Moments That Take Your Breath Away

Befriended by a Beautiful Butterfly

When was the last time you experienced moments that took your breath away? Feel a rush of delight fill your heart as you remember those magical moments. Now you know how I felt during my 2011 December birthday trip to the 'Middle of the World' - Ecuador.

There I visited a butterfly farm in the Amazon rain forest. As soon as I walked into the enclosure, I was greeted by a beautiful butterfly landing on my arm. Not wanting to dislodge this friendly creature, I gingerly moved my arm each time I took a photo. Yet my butterfly friend never moved, remaining my steadfast companion as we explored the farm and experienced different species of butterflies in every stage of their life cycle.

When we were ready to leave the farm, our expert guide told me to just shake my arm and the butterfly would lift off my arm. I did as instructed, but the butterfly didn't move at all. When I shook my arm more vigorously (as directed by our guide), the butterfly moved from the top of my arm to the bottom of my arm. Clearly, this sweet creature was very comfortable.

Finally, our guide walked over to me and with his finger lightly flicked the butterfly off of my arm. As it flew away, my heart felt graced by its   presence. During my entire time at the butterfly farm, this beautiful butterfly effortlessly shared with me its gift of transformation.

Transformation 4.0

The complete life cycle of butterflies in the rain forest of Ecuador begins and ends in about 2 months. That's from egg to caterpillar to chrysallis to adult butterfly to laying eggs for the next generation and then death. The brevity of their existence and the alacrity of their multiple transformations offer us juicy insights.

• Transformation is who we are, not what we do.
  • Like the butterfly, transformation is our shared consciousness...the intelligence of our Being.
• Just like the caterpillar that gives up crawling to become a butterfly, transformation asks us to let go what we think we are so we can become who we are.
  • Expecting ourselves, our lives, or our businesses and circumstances to remain in some currently recognizable form so we feel safe keeps us from receiving the surprising gifts that emerge from our transformations.
• Transformation need not take a long time if we listen and surrender to the inner shifts that show us the way.

What inner shifts are you experiencing that are changing your external world?

Your changes may be subtle or bold and obvious. It doesn't matter which,  because either way (like a butterfly's transformation) they are significant.

"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough."  ~Rabindranath Tagoren.

Welcome to Butterfly Time!

After my up-close-and-personal butterfly encounter, I wondered about the unseen significance of this tranformational being landing on my arm to 'travel' with me as I explored the wonders of its incredibly short life cycle. When I returned home, I began to see that this experience was introducing me to a new context for life and business—'butterfly time'.

We're experiencing a quickening in the world around us. If you have any doubts about this, look around you. 

Changes that once took years now happen in months or weeks. As evidenced by global events like Arab Spring and Occupy America (regardless of our personal views), the speed at which metamorphosis is occurring now is unprecedented.

This is true for our own inner shifts. And, a transformation of our consciousness and collective evolution is evident in leadership, business and money-making.

Since the start of 2012, I've noticed that business activities which typically take days or weeks to complete now get done in hours or a day. Less time and less effort with unexpected grace and ease...that's my experience of butterfly time. What is yours?

Journey into the Wonder of You

Are you ready for these radically different times? If you're not, you are not alone.

 

After all, we like to know in advance where our decisions and actions are going to lead us, what outcomes they will produce, and when we can expect the results. Now, the certainty we thought we could depend on is ripe with unpredictability.

Not knowing makes us very uncomfortable. We think we are out of control. We do not feel safe.

Yet, what if something else is actually taking place? What if the uncertainties and unknowns we face actually are a clarion call—a mega-invitation—to become our own guru? To...

• Listen to our heart's deepest desire.
• Hear what our soul has been waiting patiently to tell us: "Liberate Your Inner Awesome!"

Be Your Own Guru

Explore and discover new possibilities available now.

• Step into 'butterfly time' and trust not knowing.
  • Lean into the fear.
  • Experience the magic.

• Live your transformations and share their gifts.
  • Dive into the rich depths of your unique essence.
  • Tap into your inner wealth.

• In community create something significantly different.
  • Sense the unseen.
  • Partner with the unknown.

Join me in a fireside-like chat where we'll talk about...

• Transitions you and others on the call are experiencing.
  • Begin to sense where you are.

