that what makes a conscious leader is not just waking up, opening your eyes and saying I am, but seeing the interconnectedness of all things, and holding all those variables in your heart and mind as you make choices. That means extending beyond my ego, my sense of separate ..read more

In my recent Conscious Leadership in Action podcast conversation with transformational coach and spiritual mentor, Gema Ramirez, we explored how leaders can cultivate conscious leadership. Inspired by a recent Conscious Leadership in Action podcast, Gema has renamed her ebook with the new title, Cultivating Conscious Leadership. Hence the title of this blog post and video podcast. Conscious leadership is an inner journey. Gema’s vision is to change the world to see everyone becoming a conscious leader, inspiring others, and coming together with our own unique versions of conscious leadership ..read more

Harmony is my word for the new year. The inspiration for selecting harmony as my word of the year has been the study of nonviolence with Michael Nagler, narrator of the film and author of the book The Third Harmony: Nonviolence and the New Story of Human Nature. I had considered nonviolence as my word of the year. Much has been written and spoken about the nonviolence inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, often focused on non-violent resistance, rejecting the use of physical violence in order to achieve social or political change. Nonviolence is much more than the absence of violence, it is more of a wa ..read more

Finding Your Voice was one of many themes we explored in our conversation circles this year. In these conversation circles, we discussed our physical voice, the outer voice we use for speaking, singing, and perhaps chanting; our inner voice, the internal monologue in our head that provides the words and images that reflect our thoughts and imaginings; and our figurative voice, our authentic voice, what we believe and what we truly stand for, the voice that is manifesting in our speaking and writing. Thinking about the singing voice brings to mind my mother. As a teenager, long before I was bor ..read more

Our conscious mind is small in comparison to our vast unconscious mind. This unconscious mind is part of what Thich Nhat Hanh referred to as store consciousness. Describing consciousness as like a house, Thich Nhat Hanh suggested that store consciousness is the basement and mind consciousness is our living room. Mind consciousness is our active awareness, our conscious mind. Store consciousness, sometimes called root consciousness, is in the lower levels of our consciousness. This is where all our past experiences are stored along with the seeds of our reactions to the triggers we experience e ..read more

Hope is my word for the new year. I am sometimes weighed down by pessimistic perspectives on life’s challenges. This year I want to turn this pessimism around, going beyond simple optimism, to real hope for the possibilities of the future. This hope is defined as the belief that our future will be better than today and we have the power to make it so. Ecophilosopher Joanna Macy uses the phrase active hope. In research studies of hope by Charles Snyder (author of the compelling book, The Psychology of Hope: You Can Get There from Here, 1994) and more recently more recently by Casey Gwinn and Ch ..read more

Since my inventure in Tanzania in 2009, which was a walking safari adventure across the Serengeti combined with an inner journey of discovery, I have paid increasing attention to living purposefully. You may have read the story of my purpose discovery process in my book, The Inner Journey to Conscious Leadership. Emerging from my experiences as a hot-air balloon pilot, I described my purpose as “taking people higher in spirit, in business, and in life.” That higher purpose has served me well and I have helped many people discover their own higher purpose as part of my leadership and life coach ..read more

Surrender is my word for the year 2021. Rather than new year’s resolutions which frequently get diluted within the first few days of January, I advocate setting clear intentions. Not so much specific goals or outcomes, but intentions for how we wish to show up in the world. So, my intention this year is to surrender to life as it unfolds. During the past year, I read The Surrender Experiment written by Michael Singer, the creator of a thriving meditation center and founder of a highly successful medical practice management software company. Singer’s philosophy of “surrendering yourse ..read more