Two Perspectives

Two Perspectives on Transformational Leadership

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Dr. Janet Smith Warfield, Florida, USA

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Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

Become a leader who transforms by being a thought leader.

I am not going to talk about what is transformational leadership. I am not going to impose my views. I will not even tell you how to become a transformational leader. Now you must be thinking, “Then what the hell are you going to do?”

I had once posted on Facebook, “Your secret is in your soul, my secret is in my soul and still they tell you to read ‘The Secret’” Even Lord Buddha said, “Everyone must find his own way to salvation.” Why should we have any one definition of transformational leadership? Why not ask your soul and come up with your own definition? We all can be transformational leaders in our own ways, whether we transform our village, our workplace, our family or even one friend. When we connect to our deepest self, and become authentic in expressing our true self, we will automatically become a leader who transforms and a thought leader who leads by example.

Albert Einstein said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Are you a fish who is trying to climb the tree? Is your organization making you a square peg (unfit) in a round hole?

Start the journey of finding your genius. When you find your genius, you will become a leader who transforms by being a thought leader. I will just tell you one possible approach or a road map to thought leadership. You have to undertake your own journey, I can only support you, inspire you and give a suggested road map which you can modify or even use to get an idea to develop your own road map.

Here is my three step approach to thought leadership:-

Step 1

Walk the Walk

Connect with your deepest self through contemplative practice, expressing yourself through arts or appreciating art in a way that it becomes your muse or source of inspiration.

Develop your own concept of thought leadership. Stay in the company of thought leaders and find inspiration. Respect your genius and it will make you a thought leader. I remember another quote of Einstein, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.” Honour your gift to bring out your hidden greatness. Let the silent-intuitive mind take over and make you a thought leader in your own right. Take the action to develop models, philosophy, equations, and diagrams and so on which can depict your ideas.

Step 2

Talk the Talk

Communicate your authentic core to the people around. Share your thought leadership with people who are going to either support you or criticize you constructively (to help you refine your concept further).

Help the people understand your thought leadership model. Unless you help them gain in-depth understanding of your ideas, they will have a superficial understanding only. Even God had to communicate his message through epics, religious books and inspired messages to her channels. Never claim to be a thought leader and let the people validate your thought leadership.

Step 3

Walk the Talk

You are in the implementation phase now. Fine tune whenever you feel like it. Apply the thought leadership to your own life or to the lives of people/organisations you know. Demonstrate results. Counter the opposition with conviction and determination.

“Easier said than done” they say. Contemplation is fine to connect with the deepest self but at the end of the day life is action, not contemplation. Start the spark and fuel the fire. I once jokingly told a client, “Coins make noise and notes don’t. As you grow from 1 rupee coin to 10 rupee coin to a 1,000 rupees note, make less and less noise.” So become humbler by the day. I always tell my clients, “Larger the stature, Briefer the profile”

You have walked enough, you have talked enough, and the time has come to ‘Walk the Talk’. Leave your own footprint of transformation through your ‘Thought Leadership’.

One day, leadership has to die because everyone will become capable enough to lead himself/herself (by mastering the mind and by connecting to the soul.). One day everyone will be a thought leader. You want to be an innovator or a laggard. The life is yours, the choice is yours.

http://suewaters.wikispaces.com/

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Dr. Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant, passionate Blogger, and Motivational Speaker based in New Delhi, India. He specializes in personal branding with a holistic touch. His philosophy is “Take Charge of your Life and your Brand” He writes a Blog, “The Joys of Teaching”
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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

“The next Buddha might not be an individual. It might be a group” Thich Nhat Hanh

A MetaHub of a dozen brilliant, talented, aware women have self-organized out of Barbara Marx Hubbard’s Agents of Conscious Evolution Mentors, http://bit.ly/KzuGiC, to dialog about any subject any of them wants to discuss. The topics are not about hair styles or the latest fashions. They are about how to heal ourselves, how to heal our planet, and how to co-create harmony, resonance, and alignment with one another. Each speaks into the circle from her heart. Each listens deeply to the others’ words. New ears and perspectives hear the information offered into the circle. New speakers add their own nuances, perspectives, and understandings. Ultimately, the dialog carries everyone to a clearer and more expanded understanding of the topic being discussed. Disparate viewpoints coalesce into alignment and resonance. Conflicts dissipate as new information enters the circle. Everyone comes together to solve problems.

