Today, I want to discuss a topic that many leaders struggle with: the decision line of retention vs firing in the case of underperformance and how power influences these moments at work.

Here’s a take on one aspect of power dynamics and firing that maybe you haven’t heard before.  

I recently had a conversation with a heart-centered CEO who is grappling with the issue of potentially having to let go of some longtime teammates who’ve been with the company through many stages of growth. The organization has the funds to maintain the headcount, but these teammates are...

Common opinions about expanding our power at work often cite things like getting promoted, gaining decision-making power, getting a raise, expanding your network, and becoming recognized as a leader in your field. 

But none of these are foundations of power. They are actually expressions of power.

If you've been here with us at Wayfinding, you'll know we have a more specific, nuanced understanding of power than the average bears out there, and if you're new here—welcome!—and peep that link for your power orientation.

So how do we nurture our foundational...

Helping others rise to a new level of consciousness asks certain things of our beings. 

This community is comprised of a wide range of such bridges. Each of you helping to infuse more expansive worldviews into the world of work in amazing ways like regenerating the real estate industry; advancing DEIB in organizational leadership, practice, and policy; bringing psychedelic wisdom to the mental health field; redefining best practices at the highest levels of law; and guiding organizations to get work done in more adaptive, human ways. 

You bridge a reality of what’s so...

Sometimes a map gives us a whole new perspective.

Throughout this year, we’ve seen the heart-centered leaders in our community experience enduring shifts in their ability to perceive power after seeing and working with this detailed version of the Wayfinding Power Landscape that we developed in January. This impact is hugely significant since the widespread collective understanding of power is so low — what it even is, how it works, how to interact with it in regenerative ways, and how we're each constantly conducting power through our...

What Are the Energetic Postures We Can Experience in a Recession?

If perception informs behavior just as much as reality, what does that tell us about how we are responding to the prospects of a recession? The truth is, even the possibility of a recession is going to inspire many of us to change our behaviors. 

Marketers take this opportunity to start sharing insights on how to sell during a recession or how you and your business can become “recession-proof”. Before you begin to scramble, consider which posture you want to stand in.

Here are four energetic postures to...

Burnout is real. If you have experienced persistent fatigue, lack of motivation, and "feeling off" at work or life in general, surprise — you might be burned out.

You are not lazy, lacking drive, or making things up. You are exhausted from the daily grind. You have been running a sprint for ages, and your inner wisdom is telling you that your routine is no longer sustainable. 

Not all burnout is created equal.

Once you acknowledge the truth about your burnout, the next logical step is to find the root cause. What is causing the energy leakage? What part of...

Why a Calling Versus a Purpose, Vision, or Mission?

Any mission-oriented organization and any values-led leadership team will emphasize the importance of a purpose and a mission.

These statements are important symbols in an organization. They help organize the ideas, efforts, and imagination of an organization towards a goal that is often inherently service oriented.

At Wayfinding, we emphasize the importance of a calling because to pursue a calling is to be in relationship with it. It asks us to be in tune with our embodied sensing as we navigate the internal and external signals that make...

I had the incredible pleasure of being interviewed by Julia Winston on her podcast, Facilitator Forum, about my awareness as a facilitator and how I engage to facilitate people's power and leadership via sensing, rites of passage, wayfinding,  and learning from nature. This was my most fun podcast interview to date!

Here's the episode description:

“We need time to rehabilitate from the trauma of the pandemic” as Dr. David Rock, CEO of the NeuroLeadership Institute, wrote in the Harvard Business Review in February. This is a crucial pattern for all leaders and teams to take note of with many more contributing factors than just the pandemic.

It's notable when I have a moment when I'm having the same conversation across all my clients. This is one of those moments.

Here are some factors contributing to why we’re seeing such a widespread pattern:

1. Immersion in a constant trauma field in the world &...

Ready to Toss in the Towel at Work? Ask These Seven Questions Before You Do

 

"There has to be a way to do what I love, that has meaning, and still allows me to make a decent living" 

We hear this craving for an integrated life almost daily from our Wayfinding community. 

Over the last two years each of us have had plenty of time to ask, "what else might I want? how can I make a difference in the world and still make a living?"

Before you make the leap, changing jobs is a major transition. You can enter it with chaos and spin, or you...

I was terrified of remembering my power because I have abused it before. 

So when I received the offer to become part of Vital Leadership, I experienced huge inner resistance. Flashbacks of power abuse where I was the perpetrator came flooding in. Guilt towered over me, heaving rocks of shame. I was caught up in a storm, and I was drowning in a sea of fear.

If I get to remember my power, will I be intoxicated again?

But if I don’t trust myself to be capable of wielding my power for good, how am I supposed to support my team in creating systems for ...

