Articles

A library of reflections on leadership, consciousness, and the work of awakening to a more aligned way of being. 

These essays are for leaders navigating the frontier between inner stillness and outer impact.

Categories
Coaching Philosophy

Love as a Force of Nature in Coaching

The following article was originally published as a guest post for my colleague Clare Norman's blog. Clare, too, is an ICF Master Certified Coach and I'm honored that she invited me to write this piece for her series on love in coaching. While it is originally intended for coaches, I find that what it points to is equally applicable to anyone in a leadership role. I hope you read it with a felt-sense rather than intellectually.

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Leadership Philosophy

Awakening as Leadership Maturity

Early career leaders often fall into habits that feel inauthentic to them, because they want to come across a certain way to their stakeholders - as credible, or as in control, or as trustworthy etc.In developmental psychology, this is known as the socialized mind, where we are defined by the expectations of others, and we shape-shift to meet them.As they mature, the desire to be performative is overcome by the desire to be themselves. People reach

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Leadership

Awakened Executive Presence

The industry standard for executive presence is Gravitas, Communication, and Appearance. To lower our vocal register, stand with an open posture, dress for the role, and speak with decisiveness. Here, presence is simply a substitute word for whatever signals credibility. These can be useful instructions. They approach leadership as a performance, and presence as a series of levers to pull to manipulate how others perceive us. And while this approach can get you promoted, it comes with

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Leadership Philosophy

The Business Case for Awakened Leadership

There are two kinds of people who are usually drawn to my work. In the beginning, they are often trapped in a false duality. They believe they have to choose between the "Material World" of outer impact - strategy, profit, ambition, concrete achievement; and the "Spiritual World" of inner stillness - peace, presence and alignment. When we start working together, it becomes apparent to them that there are no two separate worlds, but one continuous

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Leadership

Burnout: Fatigue vs. Friction

There is a biological reality to burnout. If you work 18 hours a day, skip sleep, and ignore your body’s limits, you will crash. No amount of ‘mindset work’ can override your natural physiology. But I sometimes see leaders who are not working 18-hour days, who are getting 7 hours of sleep, and yet are on the edge of burnout. Conversely, I see leaders navigating high-stakes crises, working intense hours for weeks, who emerge tired but strangely invigorated. This

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Leadership

Choiceless Clarity and the Illusion of “Hard Decisions”

Have you ever faced a hard decision to make? I’ve made a lot of them in my life and work. Many conversations in my coaching practice revolve around various kinds of decisions, because the leaders I work with are professional decision makers. When we inquire into what makes a decision hard, a pattern shows up, which is quite different from what they initially think. Some leaders idolize staying up all night, agonizing over Option A

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Leadership Philosophy

Attention and Reality as a Curated Feed

Almost all of us are convinced that we are navigating a solid, objective world of circumstances and events. We look at the market, our teams, or global trends, and we believe we are seeing them exactly as they are. We operate under the assumption that our mind is a high-fidelity camera lens, simply capturing footage of reality, perhaps applying a wide-angle or macro filter here and there, but ultimately recording the "truth" happening outside of

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Coaching Leadership

The Myth of Horizontal vs Vertical Development

In the refined circles of leadership development, many often rely on a geometry that separates our growth into a chart with two axes:The Horizontal Axis: The acquisition of skills, the expansion of knowledge, the toolkit. "Filling the cup."The Vertical Axis: The expansion of the mind itself, the evolution of consciousness, the maturity of perspective. "Growing the size of the cup."We speak about these as separate endeavors, as if you can sharpen your strategy on Tuesday and expand

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Coaching

The Mechanics of Transformation

There is a common myth that when we solve our problems, we will grow. But the truth is the inverse. The standard narrative about progress is that we identify a situational challenge, maybe a conflict, a stalled strategy, a financial plateau, and we try to fix it. The problem bothers us, and by resolving this problem, we also hope to emerge stronger and wiser on the other side. We see this kind of growth happening

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