Kelly shares profound reflections on a transformative journey to the Grand Canyon – an exploration that becomes symbolic of a larger journey to uncover the authentic core of leadership and personal growth. This essay illuminates the tension between short-term technological gains and the timeless, organic wisdom of human connection. As new viewpoints on coaching and wellness emerge, enticed by the lure of artificial intelligence and top-line efficiency, she urges us to remember the irreplaceable value of human empathy, intuition, and authenticity. Kelly prompts us to ask ourselves: in our race for advancement, are we losing touch with the genuine human heart of leadership development? This philosophical meditation on the nature of life, business, and inner growth is a must-read for anyone reflecting on their own path of leadership or personal development.

The pursuit of moving from 'good' to 'extraordinary' demands a venture into your inner resources and ways of operating in the world. At EQUUS, we see integrity not just in the typical construct of conforming to a moral or ethical code but consider it as wholeness, derived from the Latin adjective integer, embodying unity, authenticity, and alignment. We perceive integrity as the essence of energy within an individual or entity. When in alignment with your values, you experience an increase in life force vitality, resulting in elevated energy levels. This energy is the essence of survival and growth, propelling individuals, teams, and organizations from good to great. We teach integrity from the perspective of energy rather than morality, encouraging individuals to align with values that bring forth positive outcomes. The cultivation of integrity lies in making and keeping agreements. This translates to agreeing impeccably, leading to more trust, accountability, and heightened productivity. Despite the magnitude of the agreements, all broken ones disrupt the flow of life force. Ultimately, to be impeccable with agreements, one needs to make clear and explicit agreements, keep them, renegotiate if needed, and take responsibility for any broken agreements.

Delve into soul-centered strategies for the New Year with an easy-to-implement planning toolkit. Unveil a refreshing approach to New Year's resolutions, embracing the idea of transformation rather than pressure and obligation. Seamlessly integrate reflection, creation, support systems, and the power of communication into your life design. This is not just about planning for the New Year but a thoughtful method to herald any new life phase. Embrace this journey to make your next 12 months a roaring success.

The essay "The Promise" recounts an ancient tale passed down by the Northern Pueblos of New Mexico about the sacred relationship between humans and horses. The story begins when humans and horses lived in harmony, attributing the horses' origin to the sun and the stars, serving as messengers between heaven and earth. However, human actions disrupted this harmony, leading to devastating natural calamities and the temporary departure of all animals, including horses. Thousands of years later, the horses returned, marking the Time of the Great Outwaiting - a symbolic era where humanity was forced to choose between fear/separation or love/connection.

The water was everywhere. The dogs waded in ahead of me, my mother stood by with a single, irrelevant mop. It was pooling around the legs of my dining table, soaking my large Moroccan wool rug, permeating the wood cabinetry, and seeping up the walls of my living room. A pipe had burst and the water, liberated at last from its copper casing, was migrating to every corner.

The essay titled "What is Love? Two Simple Binaries That Help Us Love Better" explores the fundamental gap in our understanding of how love works. Kelly Wendorf shares how love is not just a warm felt sense of emotion, but it requires that we act in a way that feels like love to the other person. Two mindsets are discussed in the essay: knower/learner and victim/player. The knower mindset believes you know all you need to know to address a situation, whereas the learner mindset is willing to admit ignorance and be influenced. The victim mindset focuses on things you can't influence, whereas the player mindset takes responsibility for your contributions to a situation and asks, "what can I do?" In relationships, taking a player and learner mindset is crucial. The essay concludes by challenging readers to reflect on the impact of how they express their love and to tell others how they can better show up for them. Overall, the essay offers practical tips and mindsets to improve how we love and connect with others.

