Wrapping up 2023

I noticed something so obvious when playing Monopoly (Upper Merionopoly, more specifically) this month that I’m embarrassed I never thought about it before. My daughter had hotels on the two premier properties. She could have bankrupted all of us several times over, but she didn’t want the game to end. So, she settled with us for our unmonopolized properties. We fully expect she’ll still win in the end, but in the meantime, we had money to spend on our own houses and hotels, and we played for many more hours just exchanging money between us. Eureka - sustainability!!

Game’s over, when you have all the money and no one else has any to pay you.

In 2008 during a leadership development workshop I took, my whole idea of leadership shifted because I had made a similar obvious realization. Leadership is actually about creating other leaders. It’s about nurturing the growth of others, passing along your wisdom and paying forward the support you received, and replacing yourself several times over.

Nearly 10 years later, I began focusing on leadership development and coaching. This was 15 years after performing market research on the executive coaching industry for the executive recruiting firm that employed me.

I’m seeing more clearly now how pieces of my timeline that seemed disparate are actually quite related and connected in a divine way.

My word of 2023 was Planting.

In the midst of what some may fairly call a deluge of disaster, I still managed to plant seeds, literally and figuratively.?

?I erected a greenhouse I inherited from my dad in my yard and am experimenting with what will grow through the winter. Not basil, sadly.?

?The C3 LinkedIn community (the Corporate Consciousness Co-op) now has a 6-member committee to further build the infrastructure of support for the community of conscious leadership practitioners so that we can better help each other navigate and lead others through unprecedented times.?

?I have joyfully re-designed a 56-page e-book I published in 2016 into a stunning 273-page Purpose Journal and Workbook that integrates many of the best neuroscience and personal development techniques I have learned and applied in my life and taught in my coaching practice. This is product #1 in a full suite of physical and digital products I will launch to help more people live their highest purpose. (Fulfilling pre-orders now. Order page will go up in 2024.)

So, apropos to the next natural evolution, I have picked Growth as my word of 2024.

I am committed to my ongoing personal growth. What I learned in the hardest season of my life is just how resilient I am. I learned how to really be with and honor my emotions, very strong emotions like grief. I learned that emotions are humans’ superpower, and we can tap into them to transform our lives. I’m finally seeing the gift in the pain. While it may seem preposterous to ask when tragedy after tragedy occurs. I kept asking, why is this happening FOR me?

I realized that I had let the fear of tragedy keep me from committing to showing up where I most want to serve.

Now that I have survived, endured, and come out stronger, I have had some major epiphanies about the rest of my life:

?I am stronger than I ever knew.

?Boundaries protect well-being and create new possibilities.

?There is nothing I can do alone that won’t be done better and faster by co-creating.

?It’s time to pass the torch, which is what leadership is all about anyway. Better yet, I will amplify and multiply my torch before I pass it, as it will grow, too.

?I don’t want to die with my “song” still inside me.

?I don’t want others to, either.?

?To be an optimal creator, I must make time for play.

?I can make anything I have to do play, and when I do, all outcomes are better.

?I don't have to do this work; I get to do this work.

?Pain needs it’s own time, and if I don’t give it that time, it bleeds into play.

?When I properly process my pain, it becomes fuel.

?Using that fuel to create is the highest way that I can honor those who can no longer create.

My yearly themes:

2019 - Self-reflection and Sharing

2020 - Perfect Hindsight

2021 - Co-Creation

2022 - Diversify and Expand

2023 - Planting?

2024 - Growth

2025 - Fruit

2026 - Harvest

2027 - Feast

These yearly themes have not been about me as an individual since 2020. My themes now are all about what I can acquire and share, so that we can all prosper sustainably.

May we all co-compose and prosper!