Nevermind that we are in one of the worst economic times ever. Nevermind conventional speak that says the you can get the best and the brightest – the cream of the crop – right now. Nevermind that you and your hiring people think they are getting the best.

I know better. I see the truth every day. You are NOT getting the best and the brightest. You are in fact running them off.

The best and the brightest – MANY OF THEM – are leaving corporate America.  They are choosing the terrible economy, they are choosing to not know what they are going to do next, they are choosing to leave it all and try something – ANYTHING – else.  That’s how bad their experience was in corporate America.

What was that experience?

Just the other night I found myself at dinner with a few attendees to a local ICF (coaching) gathering.  It was a random selection of people of diverse backgrounds. Three our of four had left corporate. The newest departee shared her story. An HR professional with her company for TEN years. Started when the company was young and believed its people made it what it was. The company gave stock to all employees at a time when this was rare. Her role involved training other managers and HR people  and firing. Her company had grown fast and big. In fact it’s a big company.

For the past nine months she had been drawing attention to the cultural discrepancies between what the company was saying and doing. She couldn’t any longer stand quiet. While the company said people mattered, the choices they were making were oriented to financial, bottom-line, ‘business-first’ values. And one day not long ago her manager – the company – said in actual words “I’ve considered this and I really don’t think you have added value at all.”

What would you do if your husband, girlfriend, mother told you you hadn’t added value in their lives? Would you get angry or hurt? Would you question yourself?

What did she do? She left. And she did feel hurt and angry and did question herself. Still is questioning herself. Not the way you’d think. She isn’t questioning the value she added to that company.  She knows she added value.  What she is now questioning are her values. She’s getting rock-solid certain of what’s important to her. The experience has shown her exactly what she doesn’t want and will not stand for.

She’ll find her way to a place where she will only welcome authenticity and integrity in her life. As so many other entrepreneurs have. She won’t go back to corporate like that again.

Dear CEO – I don’t think you chose to leave authenticity and integrity behind. I think you fell into conventional action by going with old-style business values. Companies know really well how to be profitable, efficient, and competitive to be successful. The ‘it’s just business’ mindset. Companies don’t have many examples of being caring, compassionate, sufficient, cooperative and interconnected to be successful. Just because there aren’t many doing it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It can be. And the roadmap is simpler than you think. You follow your heart and your values.

Our recent corporate departee is doing it. And your company is not any different. She’s stepped into the unknown and faced her fears to find and follow her heart and values. Surely your company can too?

Attn CEO: You’re leaving the best and the brightest to invest their energy and passion into making something else amazing. As they honor their integrity they are not going to play with you in the future – as employees, as vendors, or as customers. Unless you change.

Once upon a time there was a soul. My soul.

It was in union with the great I am that I am, the great oneness. My soul experienced the most perfect peace, the most expansive love, the most absolute connection and the most profound joy. It knew bliss.

And one day for some reason that we will never truly understand, my soul decided it wanted to separate from the great I am. It would KNOW on its own, and by its own being, the sweet power of creation and the ultimate experience of love given and received.

To know this separation and the majesty it would bring, my soul agreed to the illusion of not remembering the perfection of being one with the great ONE.

And so it was. And so it is.

My dear soul woke into physicality and it experienced separation, and cold, and fear – and warmth, and caring and nurturing.  And it hurt.

My soul felt so much. So much more than bliss. So much so it hurt.

And it was good and it was somehow lacking. Because deep inside – deep, deep at the core, way past the illusion – there was an echo of a feeling of perfect peace, expansive love, profound joy and absolute connection.

My soul, time and again, experienced the power of creation in big ways and small. And it experienced love given and love denied. And try as it might my soul continued to experience creation, separation, cold, fear and warmth, caring, nurturing and love. And again, they were good – often really good.

But when it closed its eyes it perceived the echo of absolute greatness.

And so it wondered, which is real? Which is the illusion? Is what I am every day greatness or is there another greatness?

And my soul continued on with creation and love and found it could be peace, joy, connection and love for longer and longer periods of time.

And even still it wondered if this being-ness was real; is what I’m feeling on the outside real or is what I’m feeling on the inside real?

My dear soul:  you are greatness, you are real, you are perfect peace, absolute love, profound joy and complete connection on the outside and on the inside.

And so it was. And so it is.

Everywhere you read these days there is talk about how the tried and true – the traditional practices of business – are failing us.

Some people measure the problem in terms of economics and finance.  Others see a failure in systems and policies. Still others call our attention to misguided values and ethics.