Is this a new style of leadership? If so, what do we call it? Field leadership? Essence Leadership? Circle Leadership? Transformational leadership? Are we co-creating the Noosphere which Teihard de Chardin wrote about so many years ago, simply by exchanging information through deep, heartfelt, mutually-respective dialog?

Talking circles are not new. Indigenous people in North America have used them for millennia. Circles of stones or wood can be found all over Europe, some dating back 5,000 years or more. Circles bring people together, co-creating positive transformation for all. As Living Justice Press states:

Circles are far more than a technique; they are a way of life. Circles embody a philosophy, principles, and values that apply whether people are sitting in Circle or not. http://bit.ly/L3SE8r

Characteristics of Transformational Leadership:

1. All inclusive – everyone belongs and has the right to speak
2. Everyone is equal
3. Those who are not speaking are listening deeply
4. Can be used in any setting with any topic
5. Draws on our best values
6. Solutions evolve organically
7. Endlessly adaptable and co-creative
8. Helps participants respond from their best selves because they are being heard rather than suppressed.
9. Builds community
10. Generates mutual understanding and respect
11. Honors all voices equally
12. Decisions are made by consensus
13. Cultivates mutual support
14. Honors the gifts, knowledge, talent and experiences each participant brings.

There are many modern circle groups engaged in this kind of transformational community building and leadership. Two I can recommend are Vistar Circles, http://www.vistarfoundation.org/ and Circle Connections, http://circleconnections.com/. They continue to be used because they bring to every participant such a wonderful sense of inclusiveness and community building. When a circle is formally over, the participants rarely want to leave the safe, free-flowing space they have created together.

Perhaps Thich Nhat Hanh was right. The next Buddha is all of us co-creating together in peace and harmony.

Additional Resources

1. First Nations Pedagogy Online (Circle Talks) – http://bit.ly/KxrgSa
2. Living Justice Press – http://bit.ly/MueLo4

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield serves wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. For more information, see www.wordsculptures.com, www.wordsculpturespublishing.com, www.janetsmithwarfield.com

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Two Perspectives on The Subconscious – Tapping Its Enormous Power

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Dr. Janet Smith Warfield, Florida, USA

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Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

Before we learn to tap the enormous power of the sub-conscious, we need to first understand what is the difference between conscious and sub-conscious mind.

Conscious Mind

Many of us wonder if everyone is appreciative of the sub-conscious mind and critical of conscious mind, why did God create the conscious mind in the first place. Is the conscious mind obsolete?

Conscious mind is needed by human beings but it should be treated like a servant. Since most of the population does not know how to activate and utilize the enormous power of sub-conscious, the conscious mind runs the show. No wonder Albert Einstein said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Sri Aurobindo, the Indian sage, said that just as the monkey’s tail disappeared during the evolution of the human being because it was no longer required, similarly the conscious mind will disappear as human beings evolve.

Sub-conscious Mind

Subconscious mind gives us wisdom and intuition and is activated mainly by three activities viz. deep relaxation, meditation and mental imagery/visualization. It also tends to get active during deep sleep (no wonder many people say sleep over your problem and you will wake up with the answer) but deep sleep is out of our control (we often forget the dreams) and whether we will have sound/deep sleep or not is often beyond the control of an average person.

Unconscious Mind

There is a difference of opinion between scientists here. Some believe mind only has two parts conscious and unconscious (call it sub-conscious if you wish) while others believe that mind has three parts viz. conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious. I believe in the latter school of thought and I believe conscious is often negative, sub-conscious is generally wise/positive and unconscious has all the repressed memories (both positive and negative). So what comes out during past regression therapy and hypnotherapy are the memories stored in the unconscious mind.

