Anthony Silard at The Global Leadership Institute

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become a More Effective Leader

2012-01-30T06:51:00.000-08:00

Character is the foundation of leadership not only because it’s the

primary indicator of how others respond to you, but because it’s

the primary indicator of how you respond to you.

--- Anthony Silard

You internalize a self-image based on how you behave toward others. When you act with integrity, you feel like a decent and worthy person, and you set the bar high for the treatment you will accept from others. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini shares the ancient Afghan wisdom that there are many ways to take what belongs to others. When you cheat, you take the other person’s right to be treated honorably. When you steal, you take their right to a livelihood. When you lie, you take their right to the truth. When you harm someone emotionally or physically, you take their right to emotional or physical health. Whether you act deliberately or not is very important. Despite our best efforts, we all unconsciously take what belongs to others in some of these ways. We should not allow our transgressions to affect our self-image as long as we learn from our actions and commit ourselves to act in healthier ways in the future. Pick a situation at home, in a friendship, or at the office and ask yourself whether you acted with integrity. If you received a lot of support from others on a crucial project, did you give them the credit they deserved, or did you jump into the limelight and not look back? If you made a promise to someone and then later wished you hadn’t, did you honor your word or at least reset their expectations before it was too late, or did you find a way to prevent them from receiving what they had coming to them? In every way large and small, in every single moment of your day, you choose whether to practice integrity.

Are the Internet and Social Media Making Us Happier? Anthony Silard's Upcoming Interviews with Voice of America and Radio Disney

2012-01-27T12:58:00.000-08:00

Do you think that computers, the internet and social media are contributing to our happiness?

I'll be recording interviews with Voice of America on Monday and Radio Disney on Tuesday on this subject. Please share how you feel about this question with me and our community. If you can, please provide a concrete example or two of how technology is making you either happier, more miserable, or both.

Anthony Silard Interview with Moe Abdou on 33 Voices

2012-01-26T10:01:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed speaking with Moe last week, many insights from The Connection in this interview.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Live the Life You Have Imagined

2012-01-23T07:48:00.000-08:00

Do it and then see it.

--- Anthony Silard

Dimitri, an investment banker in his early forties, arrived early as usual at his office on the fiftieth floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001. Just before nine, a plane hit the North Tower. He immediately headed for the exit and began running down the stairs. Two security guards confronted him and ordered him to return to his office and stay calm. After sitting at his desk for a few minutes, he walked back into the hallway, snuck into an elevator with a few friends, descended three floors, returned to the stairwell and exited the building. The decisions you make at times that demand rapid and effective action help clarify what you truly value. Dimitri had very little time to decide whether to follow his instincts or subordinate them to authority. How would you have acted in Dimitri’s shoes? I can assure you that Dimitri reviewed and questioned his life priorities many times over after recovering from this eventful moment that called forth everything inside him. In which area of your life do you need to take action this week? What is the writing on the wall you’ve been refusing to read? Pick a situation and ask yourself if you’re in motion or paralyzed. If you’ve met someone you like, are you getting to know them or convincing yourself that—like all the others—they don’t score well on all forty-three of the preferences you’ve meticulously outlined in your “Compatibility List”? Get to know them more and number thirty-eight may diminish in importance. If you’re experiencing moments of revelation about a new web site you want to develop, are you making a blueprint or telling yourself that you don’t have time.

Busy Weekend - TV Interview on WBAL (NBC's Baltimore Affiliate) 9:15 Sat. Morning Then Book Launch Party in DC on Sunday

2012-01-20T13:08:00.000-08:00

If you're in or near Washington, D.C., please join us from 5 - 7 pm Sunday evening at Busboys & Poets (14th and V Street location) to launch my new book The Connection, just published by Simon & Schuster. Here's the evite so you have the info, but there's no need to reserve, just come join us.

It's a free event and I'll be donating all the book proceeds to scholarships for low-income youth to participate in a youth leadership program. If you can't make it, please check out The Connection on amazon.

Some Good Leadership Book Recommendations for Nonprofit Leaders

2012-01-17T15:50:00.001-08:00

Hope you enjoy these leadership book recommendations from Patrick Lawler, CEO of Youth Villages. Lawler also shares some good ideas around strategic planning.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Create the Intimate Relationship You Desire

2012-01-16T07:15:00.000-08:00

What got you here

won’t get you there.