As with any complex problem there isn’t one right measure of the problem, nor one single definition.  In fact, it is better to say that all are true in varying degrees.

Yet even as I acknowledge that the challenges facing businesses are a function of the economics, the finances, the product/service, the practices, the systems, and even more elements, I require a single, simple foundation from which to ground myself for the work I do with clients.

Imagine… a simple, foundational structure for how to think about, how to approach and how to resolve the challenges you face with your company or your job. A system of understanding that opens new perspectives for what is causing the sagging sales, or the disgruntled employees, or the recurring patterns that will not shift regardless of changes you implement. A system that gets results when everything else you have tried falls flat.

I developed and use the following system to help businesses identify a path through complexity at a time when there aren’t any road maps or easy solutions. I’m sharing this for a couple of reasons: in large part because the process creates clarity for me, but also because I believe it is a useful approach that others might use.

1. First, I imagine each and every person as a powerful creator – constantly creating from their wishes, dreams, beliefs, emotions and actions. Sometimes we are aware of what we are creating and other times we are not. For instance, we are very aware of the physical, tangible things we create like breakfast, a marketing report or a business.We are not so aware of the less tangible, less visible creations we put into the world such as the person we inspired with a compliment, the mood we changed in our employee with our distracted response, or the confusion we created when we said we agreed but mentally questioned.
2. I understand each person as a force of energy. It is from that force that we create. It is also a force that surrounds us always, like a cloud. When you create something physical into the world you are using your beliefs and your actions to create. Similarly, you can, and do, create into the world with your beliefs, thoughts and emotions. We just don’t see them in physical form.  But we do experience them in our lives. Imagine the times you have met someone ‘living under a dark cloud’ or wanted to spend time with someone because they were so upbeat and optimistic. These people have filled the energy around them with emotions and beliefs that you respond and resonate with.
3. Thoughts and emotions are energy and just like any other form of energy, it doesn’t really disappear or evaporate.  So, if you often find yourself thinking and feeling something then you are creating a pretty large cloud of that energy around you.
4. When you (or a group of people come together to) create a business, you have put out a whole lot of energy to create a whole new entity.  In legal terms, you now have a legal entity. But from an energy standpoint, you now also have an organization formed from your energy.  I imagine that you have a legal entity that also has an energy expression to it. It has been formed with your beliefs, your emotions, and your thoughts – all energy that in a way ‘imprints’ your company with those same beliefs, emotions and thoughts. Just think about how different companies have different ‘personalities’ – some are progressive, some are appreciative, some are creative, some are distrustful. Those personalities come from the force of energy that IS the company – formed by the founder’s beliefs and further formed by each employee who joins and supports the company.
5. In the same way you can work to identify core beliefs that are limiting or influencing your life, you can do the same with a business.  One of the most common frustrations I hear from the entrepreneurs I work with is that they want to be making more money for their work. And usually they have come to work with me because they are ready to make some big shifts and accept awareness of their value. When they begin to BELIEVE in their value, when they feel it, then they begin to make choices that support their intention of making more money. Similarly, when a business owner comes to work with me, there are a set of core beliefs that can be perceived through these areas:
   1. the owner
   2. the dynamics of the employees, and
   3. the performance of the business, in relation to its customers, vendors or other key constituents.

At the core of this system is the premise that beliefs exist within the energy of the business – and they can be identified through the outcomes, patterns and challenges played out within your business organization. Once identified, work can be done to shift and release the organization’s resonance with outdated beliefs and increase resonance with new beliefs.

Based on this system, I’ve designed and am testing the Company Culture Tune Up as a service to help your company identify and shift the beliefs that have held it back from the success you have been working for.  It is very results oriented work that makes quick shifts for organizations. I encourage you to check it out and share.

I’ll be writing more about this topic – hope you’ll stay tuned.

published March 14, 2012, proxying for April 23, 2012

Compared with the average person, I’m not very conventional. That’s why I find it interesting to observe the ways that convention has its hold on me.

It sneaks in and hides right there in plain site.

Ever wondered why you aren’t moving forward with something new, different or interesting? Have you considered that it’s convention that’s in the way?

By convention, I mean “the way it’s normally done”, or the status quo, or what and how people do something in an industry. Convention has it’s purpose. Afterall, we use it to make quick decisions – that’s why brand and design works so well. If you see pink, you think girls. Bankers are conservative. A businesses objective is to make a profit.  Those kinds of things.