A Final Word

Silence the conscious mind and the sub-conscious will get activated. The conscious can be silenced through Sufi dances, meditation and whole lot of concentration exercises and contemplative practices.

Sub-conscious makes us wise, intuitive and highly creative. But to tap its enormous power requires enormous hard work. We tend to be so busy in our mechanical-routine lives, we hardly have time even to think on these lines. And we keep postponing whatever can be postponed until we reach a crisis.

Abba Eban said, “History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.” Will we start tapping our sub-conscious only when we have exhausted all other alternatives and made a complete fool of ourselves?

The choice is ours.

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Dr. Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant, passionate Blogger, and Motivational Speaker based in New Delhi, India. He specializes in personal branding with a holistic touch. His philosophy is “Take Charge of your Life and your Brand” He writes a Blog, “The Joys of Teaching”

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

What do we mean when we talk about the subconscious? How can we tap into its power to enhance our effectiveness?

Our subconscious and conscious minds are like an iceberg. The conscious mind is the tip we can see. It is that small part of awareness that is above the surface, the part on which we are currently focused, the part that is obvious, right here, right now, to our five senses. The subconscious mind lies below the surface. It is an enormous source of untapped resources we don’t normally see. What we don’t see, we can’t use to support our lives, our communities, and our world. When we tap into our subconscious and bring its energetic power to the surface, we mine its abundance and use its resources to enhance both our own lives and the lives of all around us. We tap into the depths to experience the light.

There are parts of our subconscious we don’t want to see because they hurt too much or are too frightening. We don’t want to look at our fear until we develop phobias. We don’t want to look at our pain and rage until we’ve experienced deep betrayal and loss. We don’t want to look at our guilt until we’re ready to say, “I’m sorry” and change our conduct. We don’t want to look at our self-righteousness until we are willing and able to walk in another’s shoes.

I’d like to invite you to a mutual mind-mapping game with the intention of engaging both you and me in tapping into the power of our individual subconscious minds. Then we can shape the energy we discover and transform it into powerful tools for transforming our lives.

I’m going to put my thoughts “out there”. As you read my thoughts, just notice your own thoughts and emotions. Your mind may be saying, “Oh, that’s neat. I hadn’t thought of that before.” Or your mind may be saying, “Is she nuts? That doesn’t make sense at all.”  What your mind says doesn’t matter. Just notice where your mind and emotions are taking you when you read my words. Notice whether you are feeling an attraction, a resistance, or no emotional charge at all.

What you feel doesn’t matter. Just notice the energy of that feeling. You are observing your subconscious by using Witness mode – the detached portion of yourself looking at the mentally and emotionally involved part of yourself. Then begin your own mind mapping process, starting with what you notice about your own thoughts and emotions. Are you focused on the meanings of my words? Are you feeling attraction? Curiosity? Resistance? Play? Fear? Write down whatever flows through your mind – without censorship.

The “without censorship” is vital. That is how you bypass the conditioned thinking of the conscious mind – the mind you’ve been taught is all that is; the mind you’ve been taught is right, the mind that wears dark glasses so it doesn’t have to look at things it doesn’t want to see below the tip of the iceberg, beneath the surface of consciousness.

If and when you and I become willing to explore the unending depths of our own subconscious, we discover a never-ending, fertile, playground for exploration, discovery, creativity, and self-empowerment. Sometimes our subconscious takes us on joyous rides of ecstasy. Other times it takes us into deep, dark caverns of terror, rage, and guilt. Like St. John of the Cross, our subconscious offers us spiritual opportunities to come face to face with our own dark night of the soul, master our emotions, integrate our spiritual gifts of deepening understanding and clarity, and shift into fuller awareness, consciousness, power, and peace. The change in our own energy is the enormous power that indirectly changes the lives of those around us. This is the space where synchronicities abound and miracles happen.

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield serves wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. To learn more, see www.wordsculptures.com, www.wordsculpturespublishing.com, www.janetsmithwarfield.com