In my previous article I explored what we know (and don’t know) about what intuition is (and isn’t). 

Through the course of this series, I’ll be sticking with the definition of intuition as a process of rapidly recognizing things without knowing how we do the recognizing, which results in affectively charged judgments.

In this article, I’ll talk about how you can practice sensing-based business by accessing your intuition for important decisions. 

In its essence, the way you access the knowing related to intuition is about receiving. 

The modes of how...

The simplest answer to the title question is: it depends on you. 

Intuition presents itself in a wide range of ways for me. In this article I’ll share examples of the sensations presented with leaders of innovation that I interviewed to give you a sense for what you too might be unknowingly experiencing in the workplace. 

If there are skeptics in your life (or maybe it’s your own voice in your head) that says “it’s JUST a feeling” you’re not alone. The dominant culture many of us grow up in emphasize our use of intellect as the most valid...

Practically speaking…

Intuition is a source of power and I want to make it more accessible to leaders. As we practice living with our intuition we become more whole, as family members, as partners, as teammates and as whole human beings seeking to do good in the world.

I have been exploring the depths of intuition since 2017. Both academically as part of completing my Masters in Positive Psychology & Org Development at Weatherhead School of Management as well as in the field with client-leaders looking to transform culture and introduce more sensing-based capacities into their...

There are certainly times when logistical constraints (time, money, etc) prevent us from investing in opportunities to grow, no matter how keen we are.

But there are also times when we tend to focus on money fears or their already overfull schedule as a way to not address an underlying (often subconscious) fear — that they’re scared about stepping into their own power.

The part of us that is small and protective grips and digs in when we’re considering a bid for power (*expanding our own capacity to open to greater energy) and it tells a lot of...

The end of the year invites us into our bones.

Whether it's landing our learnings in our bones, being grateful for life's blessings down to our marrow, feeling stripped to the bone by challenges, turning inward to nourish ourselves at the bone level, having the desire to curl up and rest our bones... May we listen and learn from the bones.

Here's a conversation Larissa and Nick had recently to land their learnings and sensing of 2021 in their bones.

Nick: Would you mind inviting me into the house that you speak from when you talk to this community in our newsletters? 

Larissa: Yeah,...

Wayfinding is not only the name of our organization and the signature system I’ve been contemplating, embodying, and weaving to find my way and support others finding their way in life, leadership, and organizational evolution. It is also a long-standing human skill that has existed across time and still exists in rich cultural traditions.

Wayfinding is our ability to find our way to places we have maybe never been before, or to places that we have been, but on a different day, as a different self, in a different time, and so in that way, too, they can be new.

...

Meet Jimmy Chin. He’s a world-renowned National Geographic photographer that brings us into incredibly intimate relationship with mountainscapes from all around the world (*you should definitely follow JimmyChin)

Jimmy and I have something in common. We both know that questing is a privilege. These are the journeys we choose to make room for and command all of our resourcefulness to make happen.

The Solo Quest is a signature element of the Alchemical Leadership program at Wayfinding. It allows the leaders who...

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Recently, I was working with an executive coaching client who got clarity on his calling.

Not just a market opportunity, but rather: what life has been preparing him for to bring forward greater service to the whole that aligns with his gifts and life experiences. He shared about it with excitement, named the trepidation about all the electricity coursing through him, noticed the ways it pulled at his ego, inhabited a visible sense of feeling humbled, then sat breathing deeply and quietly.

Here he was sitting on the threshold of...

Some of the expertise that my clients value the most comes from my personal life and my healing journey from a near-fatal accident that happened 10 years ago on Jan 10, 2011.

This journey is inseparable from my work in the world, informing my work every day. 

In honor of my ten-year anniversary, here is a map I made — primarily of the physical layers of my healing journey.

Leaders consistently value the insights I learned through this extended terrain because I learned how to bring a system (my body) back from near-death to bright aliveness, and I know how...

I didn't know there were awards for coaching :) But evidently there are and somehow I got nominated and was awarded Best Personal Growth and Development Coach for 2020 by Corporate Vision.

I didn't start Wayfinding to get awards — but I'm immensely proud to be creating beneficial impact for my clients and the world through my work.

Thank you, Corporate Vision!

In this fabulous conversation with Patrick Courneyer from Peakon, he and I explored opportunities for organizational evolution and redefining what's possible for business now. Navigating this new world of work is asking us to deal with enormous amounts of pressure, learn the true intelligence in sensing and aliveness, and to evolve systems of power in service of the whole. “The price of admission, at each stage is our old self. It’s our smaller skin. Like a snake, we have to shed that skin. We have to let it go.”

By far one of my favorite podcast conversations...