Countdown: Ignite Your Inner Light and Power
Day 49: Today’s goal is to establish new healthy habits. It’s time for YOU to become the center of your attention. Ready to start? Then stop for a moment and turn your attention inward. Shine a light on that part of yourself that may have been ignored or take for granted, perhaps for years, by you: Your INNER you. Take a moment to put aside all distractions and focus on yourself. This personal focus “turns on” your inner light. It offers you a moment to discover where your personal power and potential really comes from. It comes from the daily actions you are willing to take to maintain or strengthen your health. If you’ve ever traveled by air, you know that every air traveler is reminded to: “Put your own face mask first before helping others.” This basic safety rule can also be applied to today’s challenge: Stay healthy! As a starting point, discover the power of sending tiny messages of encouragement to yourself. It’s like an “inner email” from you to yourself. Your spoken or whispered messages of thanks, gratitude and love can be as simple as: “Hello my heart. I love you.” “Good morning my miracle brain.” “Good GUT, how are you feeling today?” What you are displaying here is your natural leadership qualities of nurturing and compassion If you’re interested, here is how I have turned a focus on health and healthy habits into a 1-minute list of daily affirmations. They are now part of a mini-exercise routine – inspired by my partner Dr. Joel – that begins with: I’m constantly growing every day, I’m constantly learning every...Countdown: A 50-Day Personal Leadership Challenge
DAY 50: Today’s challenge is to stay mindful, stay sane, and stay healthy. What steps will you take to achieve this goal? Start by setting a goal to think GOOD thoughts. Did you know that up to 70% of the thoughts that most people think are negative. And, of all the thoughts we think each day, research suggests that up to 95% are the same thoughts we thought yesterday. How is this possible? It may be built-in to your job description. For example, when I recently mentioned this 95% figure to a bright young sales clerk at an office equipment store he looked at me in disbelief. Then I explained that the sales pitch he had just given me was probably the same one that he had delivered to a 100 people before me. Knowing this was true, he smiled at me and nodded his head in agreement. To boost the number of good thoughts you think each day, try this simple exercise: say to yourself “Be Mindful” each time you take an action. The more mindful you are, the more present you become. While staying fully present in every moment may not be possible, it’s a worthy goal. It means that you are taking full responsibility for what happens in your life. Learning how to lead from the INSIDE out is a leadership practice. You recognize that every thought, words or action is the result of a choice you have made. Chose well. Others may be watching, and following your lead. Alexia Parks is president of 10TRAITS Leadership Institute: Offering 1-Minute conflict resolution tools, research, and trait-based training...
Houston: After Catastrophe Comes Collaboration
In 2013, Boulder, Denver and communities north and east were hit by a storm that broke all records for rainfall. City planners had a 100-year flood plan. They had prepared for a “worst case scenario” that would strike every 100 years. The 2013 catastrophe was called the 1000-year flood. And in the days, weeks, and months that followed everyone who lived along Colorado’s front range or who planned to visit for business or pleasure was impacted. It took months and in some cases over a year for roads to be repaired. The town of Lyons, one of the hardest hit communities, received close to $100 million dollars in Federal funding to rebuild. While waiting for funds, cleanup crews and reconstruction to begin, the community organized potlucks, neighborhood work teams, and music festivals to rethink the future of their small town. The Lyons community knew what it had been, but the larger question facing these forward-facing citizens was this: What COULD it become? Everyone became engaged in rethinking “Our Town” and in thousands of different ways, everyone took on some type of leadership role. Even speaking up about what they had suffered, took personal courage, and in a town where everyone had been impacted in some way, the ability for those who suffered to ask for what they needed, helped guide community vision. Could Houston, still reeling from an unfolding catastrophe, tap the creative vision of civic leaders and residents living in distinct neighborhoods and districts within its meta-city to reimagine its future? Could the restoration of this sunbelt city include rebuilding as green, resilient, solar powered communities? Could Houston’s catastrophe become an opportunity to showcase how communities can...
Learn To Lead from the Inside Out
A person’s character is defined by their habits (or lack of habits). When you structure your day with a habit that includes goal setting, and then set up time to focus on a chosen goal without distraction, you unlock the potential to express yourself fully in the direction you have chosen. When these chosen, daily habits are linked together, you then discover that you can live the life you’ve always DREAMED of, every day! To change your life, chose to change your daily habits so that they keep you focused on the life you want to live. It’s that simple! So here are some insights that you may find helpful on your journey inward. 1. Conscious breathwork is good. Slowing down the breathing brings many body/mind benefits, including increased mindfulness, good digestion, and stress reduction. 2. Lucid dreaming is good. Using this dream-induced deeply relaxed state as a “discovery” space lets ideas and possibilities arise into your neocortex without judgement. It by-passes the “critic” which wants to judge everything as right or wrong, good or bad. What emerges, arises without judgement in that moment. 3. Yoga nidras rest on lucid dreaming and dream analysis. You are invited to “live your dreams.” By contrast, 10TRAITS Leadership development is based on the development of habits that can be informed by a lucid, dream-like state, but not living our dreams. Here’s why: Dreams are actually a kaleidoscope of images, emotions, and experiences that have accumulated over a lifetime. They emerge randomly, sometimes comic like, sometimes fearful, and also emerge more often if we have gone to bed thinking about them (a person, place, experience, etc.). When we focus on analyzing these random connections, we...
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