• Unseen gifts in our individual and shared transformations.
  • Become aware of what might need shifting in you.

• Where to find the flow in what's happening now
  • Sync with your natural rhythms
  • Sense what wants to happen next

In this 1-hour FREE telecall (via the convenience of your phone) I'll share some 'playful practices' to help you embody and balance your gifts...so you see:

• What's possible for you now in 'butterfly time'.

• What's necessary for you to be resilient and thriving.

• How the gifts of your transformation empower you and others.

• How easily you can have help taking steps that reveal what's next.

Join Me for a FREE "Liberate Your Inner Awesome!" Telecall

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Why is it important for us to talk? BECAUSE...

• Butterfly time is not going to slow down and the quickening of transformation in our inner and outer worlds is only going to increase. This is the new context for our existence and experiences.
• Deeply meaningful connection and collaboration are not just the new way of business. They are the new way of LIFE.
• I care, and I care deeply...about you, whether you feel free to thrive, and how you want to use gifts of your transformation to make a significantly meaningful difference in the world. 
  • Essentially (at a soul level), I'm a traveler, a pathfinder and a wayfinder, a seer and a seeker—someone who senses what is not yet visible and translates what was once mystical into what is now wisely practical.
  • I want to use my transformational gifts to help you on your journey into what feels and looks like unknown territory.

Let's "Liberate Your Inner Awesome!" ...the naturally rich and effortlessly enriching aspects of your essential self that you have forgotten, haven't been able to find a place to express, or don't even know are still within you.

It's time to thrive by fully and boldly experiencing the wonder of you in business, leadership and life. The world needs now (more than ever) the gifts of your uniquely inspiring and significant transformations.

Experience your evolving awesomeness in butterfly transformations.

Join Me for a FREE "Liberate Your Inner Awesome!" Telecall

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Extremely good news!

"You will receive in 2012 exactly who you are." ~Dee Wallace

Be Your Own Guru

Join Me for a FREE "Liberate Your Inner Awesome!" Telecall

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Legendary Ladies

Angkor Wat

Great Female Explorers

The history of exploration rarely focuses on great female travelers. Yet as early as 1891 women journeyed to the heights of Kilimanjaro and the freezing depths of Antarctica. Until recently, their indominable leadership has remained relatively unrecognized. Now Michael Conefrey's book How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt: A Handbook for the Lady Adventurer tells us that the lost history of female exploration includes women who traveled to every corner of the globe.

We discover that these women were mountaineers, sailors, desert and polar explorers. They traveled not for fame nor posterity, but because they were excited to encounter other cultures − driven by what Martin Luther King called "the urgency of now." Given the challenges they confronted, I suspect that travel nourished their souls.

Women explorers were the first to:

• Find the lost city of Cana in the Middle East
  
• Map the Siachen Glacier in the Himalayas
• Visit an Ottoman harem in Constantinople
• Reach the top of Huascaran in Peru
• Achieve the world record for the fastest flight from Britain to Australia (lasting 44 years)

"Few such moments of exhilaration can come as that which stands at the threshold of wild travel." ~Gertrude Bell, Desert Explorer

These women leaders remind us of what's possible when we let the wisdom and steadfastness of our spirit lead us.

Feed Your Spirit!

Don't let the incessant demands of work or life stave your spirit of what you need to feel more vibrantly alive. Engage in simple practices that naturally bring you in sync with yourself. Notice how much clearer your mind is...how much calmer and resilient you feel...how much more productive and effective you are. 

Transform yourself by quenching your soul's thirst.

Sylvia at Jungle Temple in Cambodia

Start small with...

Walks in nature

Playing with a dog

Long luxurious baths

Relaxing with a fun novel instead of watching TV

Laughing with children

Watching the sunset

Tending a garden

Fresh flowers

Naps

Reading travel magazines

Taking a Virtual Vacation

Make whatever works for you an easy playful practice. Have fun doing it several times a week or daily. Notice the subtle yet significant difference it makes in your leadership and the rest of your life.

"Without practice you know about it, but you don't know it." ~Albert Einstein

Got Unfinished Business...

How Purposeful Are Your Priorities?