At its core convention is the force that keeps us in line with others. It’s the force that encourages you to play it safe. And as kids, we learned that to not follow convention means you stand out  – as in stand alone.

The possibility of standing alone fires our survival instinct, triggering in us the compulsion to fit in.

And for me, since I’m not very conventional, the way my survival instinct has been triggered is to help me feel like I need to do some more organizing, update my brand, build clearer processes – BEFORE I introduce people to some new work I’m developing.

Well, it’s coming.  I’m working on some test runs right now. I’m even developing a line of posts to help build a foundation to explain it all. (AND I’m doing all the other stuff too.)

Not to leave you completely in the dark: it has to do with clarifying what you want for your business, happier workplaces and people, and energy work.

Stay tuned.

On this last Friday of 2011, I’m taking a moment to jot down ‘my numbers.’

In the online world, so much emphasis is placed on your numbers and stats.  How many Twitter followers you have, how big your email list is, how many Facebook friends/likes you have,  what your Klout score is, how many visitors you have to your site and so much more. While I’d like to turn my nose up at these numbers in total absoluteness, I can’t.

Of and by themselves, they don’t define your worth or contribution or the value of what you are sharing with the world. But what they do is give a measure of your potential impact.

See, I realized this year, that I want to have a greater impact in the world. I derive great pleasure in the difference I make with each individual person I touch. And that’s no small thing – it only takes one life changed to change the world.

But I’m a bit greedy – as in, I have an inordinate desire – to reach more people and to change more companies. Why? I want people to love what they are doing in their life, especially when it’s their ‘work.’

And that’s why I’m writing these numbers down. Because I want them to grow this new year.

So here they are, as of today I have:

• 101 Followers on Twitter
• 166 Friends in Facebook
• 200 Connections at LinkedIn
• 20 published blog posts
• 100 visitors is the greatest number I had for one blog post in 2011
• 803 unique visitors in 2011
• 43 Klout score
• 19 subscribers to my feed
• 1115 contacts on my email list

That about does it for me. My goal? To grow my numbers. By how much? Not real sure right now. I’m mostly curious what will happen if I just do a better job of posting good content.

Let’s see.

What’s your intention for 2012?

Yes, I’m a Christmas baby. And it’s incredibly fascinating the effects it has had on me. As a self-aware adult I’ve been spending some time untangling it all this year.

As a kid, I didn’t know anything else. I got Christmas presents and birthday presents. At family gatherings I would be wished a Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday. It all seemed pretty normal to me.

As I got older, I realized that I didn’t have ‘traditional’ birthday parties.  But, again, that wasn’t such a big deal because as a family of four kids with a really limited income, none of us had birthday parties.  My mom’s rule was we could have three parties, when we were five, ten and fifteen.  So, not having parties wasn’t so strange either.

And now, as an adult, I’ve realized I have problems with birthdays.   No, it’s not the ‘I’m getting older’ thing.  I’ll be 43 in few days and it really doesn’t mean much to me. I’m grateful for the experience of time but I’m as young as I imagine myself to be.

Here’s how it shows up: I declared a few years back that we would not be doing the whole birthday cake and singing thing on Christmas anymore. With kids, I just felt it got in the way of Christmas  – which I love. So, to appease everyone else I picked a day they could acknowledge and that has now been the winter solstice, December 21. Now what has happened is that I can’t hide behind the excuse of Christmas day for not having a party. And I think that’s what has really brought my weirdness to light.

So my problem with birthdays is not about age. Oddly, it’s about being seen.

Maybe you have this too – that quiet undercurrent of not shining too big or bright, not drawing too much attention to yourself, not distinguishing yourself too much from others. Why? Because doing so means that you aren’t really a part of your tribe/family/group any longer. It conjurs up feelings and fears of isolation and ostracism. (And I also know that as a Mexican American this is embedded in the culture. Gotta love how all this works.)

Anyone who knows me will think this is downright weird. I’m comfortably self-confident and have no problem stepping right up to the front to take care of things that need to be dealt with. And I have positively no issue speaking my mind or going against the norm.  That’s why this not-being-seen thing is so odd – and so hard to spot – for me.

Of course the irony in this is that my gift is ‘seeing’, which I do, and have done, for others as friends and clients all the time. It’s the seeing through the confusion, the blocks, the chaos and complexity  in their life and work – right through to the feeling, solution or experience that is needed right at that moment.

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday!

Isn’t it just priceless then that deep in my unconscious I’ve been carrying and cultivating a fear of being seen?