--- Marshall Goldsmith

In no area of our lives does our daily process—how we go about this thing called life—hit a more significant inflection point than in relationships. In most areas of your life, what you did yesterday provides at least decent preparation for what you have to do tomorrow. For example, you use many of the same skills you refine during the job search—task completion, writing concise letters, conversing with various people about your field of interest, keeping steady working hours—once you land a job. Yet the skills you hone while dating—quickly sizing people up and comparing them to your idealized image of a partner; learning how to weather rejection; gracefully exiting when you lose interest or the other person starts acting too this or too that; pretending you understand the names of esoteric vegetables that appear on menus at restaurants you would never choose to endure or spend your money on alone—yield virtually no benefit in a committed relationship. There are new skills to learn once you take the leap into partnership: how to keep your mouth shut; how to handle not getting what you want all the time; how to develop a common vision for a shared future with another human being. While the skills that permit a thriving dating life center around individual gain, the skills that enable an intimate relationship focus on collective benefit. Once you cross the line from dating into a relationship, the first set of skills—which you have spent a lifetime developing—no sirven (“don’t serve you,” in Spanish). These skills become like extra limbs that obstruct your movement and must atrophy if you are to evolve. You become the revolutionary who must put their arms down and learn how to govern. Take some time to reflect this week on where you are in the intimate area of your life, and where you want to be. Then come up with a list of skills you will need to develop to get there. Make a few changes to your weekly schedule—such as taking a communications course, volunteering, or doing anything that helps you focus on others rather than yourself—to help you refine these skills.

The Global Leadership Institute on Twitter

2012-01-12T13:36:00.000-08:00

Check out the new Twitter feed for The Global Leadership Institute @LeadGlobalOrg
This will be an excellent leadership resource.

The Decision To Visit My Father

2012-01-12T11:01:00.000-08:00

Just before Christmas, my wife Karla and I were thinking about the idea of visiting my father in Maui, but we weren’t sure about it because it was so far to travel from Washington D.C. I called my Dad and we talked about the idea, and then I said that I would need a few days to talk it over with Karla, that I couldn’t promise anything, but that we would think about it and liked the idea.

Karla and I talked about it and decided it was just too far to go this time given the amount of time we had to rest from a busy year. I wasn’t looking forward to calling my Dad, as I knew he would be disappointed. Three days later, I called him.
           “How are you doing?” I asked.
           “We are doing well, just hoping that you have good news that you will be visiting us.”
           “I’m afraid that I don’t have good news, Dad. I think it’s just too far considering the time we have. We love the idea of visiting, but think it would be better for another time.”
           Without missing a beat, my father replied, “You must feel tired, you have been working so hard and also juggling so much with your upcoming book release and all the other things going on in your life.”
           “Exactly. We really want to come, but it’s also our first holiday season in our new home, and we want to spend some time here and just wind down from a busy year.”
           “You have been doing so much, I am sure you are looking forward to a break,” my Dad replied.
           After a few more minutes of conversation, I hung up the phone and Karla and I went for a walk.

           “My Dad was so sweet,” I told Karla. He was so understanding and compassionate about our situation.” I felt my heart full with my father. I also started to feel a compelling desire to visit him.
           “Your father is such a nice person,” Karla said. “Maybe we should go spend some time with him.”
           I looked at her, and we both knew something had changed; something we had to honor.
          “My father has learned what I have been teaching about communication,” I shared. “He’s beaten me at my own game.” I shook my head, and we both laughed.

An hour later, we were back at home, booking our flight to Hawaii.

It was one of the best trips we’ve ever had. I felt really connected with my Dad. He was fully present, which is what I, and all of us, want more than anything from the people we love.

Article about finding your passion in The Journal Star

2012-01-11T14:49:00.000-08:00

This recent article in The Journal Star (Peoria, IL) shares some of my approach to finding your passion, and why it's so important in this economy.

Book Launch Party on Jan. 22nd!

2012-01-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

My book The Connection with Simon & Schuster was just launched yesterday. Hope you can join us for the book launch party on the 22nd!

