Unlocking Growth for Organizations and Idealists Like You

Last week we had the honor to host the global team from Project AWARE in HeartSpace for the second year in a row to take part in Meridian, our strategy retreat. Ocean advocates, divers, and leaders from Australia, the U.K., France and the U.S. brought their heads and hearts together to Park City, Utah and trusted us to guide them through an immersive four-day experience. Not only did we fill over 75 pages of flip charts, we reviewed three different staff assessments and input from a survey to thousands of donors. We also embarked on adventures indoors and outdoors including hiking, biking and yoga that aligned, inspired and connected their team and ours.

You probably notice it all around you in your personal life. A colleague mentions he is going to see Madama Butterfly after work, and when you walk out of the office you notice a half dozen monarch butterflies flittering in the bushes by the sidewalk. You wake thinking of a friend and pick up your phone to see you just received a text message from her. You daydream about taking a vacation and later open an email announcing a sale on airfares. You consistently see 11:11 on your phone when you go to make a call.

You likely notice these relationships all around — the connections, interconnections, and too-uncanny-to-be-coincidences that seem to follow us, tempt us, and tease us every day. Carl Jung, the analytical psychologist, coined the term "synchronicities" to describe these relationships, which he defined as "meaningful coincidences." In Jung's view, there is something special going on under the rational universe, a connectedness that shows itself to us from time to time, when we pay attention.

Is it possible that these same meaningful coincidences exist in our organizations? And further, can we take advantage of them in our strategy? In our experience, the answer is yes and yes — if your team is awake and aware, and if your strategy is flexible and dynamic enough to support it.

One thing that all of history's great masters, leaders, and world-changers agreed on is that solving problems takes different strategies, thinking, and emotions than the strategies, thinking, and emotions of the problems themselves.

Hate is never right, period. Hating those who hate creates a cycle of escalation, not of resolution. They bring fists to a gathering, so you bring clubs. You bring clubs so they bring guns. They bring guns so you call the National Guard. The cycle almost always ends tragically. 

On Sunday, August 20th, I packed up my mom and two kiddos to head north to see the total solar eclipse. After receiving the invitation from a friend to share in the experience of totality, I tuned into my heart, ignored the media hype and decided to go. It was one of the best choices I’ve ever made.

Dismissing the better now in favor of the perfect later is almost always a dead-end to progress. In some rare cases it is right to hold out for the ideal outcome – but in most situations, the ideal outcome will only manifest itself through your continued faith, trust, and commitment to create it, brick by brick. Almost always, holding out for the "ideal conditions" or the "perfect resolution" is just a tricky form of self-sabotage.

Don't let go of your vision of the perfect – your vision of what is possible is the castle in the sky that will motivate you, inspire you, and connect you with supporters you can't imagine now. Envisioning the highest possibility is the first step to manifestation – it is "believing then seeing."

This is wrong.
We can change this.
I'm sorry. 
We can do better. 
I can start with myself.
I will not give up.
I will listen.
I see you.
We are one.
We are connected.
We all have value.
I will always care about you.
This will always matter to me. 

You are enough. Just as you are. Now.

You have everything you need to take the next step. To make the next choice laid before you.

You have been perfectly prepared for this moment. Every past learning has led you presently here.

You can trust your heart, your instincts, and your intuition. The quiet whispers deep within are nudging you to your truth.

You can let go of needing to figure it all out. You won’t. You can’t. You don’t need to.