I’m proud to share that for this glorious birthday, I’m giving that piece of myself back to me. The piece that has hidden away behind the fear.

I see me. And I invite everyone else to do so as well. I have some big things on my agenda for the year and years ahead and I certainly need to be seen to get them done.

Give yourself the gift of you this Christmas. I have.

You.

Yes, you. The business owner, the founder, the president – the one who set out to have her very own company so you could have that perfect place for amazing, talented people to work while they go about offering your extra special creation to the world.

How’s it working out?

Because I keep reading and hearing over and over again of people who left corporate or left their job because they couldn’t stand it. Because they wanted more meaning in their lives. They wanted to make a difference. They felt stifled, unappreciated, undervalued.

Is your company all you want it to be? Is your workplace the place that you imagined it would be – filled with passionate people who love their work?

‘Cause sometimes we forget…

You, your company and your workplace are the same thing and also different.

You – are your company, in a way. You dreamed it, built it, love it, sacrifice for it.

And yet, your company is not you. It is its own being. It has a life of its own, a personality of its own – that has probably grown beyond your entire capacity to shape it if you have more than a few employees.

And your workplace is something different again. It is an aspect of your company, and to a large extent a function of your beliefs made manifest. And the beliefs of every one of your employees.

Take a moment to realize that for all that work you do to make yourself a better boss and a better leader, to increase your own personal fulfillment and work toward your own personal transformation, your company and your workplace need the same thing. Just as you discover and transform your limiting personal limiting beliefs, shouldn’t you do the same for your company and your workplace?

As you journey toward awareness and consciousness for yourself and your place in the world, don’t you think there should be something similar for your company and your workplace?

Maybe you’ve thought of this and you’ve cared and wanted to have your company be an expression of your consciousness and your expanding personal awareness, and you’ve wanted your workplace to blossom with the same delicious delight you feel when you grow that next little bit.

So that your company grew with you and your workplace was filled with like-minded amazing, talented people working in the perfect environment contributing your creation to the world.

How do you create it and do it?

That’s what I do.  I help the business-owner-you, your company and your workplace -  in the same way a coach, a healer or a spiritual counselor helps the ‘me, myself and I’-soul part of you.

It’s amazing what you can learn when you are helping educate the next generation of leaders.  Yesterday, I found myself giving voice to a couple of beliefs I hold about business that I hadn’t realized were so obvious to me but are quite definitely not part of the traditional business undergraduate education.

As a part of the Business Ethics class at Southwestern University students were tasked with preparing a presentation addressed to the President and Provost on their choice of ethical issues related to recent university budget cuts. My job was to be the outside ‘evaluator’ as they made their presentation to the class. I had all the traditional comments on organization, thought process, delivery and team work. But what really stuck with me were some of my closing thoughts.

The first was around giving them permission to use emotion as a valid rationale for a choice or opinion. Remember, this was a class on business ethics and the content generally centered on making good choices when making budget cuts. It was interesting to watch them attempt to depersonalize or ‘business-ize’ a conversation about respect, valuing people, care, consideration and fairness. When I asked them why they took the approach they had, their response basically indicated their belief that business requires an abstinence from emotion or values.

This pains me. As a business owner who has worked with many other business owners I know for a fact that all of us have choicefully made decisions that balanced the health of the enterprise with respect, care and consideration for our employees, vendors and customers.  And each of us wanted employees who would make good decisions that demonstrated their skill and giftedness as well as their regard for other people. Care, consideration, and respect are all qualities that are the result of emotions. It is the emotional connection that matters -that makes the difference between good and bad business. We need the emotional aspect in business to create meaning and value – and ultimately, greatness.

The second point I found myself sharing: business may be defined as “an economic system in which goods and services are exchanged for one another or money” but in practice business is fundamentally all about relationships. Consider it.  Every business has a relationship with its employees, its vendors, its customers, its community, its industry. And personally, I don’t know how you can have any kind of relationship without some kind of emotional connection.  I believe that it is the nature of relationship to imply an emotional connection.

And good businesses cultivate really good relationships. I work with the vendors I do not just because they are good at what they do but because there is something more and that something more is the care, respect and often times, friendship that is cultivated. The same is true for me of employees.

My point is that for some reason we have believed that businesses exist at the expense of relationships, emotion, values and connection. I can see how that can happen when you end up dealing with mega-companies. But my experience is that there are many more companies where you do experience true connection and great value; and you can see firsthand that business really is about relationship.