If you start each day staring at your To Do list and wondering how you'll get everything that's important done, STOP! Instead start the day with your To Be list. On it is only 1 item - a single question: Who do you choose To BE today?

Just give yourself 5 minutes to listen and hear answers to this question that float up from the depths of your consciousness. Like, today I choose to BE...

• Someone who is fully present with loved ones, no matter how limited our time together.
• Someone who notices beauty in people, places, and things around me.
• Someone who feels calm at the start and end of my day.
• Someone who knows the difference between what is urgent and important, and focuses on what's important as much as I can.
• Someone who responds to what is urgent without letting it drain my energy.
• Someone who thinks strategically and takes decisive action.
• Someone who smiles and laughs even on difficult days.
• Someone who feels good about myself even when I don't know what to say or do.
• Someone who routinely asks for the help.
• Someone who knows how much is enough, does much as I can, and feels a genuine sense of satisfaction at the end of my day. 

Whatever answers surface for you, decide to experience #1 way you want to BE that deeply resonates with your heart. Let yourself experience this one way of Being as a Personal Purposeful Priority for the day. Commit to it fully with the words: I AM...(state who you decide To BE this day). Then playfully practice Being that way all day long.

Remember...practice does not mean perfect. It means playfully engage in small consistent, obvious-to-only-you ways of experiencing who you choose to BE. Have fun with it. At the end of your day, smile, laugh, and share with yourself or loved ones what you noticed that was different as you were Being Your Own Purposeful Priority.

Decide to start your day with your To BE list!

Virtual Vacations for Savvy Women Leaders

Leadership Journeys of a LifeTime

Considerable time has passed since I've written a blog post - nearly 2 months. Like so many of you, I've been deeply engaged in a wildly delightful mix of shifts that are evolving my business and expanding its horizons. Central to these changes is new content I have developed - inspired by my experiences in Vancouver at Andrea J. Lee's Wealthy Thought Leader Conference.

At this illuminating and innovative event I clarified and claimed my thought leadership. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that my thought leadership claimed me. Allow me to share a little of the backstory so you can see what I mean.

For the past decade, I've coached women entrepreneurs, executives, and nonprofit professionals in how to leverage their leadership and business acumen. As a result, these savvy women leaders have led their teams, businesses, or organizations to higher and more sustainable levels of success - increasing money and meaning. While I really love being a catalyst of inspiration, innovation, and transformation for women leading change, travel feeds my soul. Now my thought leadership brings together these life-affirming domains of my professional and personal worlds.

My Thought Leadership

 Transformation + Travel = Transformational Travel

Claiming and stepping into my thought leadership isn't without some precedence. For years my clients have gained new insights and valuable perspectives from my transformational travels. Each time I return from a trip, I translate what I've gleaned from diverse cultures and ancient wisdom traditions into client-specific leadership practices. So it is not surprising that I am taking the bold, provocative stand that travel transforms women into savvy leaders. And the great news is you can have fun experiencing exciting, manageable yet significant shifts that leverage your leadership into more satisfying and sustainable business success.

That is why I've created Transformational Travel Tales: leadership journeys of a lifetime. These virtual trips free your over-scheduled, over-committed, and over-worked 'super-selves' from the maddening nonstop pace of your power-packed day. Now you can shut down your email, turn off your cell phone, and stop multi-tasking without fear of losing your entrepreneurial, executive, or leadership edge. In just 15 minutes you will experience an armchair adventure that clears your overloaded brain, recharges your body, and actively engages you in beyond-the-box thinking. You return from this virtual vacation with vibrant clarity, keener focus, and new ways of looking at and seeing innovative solutions to an endless litany of pressing priorities.

Your Invitation to Transformational Travel! 

Ready to travel to a place where leadership insights and enriching perspectives are plentiful?

 

Click here for your 'free ticket' to an exciting, fun-filled, leadership-elevating adventure in Kenya. A 15-minute virtual vacation with the Maasai awaits your armchair arrival.

Seth Godin on Leadership

Tribes Matter

Don't miss your call to lead change. With the guidance Seth Godin presents in this TED video, you can start a movement - connecting people who already have a yearning for something that matters to you and them. Why bother? Because as Seth says, What we do for a living now is find something worth changing. And...there are tribes waiting for you to lead them.