Blog
Forever Changed
There are turning points, endings and new beginnings, loss and letting go. Sometimes it creeps up slowly, other times it's sudden and dramatic as happens with accident, death, a cancer diagnosis. Sixteen years ago, my life was forever changed. I had the life I...
Pushing the Growth Edge
Have you reached a point in your life where you are no longer challenged or stimulated by what you do? It has become mundane, routine, too easy. You know you have more to offer, but you aren’t sure what that is, if you can transform where you are, or if you need a...
Celebrating Independence Day: American Wilderness Alaska
There is much to celebrate in America. We Americans love our independent ways of being and thinking. When we are caught up in the busyness of everyday life, it's hard to notice the intrusions on independent thinking and acting from inner promptings. There are...
Altruism and Entrepreneurship
When you are a conscious leader, chances are you are thinking about how you can impact the world in a positive way with your idea, product or service. You also want and need to be profitable in order to remain viable and reach more people, but this is not what...
Getting to YES
The San Diego Angel Conference finale was last week. Out of over 100 applicants, two companies got funding. Congratulations to the winner, EcoDrive and 2nd place, Achieve Clinics! That is a huge accomplishment to be proud of. This will open so many doors for you....
Integrity
Integrity is a foundational piece of conscious leadership. When you have integrity, your actions are backed by an intention to do the right thing. Integrity means you are responsible and stand by what you do. When something has integrity, it has good bones; its...
Analyzing, Envisioning and Planning Using the Enneagram
The success of any venture depends on a good understanding of your customers, the gap you fill in the market, the current environment, having context from knowing past history and knowing everything about how your product works and stands out from the crowd. In the...
Optimizing Decision Making Using the Enneagram
As a leader, there are a myriad of decisions one has to make every day. Both personally and professionally, there are priorities to set, choices to make, dilemmas to resolve. The ease by which you make these decisions has a huge impact on your day. More important...
Build Great Relationships Using the Enneagram
Professionally and personally, building relationships is key to success and fulfillment. Genuinely caring about people, having empathy and bringing out the best in others is a marker of a conscious leader. Organizations who are led by these kinds of leaders make it to...
Make a Positive Impact Using the Enneagram
There’s two kinds of impact: intentional and unintentional. Rest assured, you are making an impact whether you know it or not. If you want to shape it, you have to be present. There are more and more distractions to divert your attention and it takes discipline to say...
Leadership and the Enneagram
Now is the time to become a more conscious leader. What do I mean by that? To be conscious is to be awake and present in each moment with self awareness of the impact your thoughts, feelings and actions are having on the situation and those around you. To be conscious...
Cultivating Joy
This is the season of joy and frivolity, yet for many, it is just the opposite. I always hold on to a teaching by my meditation teacher: It takes great effort to hold onto joy. It's easy to think that joy, happiness and contentment just happen, or that holidays,...
Leverage Your Leadership Style: Enneagram Type 8
No matter which of the nine Enneagram Types you are, you can be a better person and leader by becoming more self aware of the habitual ways you think, feel and act that cover up your real strength and beauty. As you release what is not working, and not yours anyway,...
An Enneagram Thanksgiving
There is much to be thankful for in my life, all due to the special people past and present that have made a difference. The Enneagram has helped my relationships immensely, by showing me how our differences are what makes life interesting, challenging and fulfilling....
Attachment and Letting Go: The Attachment Harmony Triad of the Enneagram Types 3, 6, 9
When something is working or feeling pleasurable, we want more. It’s easy to get attached—and dependent on having it, whether it be a person, a behavior or an object. I get attached to homes, especially beautiful ones. After leaving the first home I owned when my...
Connection and Rejection: The Relationist Harmony Triad of the Enneagram Types Two, Five, Eight
At different points in my life, I’ve had intimate relationships with people who were either possessive or distant, but afraid of being rejected. I’ve been hurt more than once when they picked fights to maintain distance and I ended the relationship because I felt...
Idealism and Acceptance: The Harmony Triad of Enneagram Types 1, 4, 7
Having an ideal vision for how the world should be is lofty and noble, and can give you hope for a better future. However, there is a downside and that is disappointment when people and events don’t meet your ideal. As an Enneagram type 7, anticipating events, I was...
Freedom From Default and the Power of Choice: Harmony Triads of the Enneagram
We all have experienced how exhausting it is to be, or be around someone who is always “on”. I know from years of experience, when I’m “on” too long, or in an intense, stimulating environment, consecutive days, if I don’t pull back and allow myself to rejuvenate,...
Commitment
I’m over the moon to announce my marriage on June 30th! After meeting 8 years ago, him by my side through two mastectomies, numerous walks on the beach from here to Oahu, Kauai and the South Carolina coast, and huddled together during the covid lockdown, we decided...
What’s Your Coping Strategy?
Many of my most important relationships have been with people who are emotionally expressive, beginning with my sister and only sibling. For years, I thought I was part of this group of expressive types, and now see that interacting with her often triggered a heated...
Using Assertive Energy to Move Life Forward
One of my part time jobs in college was modeling for a fashion boutique in a popular restaurant for the business lunch crowd. I was the first one there most of the time and I’d excitedly pick the newest outfits to wear, displaying and selling to the diners. One day,...
Pulling Back to Flow Forward
Remember the financial meltdown of 2008? I was having my own personal meltdown at the same time: closing a business, ending a career, a marriage and moving cities. Everything in my life turned upside down and all my identifying markers were lost. Instead of jumping...
Reconciling Energy: Cultivating Balance
Being a commercial real estate broker most of my adult life, I learned how important reconciling energy is in the art of negotiation. I was most always in the middle of two opposing parties who wanted the same outcome, but under vastly different terms. It was my job...
Can You Overdo Empathy?
Having the experience of witnessing someone in the process of dying is an awe-inspiring, grace-filled experience, as well as gritty and painful to watch. It is difficult to stay with it and takes a level of non-attachment as well as deep caring. It’s been my privilege...
The Logical Solution
My dad and I related the best with logic — staying in the mind and not venturing into the realm of feelings except on rare occasions. The only time I ever saw him cry was when I tried to run away at thirteen years old and was caught at the bus station.The rest of the...
Clarity of Mind
Is your mind friend or foe? It’s an age-old question and the answer I’ve come up with is both. The mind opens doors to endless possibilities, different perspectives and ways of looking at things. It provides insight and understanding in an uncertain world. The mind’s...
Bring Your Heart to Work
To reconnect with an authentic core is a journey of self-exploration and healing that is valuable for anyone, no matter which center of intelligence is dominant, head, heart or body. We all get identified to some degree with an outside role, believing that is who we...
Who Do You Want to Be in 2023?
Did you know you get to choose? Who you are is not fixed. In fact, we have many selves. It is said that you are the actor. You play different parts for all the various roles you play: parent, child, sports enthusiast, teacher, student, employee, boss, creative. It...
Are You Ready for the New Year?
2023 offers a clean slate, a new beginning—if you are willing to be in the present. Have you taken time to review and reflect on 2022? Can you learn from past failures and disappointments and celebrate achievements and completed goals? Can you forgive yourself for...
Relax Into the Season
During the holidays I feel pulled in different directions. I want to celebrate with friends and family, enjoy good food, wine and sweets. Tis the season of cheer and holiday traditions. It is also the season of darkness, clear black skies, starlight and decorations...
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