Zen Leadership

We sat with the ‘I don’t know’ for several minutes, asking how the question left us feeling, a truthful or creative answer, the difference between an alignment or misalignment of head and hara. 

As an adult I don’t get that automatic sense of new beginnings in a work context every year. January 1st for me is about personal change but I don’t have a career equivalent and there’s no reason why not. In fact, I think it’s crucial and why would we limit this refresh to once per year?

In the rebranding exercise, the title of ‘The Slow Coach’ seems to fit the times, as my coaching practice appears to be taken up with clients all trying to go too fast.

Have you heard it, too?  People are looking forward to getting back to normal. I smell a problem. You cannot “look forward” and “go back.”

Steve Jobs, Mu, Ma and Zen: Andy Robins explores something quite removed from the news of the day.

I write on the cusp of the biggest presidential election of my lifetime – and I’ve lived a long time. 

Wait, does the word “radicalized” scare you? It scared me the first time I used it. But it freed me, too. It freed me to be more ambitious about what I want from police, the legal system, and myself. 

Without so much of the ‘usual’ noise to distract us, many blindspots have been obliterated. What can we now see clearly? What truths about ourselves and our world have we met eyeball to eyeball? And what do we do now?

It’s one of the most asked questions of these Covid-upset, wildly divisive and turbulent times: How are you? Often we give and receive fairly superficial answers to this question. Recently, I’ve noticed a lot more people struggling with how they are or feeling conflicted in how they answer.