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[Emergence]It is in this space..this gap…that our suffering as a human beings lies. When there is no gap between our word, either to ourself or others, and our actions, we demonstrate integrity, or wholeness, to the fullest extent. The absence of a gap equals alignment, high personal presence and trustworthiness. Who I am inside is what you get outside. Practical action you can take to improve your leadership, communications and awareness. More than 1,500 subscribers now receive this free monthly newsletter. Thanks for passing it on! To SUBSCRIBE, please use the links at the bottom of this issue. The Gap Between What We Say and What We Do, and why this really matters.In my work with Ken Wilber’s quadrants, upper left the "interior" ~I~ dimension, upper right the "exterior" ~I~ dimension, lower left the "interior" ~we~ and lower right the "exterior" ~we~, (see the quadrants at http://syzergy.biz/integral-leadership.html) I spend considerable time with my clients working between the upper left and the upper right. The upper left is my interior world. It is where my inner self talk lives, my personal values and beliefs reside. It is the place that I make promises and commitments to others and myself. The upper right quadrant is my behaviour. How I express these values and beliefs. It is my actions. The world can observe and measure the upper right but they cannot observe and measure the upper left. The only way to measure the upper left is when I express my inner values through my upper right actions. If I say I am going to do something, the doing of it occurs in the upper right quadrant. The topic for today’s conversation is about the gap between the upper left quadrant and the upper right quadrant. If I make a promise to others and myself do I carry it out? In exploring this we are going to start by looking at the interior promises we make to ourselves. We all do this. Every one of us. I would like you to take a moment and list down all the promises and commitments you have made to yourself in the last week. I think you get the point? If we are really conscious of our internal dialogue we are likely to find that our promises to ourselves are endless. They are like a dripping tap. Sometimes you hear it, and it becomes painful, and other times you tune out. But the tap keeps dripping. The question then becomes…how many of these promises do we keep? And what is the price of not keeping them? I would guess that for the most part we keep very few. First because we say so many things in our internal dialogue that is unconscious…we must first become aware of our promises before we can choose to keep or delete them. However, if I gave you a few minutes to do the following exercise, I would guess that most of you could do this without too much difficulty. Write down a few promises you have made to yourselves that you are aware of. Chances are these promises have been on the ~to do~ list for some time. (Often, for years!) Lets now talk about the gap between the promises and the action. It is in this space..this gap…that our suffering as a human beings lies. When there is no gap between our word, either to ourself or others, and our actions, we demonstrate integrity, or wholeness, to the fullest extent. The absence of a gap equals alignment, high personal presence and trustworthiness. Who I am inside is what you get outside. Have you ever met a person who had a significant personal presence, or aura? They have an energy that is so clean and clear, so present. (Funny isn’t it….but this is why they have presence…) Easy to say, and of course, harder to do. Step one is to become aware of our internal conversation. It is to become vigilant to the promises that we make to ourselves and others. This step requires a promise..which is the perfect paradox. We need to make a promise to ourselves to work on our promises… When we are aware of a promise, we then need to consciously choose it, or not. If my internal dialogue is..~I should do more stretching~, is this a promise, or a should. I often catch myself in these kinds of internal conversations and edit my speech. ~I would like to do more stretching, but I haven’t made it a priority at this stage, so it is just a wish.~ If I do choose to do something, I then interrogate it. Really???? And just want actions are you going to take to make this happen? I must be rigourous in my interrogation. If it doesn’t pass all questions, then the answer is no…I am not going to make the promise. I will continue to hold it as a wish, or a hope, or a dream. Why is this activity so vital to our development both spiritually and ethically? After years of personal investment on many levels into spiritual development, I have concluded that the real work lies in the details. It is the small stuff… It is in cleaning up our thinking. Being our word. Being vigilant to our inner dialogue. Challenging our assumptions. This is no easy task. But does it produce results and create rewards. Yes, yes!!. Back in 1992 my list of promises and commitments was as large as a healthy toilet roll. So many it was not possible for me to remember them all at any given time. Each morning when I woke up I felt overwhelmed and exhausted with the burden of them, lying like a smothering blanket, all over me. One day I decided to eliminate the list. Burn it. Remove it from my psyche. And start again. Start with one promise. One that I knew I would keep, no matter what. And I built from there. Am I there yet…no…not by a long way. Promises keep sneaking past my radar. But fewer now, than before, and getting less each year. I am lighter for it…emotionally, physically, spiritually. (Unmet promises carry high metaphysical and physical weight). I like myself more. I trust myself more. That gap between is a place of self-distrust, and low self esteem. Introducing Dare to Care, a program to transform the way we communicate and relate to each other.Leadership is about WHO you are, not what you DO. I think we would all agree that we could be better communicators. We could become more masterful at building, managing and fostering relationships. We know that conversations and relationships are the essential ingredient to everything we do. Even the conversations and relationships we have with ourselves. I would like to introduce you to the profound two-day workshop, Dare to Care, presented by Dr. Christine McDougall. This program will challenge your team to evolve as communicators and leaders. Please go to www.syzergy.biz/downloads/daretocare.pdf to download the flyer. This unique and transformational program utilises multimedia, presentation and exercises designed to apply the teachings to participant’s real life challenges. The presentation is practical, immediately applicable, and engaging. In addition, the Dare to Care program includes two individual coaching sessions to maximise your learning and assist in the application of the lessons.
