Happiness in Leadership

Leaders are at their best when they are balanced, relaxed and happy. It is our fundamental nature to be happy. “Really?” you say, with a skeptical cock of your head. Then why is happiness often so incredibly fleeting and illusive?

We live in a culture that identifies happiness with material and creature comfort, and even though we may intellectually know better, most of us have bought into this paradigm. The truth is, happiness is not reliant on external factors, nor can it be obtained through our five senses. Our basic needs transcend the sensual, a reflection of the complexity of our species. There are people who have unending material comfort, and yet are not content. So, too, there are people that live under material deprivation or physical duress, and yet remain fundamentally content and joyful.

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Read the rest of this article on Medium.  Published by Thrive Global.

The Day the Music Died: A Path to a New Way

There comes a point in both communal and individual life when what we have created no longer sustains us; we are often disoriented when we realize that this is so. Similar to immersion in a coherent piece of music, we have been going along in a certain octave and key, and the flow of that music carries us well enough.

But sometimes we reach a point when we need to change octaves or shift to a different key. The piece of music that has carried us is no longer sufficient, no longer true. Yet, nothing new has been written. We experience the loss of the old without anything to replace it. In Greek mythology, the phoenix burns down to a pile of ashes before it rises. This pause between a destructive cycle and rebirth is most difficult.

Read more of this blog on the Huffington Post: