This is the ultimate paradox of life. Sometimes you just have to throw yourself into the wind and know you’ll land on your feet.

To live is to risk.

To risk is to live.

Go for it.

Copyright 2010 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC   All rights reserved.   www.sagelead.com

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The NY stock market “Blip” dip by 1000 points in one hour – somebody “hit a wrong button?!!” Cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf. Bailing out Greece. Keeping faith in the Euro. … A small sample of what has made the news in the last week.

It’s no wonder many of us are on overdrive – trying to survive and thrive in a world that is in crisis.

Check out our latest newsletter where you will learn about our new Coaching Program: Strategies for Sustained Performance.

© Copyright 2010 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC     All rights reserved.     www.sagelead.com

We are human and it takes something cracking us open to be present sometimes – or to really get something. It’s not about being present every moment. That is not realistic. It’s more about doing it more and recovering more quickly when we find ourselves not present, zoning out or hiding from what is really happening.

The greatest tragedy is that we often miss the beauty that is around us in all ways everyday. Usually this awakening happens through our connections or disconnections – relationships – with one another.

A friend of mine is running her own business and trying to juggle it this week while spending time with her father in his last days as he lay in the hospital gravely ill. She captures this awakening so brilliantly on her blog.

Thank you Liz for helping us all have a moment of pause.

What is your moment of pause today? I am looking out my window appreciating the brilliant blue of the sky and early green buds of spring. Heaven on earth. As I sit here at my computer, it helps me feel more connected to nature.

© Copyright Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC   All rights reserved.   www.sagelead.com

The Sage Leader understands the power of appreciating others. Yesterday was earth day and many are continuing to honor and celebrate this day with different activties this weekend. We are intricately connected to each other.

What we do effects those around us and the planet. Just for today, focus on what is right and good. Appreciation is one simple, underutilized, yet powerful tool that can save us from ourselves and further destruction of our planet. If we can’t live here, what good is a nice home or designer shoes? Benefits of gratitude are no longer fluff but becoming a scientific reality.

To inspire, check out Heartmath’s efforts to connect us. Connecting a Million Hearts

© Copyright Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC   All rights reserved.     www.sagelead.com

What are you doing today to create more heart in your world? What you do, how you be, how you show up – all create ripple effects. You effect those around you which effects those around them, and so on. What is the effect you are creating as it ripples miles and miles beyond you? These days, with technology, you can be viral around the world within minutes versus days or months a hundred years ago. Big impact. Bu what KIND of impact?

How are you a bridge, a conduit for information, people or resources?

Now is the time we all must join forces. We are seeing much more collaboration taking place – whether it is governments, or large or small companies. Everyone is looking for solutions in “hard times.” However you get there, it seems that the growing consensus is – we can only survive together. The only way out is through.

How do you keep connection – despite how hard it is? How do you maintain yourself, your family, community or organization in these tenuous times? Everyone wants freedom and choices. With freedom comes responsibility. Think about this word: response – ability. It means having an ability to respond.

The way that we create greater ability to respond and dialogue for complex solutions is to create safe containers for people to discuss and explore alternatives. I don’t care whether you are talking about national healthcare, nuclear disarmament or divorce, the principles and challenges are very similar.

What has happened to our ability to create these safe containers long enough for the deeper dialogues to surface? Please check your ripple at the door or none of us will get out of this global mess alive.

© Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC    All rights reserved.      www.sagelead.com

There are a number of significant differences with Tiger’s situation. He has taken time out to reassess his life through intensive therapy. He apologized and acknowledged that he thought he was entitled – he doesn’t get to play by different rules than everyone else. I have never heard such sentiments from a powerful public figure. He apologized to the children for whom he is a role model. He appears genuine.

The road to true transformation is messy and chaotic with no quick fixes. He acknowledged he is at just the very beginning of this process. The challenge of any great leader who is at the top of their field is to not to allow their ego to run their life. When their success comes with a lot of money and a lot of people riding on this money, the stakes and temptations are even higher.

My biggest hope for Tiger’s reform is in his approach – taking full accountability for his actions and trying to protect his family from further damage and exposure – and above all else where he rests his ultimate solution – to rebalance his spiritual life with his professional life. He is looking to reclaim his spiritual foundation and values – and recognizes he can’t do it alone. He needs the support and help of the very same people he has disappointed. This humility is the way of the sage leader.

Ultimately, I am with Elin – true atonement comes over time seeing a real change in behavior. Tiger has made the necessary first step – asking for forgiveness. This requires something on all our parts – understanding and giving him and his family privacy to journey through this difficult process.

For the judges in the audience, please remember the great adage: all saints were once sinners and all sinners can be saints.

© Copyright Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC                 www.sagelead.com

There has traditionally been a lot of talk and development about leaders developing good listening skills. It’s seems obvious and basic that this a requisite skill for a leader to be effective – to listen to their constituents in order to best meet their needs. It’s necessary to listen to your customers, to listen to your peers, partners, suppliers, and employees.

But first, and foremost, you need to listen to yourself – that inner voice that is constantly in the background. What is it saying? Is it a constant chatter, a chaos of noise, or a focused subtle drumbeat? We all have our inner voice – critic, partner, confidant.

Our “inner” constituent is our most important one. Unless we exercise tools and strategies to pay attention to what it is saying and quiet it, pay attention to it and/or direct it, we can never be fully present and able to listen to those constituents in front of us.

Just for today, take a deep breath in, count to 10, and exhale to a count of 10. Do this 3 times.  You have just created space in your head and in your day. What did you hear?

To help with understanding your inner voice, I highly recommend The Voice of Knowledge by Don Miguel Ruiz.

© Copyright Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC      www.sagelead.com

Today is a full moon, a blue moon (full moon twice in one month) and a partial eclipse. Contrary to modern popular belief, this is not the time to plant the seeds for the new year. Instead you want to clean house and intention what you want to get rid of. What didn’t work for you in 2009? How about going into the new year lightening your load – whether it is being more stringent in what you take on or getting rid of old stuff. Old stuff can be clothes not worn in a year or outdated belief systems. Clean up and get with the times of what is current and works for you in the present.

2009 kicked my butt in terms of change - and some of it was painful. Often this pain can be due to our own creation – usually resistance. Here’s to transforming with grace and flow. Time to make room for possibilities…

It may be interesting to reflect on the last decade and dream about anticipated changes for the next decade. Many times we unconsciously recreate the same experiences. New things can only happen when you create the space. Time to shed and invite in true change. Why not?

Copyright 2009 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC     www.sagelead.com

Today is the time to work with nature’s energy of the new moon and plan for what you want more of in the new year. I am not talking about a resolution. Those don’t usually work past January 15th.

Take mental and emotional inventory of what you want more of next year. What served you, worked well. What didn’t you have this year that you want to have in your life? Focus on the possibilities - what you want to grow in your work and life. What you focus on expands and grows, and when you align it to the natural energies at play today, it makes it easier and more expansive.

Today is the day to plant the seeds on fertile ground. Befriend your imagination and plan for what if… What have you got to lose but the safety of what you currently know?

Copyright 2009 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC     www.sagelead.com