Move slow and nurture things.
Remain present to and curious about your impact.
Be clear on your intentions, and be intent to serve.
Listen.
Listen again.
Listen deeper.
Follow the energy - move with the cycles; the feeling; the inspiration.
Be prepared to switch course.
Speak up if it doesn’t feel right.
Respect your instincts and intuitions.
Discover and share your truth.
Discover and share your gifts.
Give yourself generously.
Stop to notice beauty.
Feel your embodied presence.
Find pleasure in your embodied presence.
Follow the pleasure of your embodied presence.
Make music with your movements
Make poetry with your actions.
Make Art with your life.
Celebrate your life.
Celebrate all life.
Give thanks for that which you love
Tend to that which you love.
Be in service to that which you love.
Be in service to that which you love.
Be in service to that which you love.
I have been contemplating what leadership means to me. It’s such a loaded word these days. And when I look at most of the people in positions of leadership on the world stage - leaders of countries and corporations - I am not inspired. If anything, I am disillusioned. Disillusioned with the dishonesty, the hypocrisy and, well, the mediocrity... Where’s the passion, the ardour, the integrity, the grit, the joy & the reverence for life? Where’s the fucking heart & soul?
It seems to me that the way we are being ‘led’ is missing a vital dimension - attendance to and appreciation for core the human values of truth, beauty, freedom & love. For, if we are not being led towards that which is most sacred, most meaningful, most deep & abiding in life, then we are being led astray.
Any leadership that perpetuates paradigms of division, domination and control, is leading us astray…
When the sanctity of life is being violated, true leadership involves saying a firm and resounding NO to that which seeks to extract, exploit, violate, dominate or manipulate life. (Both in the world and inside ourselves.) And saying an emphatic and resounding YES to possibility, creativity, imagination, joy, beauty and the sacred. (Both in the world and inside ourselves.)
That doesn’t mean that life will always be full of those things, but choosing to live close to them means that in times of great challenge we are able to say YES to life. YES to the possibility of change, adaptation, growth and transformation; YES to the possibility of emergence, learning, and all the things we have yet to feel, see and experience. Because we have something worth living for and living in service to.
And this is really the point. Soulful leaders live in service to something beyond their own self interest.
They are clear on their values and they strive to cultivate them in themselves and the world.
They are firmly anchored in their beliefs.
They are aware of their gifts and their limitations.
They are humble and able to ask for help
They are in tune with their heads, hearts, guts and wombs
They take responsibility for the impact they have in the world.
Their hearts are wide open.
They let the world touch them.
So courageous are they in their compassion that they will always speak up against abuses of power that threaten to dominate and violate the sanctity of life.
In this sense, they are guardians of the true and the beautiful. And they are warriors fighting for joy and freedom. But above all, above all, they are lovers.