You're invited to Book Launch Party: Anthony Silard's The Connection - Click here to RSVP

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Build Meaningful Relationships

2012-01-09T08:44:00.000-08:00

If the truth carries intelligent people away, let them go;
the faster the better.

--- Swami Vivekananda

The greatest gift you can offer to the world is to be your authentic Self. Not authentic in the sense of, “I’ll become an open book, let it all hang out, and express myself for the sake of expressing myself.” Authentic meaning: “I’ll express myself with purpose.” As you learn to speak up more about how you truly feel, some people will stray from the more genuine version of you. Not appealing? Consider the alternative: keeping them by the side of someone you no longer recognize. You always have the choice to speak assertively about what really matters to you or remain silent and let others have their way. Make a commitment to become more genuine and honest with others about what you value and you will find that your relationships become more fulfilling and your life more meaningful as others remove their kid gloves and learn how to relate to the real you. As you practice voicing what you truly want, there will come a day when you catch a brief glimpse of the tremendous potential for self-realization lurking within you brought out by the simple act of finding the right words to express your deeper thoughts and feelings. While asserting yourself courts more risk (once your ideas are acted upon, more fingers will point toward you if they don’t bear fruit) it is precisely these daily risks that demonstrate and build your capacity—most importantly, to you; and then to others—to create the relationships, family, company, team, or initiative you desire. This week, practice speaking up about what’s important to you with someone with whom you feel comfortable and have a healthy relationship. Then gradually apply your assertiveness skills in more challenging conversations.

The Greatest Christmas Gift

2011-12-21T15:00:00.000-08:00

It’s ironic that, in America, the day after Thanksgiving—a day of gratitude for what we have to appreciate in our lives—is dedicated to the acquisition of more. We’ve even given this day a name: “Black Friday.” Whether the term originated due to massive traffic jams on the day after Thanksgiving or because it was the day many merchants’ accounts went “in the black” as they began to turn a profit for the year, our actions on the highest-shopping day of the year sometimes have dark undertones.

This year, a woman pepper sprayed 20 competing customers in Los Angeles for a discounted Xbox. During 2008’s Black Friday, a Wal-mart worker was trampled to death and four people were taken to the hospital—including a woman eight months pregnant—after throngs of people stormed the front door as the Long Island superstore opened early Friday morning.

The practice of Black Friday, which commences with waiting in line—often in the bitter cold—from unseemly hours of the morning and, for some, culminates in a “hot deal,” has also provided a much-needed boost to a fragile economy: America’s retailers generated revenues of $52.4 billion—up 16.7 percent from last year—on this year’s Black Friday.

America’s shopping culture—already in overdrive compared to just about any other nation—has recently injected itself with steroids. Macy’s just announced it will be open 24 hours a day for the 83 hours leading up to Christmas eve, only to be outdone by Toys ‘R Us (112 hours). My wife and I made a trip to the shopping mall on Saturday and I was surprised to learn that many other stores have been open all month until 11 pm, up a few hours daily from even a few years ago.

Black Friday used to mean that retailers opened at 6 am; in 2011, for the first time in history, many retailers, including Macy’s, opened at midnight the day before. Even before these extended shopping hours, America had built a reputation—highlighted by the massive numbers of people who come here from all over the world on shopping trips—as a nation of convenience, and one of the best places on the planet to consume what you want, when you want it, at the lowest price.

In most countries, merchants don’t keep these kind of hours because their employees and customers like to have, well, a life. The Black Friday incidents and the increasingly porous shopping hours betray a cultural shift that is stealthily affecting us: our acquisitiveness is becoming desperate. While it’s true that many of us aren’t doing as well financially as we were a few years ago, we must remember that to internalize the downturn is a choice. When we can’t find our worth on the inside, we futilely seek it on the outside. Buying things for our loved ones is a way of trying to convince them—and ourselves—that we are still doing OK, that we still have value.

Both we and our popular merchants are desperately attempting to demonstrate our continued relevance, and it’s difficult to determine who is mimicking who. One thing is certain: the bricks-and-mortars merchants are emulating the online merchants, who are always open 24-7, not just during the holidays.