I’ve recently begun the process of organizing my thoughts around business, the realities of change, and the power of entrepreneurs (and the entrepreneurial-minded) for the grand and daunting purpose of writing a book. It’s is truly amazing the effect that the commitment alone has created.  I am rapidly collecting all my thoughts in notes and recorded conversations. I’m exploring and following where it feels like I need to go. And one great benefit is the number of books that I have started reading.

I find it surprising that I have never read Good to Great by Jim Collins. I’m remedying  that now. And have come across one particular piece that seems especially relevant in today’s financially stressed climate. Allow me to share:

“Life is unfair – sometimes to our advantage, sometimes to our disadvantage. We will all experience disappointments and crushing events somewhere along the way, setbacks for which there is no “reason,” no one to blame.  It might be disease; it might be injury; it might be an accident; it might be losing a loved one; it might be getting swept away in a political shake-up; it might be getting shot down over Vietnam and thrown into a POW camp for eight years. What separates people, Stockdale taught me, is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life.  In wrestling with life’s challenges, the Stockdale Paradox (you must retain faith that you will prevail in the end and you must also confront the most brutal facts of your current reality) has proved powerful for coming back from difficulties not weakened, but stronger – not just for me, but for all those who’ve learned the lesson and tried to apply it.”  Good to Great, Jim Collins, p.85-86

Collins explains that the Stockdale Paradox is the signature of all those who create greatness, be it in leading their own lives or in leading others. It is one of the qualities he believed defined the leaders of the Great companies.

I found that one single paragraph gripping and so very relevant to what so many of us are experiencing at this time due to the economy and our finances. It is relevant to each client I have worked with as they work on adjusting their business to meet the changes and challenges in their market.

I encourage you to keep your faith that you will prevail and take a good, hard look at what is happening in your business or your life and commit to address it, even if it isn’t fun, even if it is scary and even if you don’t know exactly what to do.

If Admiral Jim Stockdale could do this during the eight years he was tortured as a prisoner-of-war during the Vietnam war, surely we can too.

[Note: I'm cross-posting this here to spread the word. If you would like to follow the movement to bring coworking to Georgetown be sure and check in at www.georgetowncoworking.com.]

I’m interested in enjoying the benefits of a coworking community in my town. I’m actually so interested in it that I’m willing to organize and coordinate the movement for a coworking space here in Georgetown.

Now what I need is the rest of the community of coworkers… Would you be one? Would you know someone who would want to be a part of this?

What is coworking?

Coworking has been developing as an enriching, sustaining alternative to traditional workplaces for solo-workers. Coworking is a membership based office environment with community workspaces, private meetings rooms and conference rooms. But it is not the shared office environment that makes coworking a success. It is the membership that participates. It is the community formed by the membership.

What benefits does the membership community offer?

As an independent worker – whether a freelancer, consultant, telecommuter – you miss out on the collaboration, the engagement, the stimulating thought of being around other like-minded people.

That’s where coworking comes in. With a community of like-minded people you have easy access to colleagues – other bright, creative, interesting people. It is the engagement that happens when you take a break and begin a conversation with someone else in the room.

Coworking includes opportunities for collaboration, for brainstorming, for education and professional development. Members help inform the lunch and learn workshops and seminars, and they often lead them. We bring in the resources to help grow our community in the way it wants and needs to grow.

Basically, coworking facilitates collaboration, innovation and business growth – for the member and for the community. A group of like-minded entrepreneurs and solo-workers can produce some amazing things when they come together!

Get engaged!

If you are an independent worker – and that includes telecommuters – who wants an engaging, enriching, meaningful alternative to the isolation of working alone then join with me as we find a group to make coworking a reality in Georgetown.

Here’s how:

• Take the survey – so we can find out what’s important to you.
• Spread the word. Because we are independent workers here in Georgetown, Round Rock and surrounding communities – we can be a bit hard to find – so share this with everyone you know so we can get the word out!
• Come to a discussion meeting to learn more about coworking and to help inform what we can create right here. There are two meetings set so pick one or both: October 5, 2011 at 1:30 – 2:30 pm or October 11, 2011 at 10 – 11 am.
• Keep up with the conversation at our temporary website: www.GeorgetownCoworking.com. Join the email list and follow the blog.

If you have questions, let me know. If you want to help out, let me know. And if not, just help me spread the word! Thanks!

Additional resources: Take a look at what others are doing!

Independents Hall in Philidelphia

Link Coworking – Austin

Cospace Austin