Christine's three keynote speeches.Looking for a dynamic, entertaining, educational and interactive keynote speaker? Please consider me! Here are my three current topics. Dare to Care, The Keynote Dare to Care enough about the relationships and conversations you have within your workplace and life to;
*Speak with feeling, step into authentic vulnerability, and maintain your personal power and centre. We live in a world built on superficial conversations. We skate around what we really want to say to ourselves and others. We are dying for a lack of profound communication. We are longing for others to profoundly communicate with us, even if they will be delivering truth that hurts. We are tired of our own smallness. We dislike the way we get away with our own broken promises. At core, we are afraid of speaking truth. We are afraid of ridicule, isolation, rejection. Yet our greatest longing is to connect with others from heart to heart. Herein lies the paradox. What we want the most we fear the most. Think of the most significant moments in your life. They have at their core a profound conversation, even if it was with yourself. This all sounds very dark and gloomy, and yet it is not. This talk is about passion and love and fabulous relationships in both our workplace and home. Dare to Care, the Keynote, opens our awareness as to why we fear speaking up, and how to change the way we are present as a communicator and in conversation. You will leave with an understanding of your own way of being in conversation that limits your ability to presence truth. You will know how to break this pattern, and come from a more powerful place. A place that demonstrates care, compassion and commitment. Learning Objectives. Target Audience People who lead and work with people, from senior executives to small teams and partnerships. Presencing the Head, the Heart and the Being in Leadership Many leaders fear bringing their heart and their being into their leadership. Even if they have the desire to do this, they are uncertain as to how. They fear being seen as weak, vulnerable, ineffective and out of control. Yet the greatest leaders of our time, the Mandela’s and the Gandhi’s, the Martin Luther King Jr’s, all used their authentic emotive voice in their leadership, with profound effect. Learning Objective and Content Outline v The integration of the head, the heart and the being into every day leadership, whilst maintaining a professional demeanour and strong boundaries. Target Audience This presentation is pitched to the high achiever, entrepreneur and senior leader. Seeing the World Differently--The Amazing Spiral Looking at the world from a distance we see pain and suffering, war and violence, beauty and love, wealth and poverty. And much more. But what if the way I see the world is very different from the way you do? What if you see a world that is orderly, structured, built on a strong hierarchy of leadership, and I see a world that is ripe for the picking, a place where rules are made to be bent so I can win. And my friend sees a world that needs healing, were the environment and organisations need to be the focus of healing attention. Will our different perspectives create different choices? And are our perspectives valid, and worth understanding? How would understanding different world-views make a difference to life? To our decisions? Spiral Dynamics is a system and tool to help us understand our development and emergence under different life conditions. Understanding Spiral Dynamics allows us a greater perspective on why different people do things, and how we can manage/accommodate/adapt to these differences in a healthy way. This talk is fun, challenging, interactive and uses multimedia, film clips and music to take people on a journey through the Spiral. You will never see the world in the same way again, and you will be able to recognise different people’s behaviour from a very different and practical perspective. Learning Objective and Content Outline. 1. An introduction to Spiral Dynamics, a powerful tool that has been used to end apartheid in South Africa, plus countless other applications both small and large around the world. Target Audience This presentation is for anyone who has an interest in global affairs, organisational culture, values, and multicultural leadership.
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