The mania retailers feel is understandable: our government’s decision not to tax online vendors like amazon—which already has the advantage of not paying prime storefront rent, or any retail rent for that matter—unfairly threatens their existence, and their place in our local communities. In this sense, at least, one positive of Black Friday is it’s the one day when many of us step out from behind our computers and actually interact with other human beings while engaging in real (e.g. not virtual) commerce. There are many stories of new friendships initiated while standing in line next to a stranger in the wee hours of the morning.

Yet whether all this consumerism is truly in “the holiday spirit” is debatable. Most of us are over-working ourselves in order to maintain our current lifestyles in a troubled economy to the extent that we no longer have time for the people we love. To compensate for our lack of attention, we shower them with gifts while we distractedly check our smart-phones.

We focus on giving others our presents, when what they truly want from us is our presence. In many families, the first has become a substitute for a lack of the second. In fact, many of us no longer spend any significant amount of time even choosing presents to give, and instead email gift certificates—which are useful but mostly soulless. An amazon gift certificate is one shade short of giving cash, since you can buy just about anything (the purpose of legal tender) on their website. There is a reason most of us made the shift years ago from giving cash to giving gifts: a gift signals that you actually took some time to think about the other person. That feeling—that the other person put a lot of care into your gift—has become for many a fading fantasy.

We have become so disconnected from both ourselves and others that we shop as yet another form of distraction, as if we needed one. For many of us, shopping is like dating: it’s the thrill of the chase rather than enjoying the catch—and, whether it’s a potential mate or a discounted laptop, we’ll stay out all night in the hopes of conquest—that keeps us coming back for more.

One of my favorite cartoons is of an old man on his deathbed saying to one of his family members, “I should have bought more crap.” What we most deeply desire from others is love, not material possessions. A study of happiness by Richard Layard of the London School of Economics has documented that while families that earn $50,000 per year are measurably happier than those that earn $10,000 per year, and families that earn $100,000 per year are slightly happier than those that earn $50,000 per year, families that earn $500,000 per year have no measurable increase in happiness over families that earn $100,000 per year. These studies yield the same results whether survey respondents are all in the U.S. or the UK, or by international cross-country comparisons.

David Geffen once said, “Those who think money buys happiness don’t have money.” The happiness studies demonstrate that Geffen is only partially right; the other part of the equation is that those who think money is unrelated to happiness have a lot of money. It seems we need a balance of presence and presents, with a strong tilt toward the former.

I recently saw Thich Nhat Hanh, the 85 year old Vietnamese monk who Martin Luther King, Jr. nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, speak at the Warner Theater in Washington, D.C. The Buddhist monk asked the sold-out crowd, “What is the greatest gift you can give to the person you love?” After a hushed silence, he shared: “To be fully present.”

To be fully present with others, we must first be fully present with ourselves. We are so quick to externalize our challenges, whether it’s our shrinking checkbook or our fear about our jobs. Before we Occupy Wall Street or Occupy the Shopping Mall, we need to Occupy Ourselves. How do we do this, and become fully present? By taking an inner detour, slowing down a bit, and learning how to spend quality time with ourselves—not online, not seeking the next best deal; simply befriending the silence rather than running from it.

In my leadership conferences, I often call this principle “Schedule Solitude.” It is this silence that connects us with our deepest values and life Vision. When we become fully present with ourselves, we become less interested in amassing things or even amassing knowledge. Instead, we connect with our inner wisdom that signals what we most deeply value.

Once we increase our comfort with being alone and reflecting on what gives our life meaning, we naturally become ready and available to listen with empathy, to truly care about what others value, and to also learn to speak authentically and give voice to what lies deep inside so we can make a genuine connection with others that creates meaning in our lives. This is the greatest gift we can offer to the people we love.

Who Was the Real Steve Jobs?

2011-12-19T09:29:00.001-08:00

When I speak about Steve Jobs at conferences, I have taken to using the term "the folkloric Steve Jobs leadership style." There is much talk in the media about "Good Steve" and "Bad Steve." The "Bad Steve," we are told, parked in handicapped spaces and publicly humiliated employees who weren't performing up to his standards. No drive for success is worth mistreating people along the way, we think, and we are right. Yet who was the real Steve Jobs?

