And we need to walk out into the night, and hear the stars speak our true name. And the elk bugle to our soul through the crisp fall air. ‘You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves,’ writes poet Mary Oliver, ‘…the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—over and over announcing your place in the family of things.’

May we together be willing to fall into, and completely feel, that which we are all facing right now. May we be courageous enough to feel with those who have had to set their dreams free into the winds of the unknown, perhaps never to see them again

Humiliation, threats, embarrassment, shaming and bullying…these ‘educational’ tactics laced the locker-lined halls, silently embedded into the brightly colored construction paper façade of a public elementary school.

It’s a deceptively simple, yet powerful way to lead and love. The sufficient act of simply being with another, and being with another’s experience, benefits not only them, but you.

What is your calling? What are you being trained to do, not through your expertise, but your lessons? To whom are you a trusted guide and companion?So. You out there slumped up against that same ol’ wall, bemoaning your bad luck, and how this is proof that you really are a fraud. Get yourself up and dust off those sweatpants.

What is your calling? What are you being trained to do, not through your expertise, but your lessons? To whom are you a trusted guide and companion?

Instead of all the ways I can be ‘better’, I’m going to take an altogether different approach. I’m going to risk the unthinkable: I’m going to be ok with disappointing someone.

We can toss out the concept of ‘spiritual’ and all the ways we beat ourselves up with it, along with all the used wrapping paper and limp new year’s resolutions.

So, do you want to do something brilliant in the world? Do you want to be awesome, have bright, clear, loving relationships, and leave this world a better place? Start with something really tiny. What is one really small practical thing you can do today to make that happen?

Being relationally literate allows you to reduce the stress of unspoken and unresolved issues, and have more energy for creativity and innovation. And it’s a lot more fun than being a drama royal.

If we are going to change as a society, we need to reframe the idea of crisis for ourselves and each other.

Perhaps the most unfortunate consequence of modern life is the loss of the instinctual wisdom-self.

So, for this holiday season, I want to place a little something under your tree, wedge a small trinket in your stocking. For this holiday season I wish for you the permission to be indifferent.

The loudest, most cunning and most forceful among us are not the most powerful. And a sea-change is happening inside companies and organizations that is quietly yet surely reflecting this fact.

Unfortunately, human dominants tend to procure leadership positions (due to our tolerance for incongruence), hence our confusion around leadership. This leads to organizational misbehavior, irresponsibility and poor public policy.

Cultivating the four qualities of congruence, presence, clarity and justness as a leader allows you to support and lift up new potentials in your organization so that it can transform into a force for positive change, both in the lives of everyone within it, and in its influence externally.

Learning a non-predatory approach to leadership by implementing the four phases of a request teaches us the art of power-with, verses power-over. And this makes us worthy leaders.