The essay titled "Decolonizing Our Bodies to Liberate Intelligence" by Kelly Wendorf explores the concept of decolonizing the way we perceive and relate to our bodies. Wendorf highlights how historically, our bodies have been viewed as separate from the mind and spirit, leading to the disconnection between our physical selves and the intelligence they possess. By reclaiming and reinhabiting our bodies, we can access a wealth of wisdom and intuition that can positively impact our relationships, leadership abilities, emotional well-being, and sense of belonging. The essay emphasizes the importance of recognizing and healing the individual and collective experiences of separation from our bodies caused by trauma, societal messages, and cultural influences. The essay suggests practices such as paying attention to our body's signals and practicing present-moment awareness as ways to reestablish a deeper connection between mind, body, and spirit. Emphasizing that embodiment is a continuous journey, the essay encourages individuals to explore their own path to remembering and reclaiming their bodies, thereby empowering themselves and inviting others to do the same.

When I lived in Australia, I owned a home situated on a lazy river that snaked through the palm groves and eventually poured out to the Pacific Ocean. Next door lived an elderly couple from the UK named Jim and Mary whom my children adopted as their grandparents. Our yards shared the same fence, the gate always open so we could walk back and forth to each other’s front porch. Most evenings we would sit on their veranda and share stories. Jim had served in the British Navy––an anchor aptly tattooed on his forearm––and the couple were avid travelers, so they had many tales of faraway exotic lands, as well as stories of their adventures of living on a barge and traveling the canal systems near London.

In our domesticated world where creature comforts abound such as air conditioning, instant messaging, fast food and same-day delivery, we forget this lesson. We become so accustomed to being comfortable, that we equate comfort with safety.

In 1992 American author and relationship counselor wrote the seminal book Men Are from Mars, Women are from Venus. It was one of the first books of its kind that claimed to highlight the fundamental psychological differences between the genders. Spending 121 weeks on the bestseller list, its central metaphor became a part of popular culture, spawning stand up comedy material, sitcom themes, apparel lines, fragrances, even his-and-hers salad dressings.

For many good reasons, we’ve come to associate excellence, virtue, and reliability with sticking it out at any cost.

In the Godfather: Part II the iconic villain Michael Corleone, don of an Italian Mafia family says, “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”

A good apology builds trust and resilience, and helps the hurt or disappointed party feel validated and seen. It liberates them from obsessing about their hurt for days and nights. It prevents the formation of unspoken but corrosive rifts. It creates an interpersonal culture of accountability and maturity.

Many misguided concepts and ideas persist around what it means to have an emotionally intelligent team, or what it means to apply EQ practices within an organization, relegating EQ to the beguiling yet impractical “touchy-feely” domain. In part, these concepts endure because not much has been done to correct this thinking, but also because so many consulting firms that teach EQ to companies don’t understand the underlying basis of EQ, nor practice it internally. In other words, they don’t walk their talk. Providers and companies often succumb to the ‘check that box’ mentality, lightly brushing on superficial ideologies that do little to change the culture of an organization.

I’ve been withholding the truth from you. I thought that things would change and that I wouldn’t need to mention it to you, but it’s been months now and nothing has shifted.

What happens when you think of the word power? Does it grate against your inner sensibilities? Does it conjure images of domination or force? Or does it inspire you, and ignite a sense of possibility? Power is a word that at its best evokes ambivalence. On one hand, the power of the ocean awakens and stimulates. On the other hand, the power of a fascist regime induces terror.

As a coach I learned that if I wanted to ensure long-term, measurable, and meaningful change for my clients, I had to provide experiential processes and opportunities for them. These processes allow for the body to kinesthetically process the cognitive understandings that are arising and translate them into neurological shifts. That is when behaviors change and where new possibilities emerge. 

But they aren’t. 

What is right relationship? Right relationship means that the relationship we are in (with a living being, a place, a project, or an event) is organized around us in a way that contributes to wholeness and is guided by integrity and our values. When we are in right relationship to another, the energy around that relationship feels clean.

Are you constantly challenged by an inability to be as assertive and direct as you would like to be? Do people say you are strong and opinionated but deep down inside you know there is so much more authenticity that the world is not seeing?

The toppling of a democracy is systematically engineered in the background for decades, subtly without much ado. Then, without warning, suddenly people are fleeing to their homes to switch on the televisions. Like the proverbial frog who boils to death in slowly warming water, no one sees it coming.