We are told that Steve had no time for charity, yet it is unclear whether the truth is that he didn't care about charity or that he didn't care about promoting himself for caring about charity, as so many others commonly do today.

When I watch his commencement speech at the 2005 Stanford graduation, I wonder what this mythical icon of our technology age was truly like; and I admit to myself that I'll probably never know.

I am also inspired. There is a lot in his speech for us to digest, in particular some excellent messages about pursuing our dreams and believing in our potential to accomplish what we set our minds to. I love the question he asked himself daily - "Am I happy about what I am going to be doing today?" - and his willingness to make changes when the answer was consecutively no for a number of days. I am also inspired by his interest in calligraphy as a dropout taking courses at Reed College, which led to his idea of multiple fonts for the first Macintosh, and how he transformed his passion for style and detail into a quest to make technology simple and attractive.

Steve Jobs had a unique blend of visionary and obsessive leader that permanently altered the way we perceive technology and how we integrate it into our lives. He deserves credit for that. He also re-engineered significant "failures" in his life, like being fired from the company he created (Apple), only to create other immensely successful companies (Pixar and NeXT), and then, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, return to steward Apple through the most successful period in its history and turn the music and cell-phone industries on their heads.

Jobs says in the commencement address that being fired from Apple “freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life….The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again.” Jobs is living proof that what one person calls ‘failure’ is evolution and positive growth to another. That's an important message for each of us to take to heart as we accept where we haven't reached our expectations in 2011 and start making our plans for the new year.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Live the Life You Have Imagined

2011-12-19T06:56:00.000-08:00

Your dreams set the ceiling for your existence.
--- Anthony Silard

You can only achieve what you first conceive. Think about it: how could you possibly rise higher than your imagination, or exceed your self-perception? Where will you find the determination or internal compass to navigate through obstacles and keep pushing on toward a destination unless you instinctually know what the destination looks like and have faith in your ability to reach it? If you are buying into this way of thinking, then you also know how important it is to set your ceiling high. Yet you may not be convinced. I understand, and know this isn’t easy. It’s hard to have hope and want something again after being disappointed. Somewhere along the way, many of us become disheartened and weary, and lose our courage to dream. Alternatively, we just say to ourselves, “Why make all that effort, and allocate so much of my emotional, financial, and physical resources just to end up with nothing. I have better things to do.” You never end up with nothing. The learning you experience along the way always brings you one step closer to realizing your dream. Always. Even when it seems like it’s just too much, and you don’t deserve to be experiencing the suffering that’s unexpectedly come your way. Make a commitment to undergo a sea change in your thinking, and shift from “Why me?” thoughts to “Yes, me, and this is what I’m going to do differently in the future.” Take some time this week to reflect on what you are capable of, and what you want to create in your life for yourself and others. Let the sky be the limit, throw all the “shoulda, coulda, woulda” thoughts to the wind, and envision what could be possible if only you were to believe in your ability to bring it into existence while learning from what transpires along your path every step of the way. Sit with these thoughts over the holidays, and then start designing ways to translate them into meaningful actions that will enable you to live the life you have imagined.

Announcing Anthony Silard’s New Simon and Schuster Book, The Connection

2011-12-14T13:29:00.000-08:00

Your passion is the one thing you offer the world that can never be duplicated, outsourced, or silenced.

With soaring unemployment rates, many people now find themselves without a job or with employment that is unsatisfying, tenuous, or even in conflict with their values. Now from leadership expert and President of The Center for Social Leadership, Anthony Silard, The Connection offers a clear guide to discovering your passion and integrating it into your professional and private life.

With a simple set of exercises, The Connection will help you:

· Build a career that aligns with your values.
· Create a holistic view of success.
· Transform your dreams to goals, and your goals to reality.
· Bring purpose to every aspect of your life.

The Connection will help you pinpoint the true source of your passion and motivation to build a foundation for change, and, ultimately, the skills to cultivate a truly authentic life.

“The Connection is an affirmation of the beauty and higher calling within each of us. It will help the reader firmly ground him- or herself in values that spring from deep within, and then embark mindfully on a path toward meaning, joy, and unconditional self-acceptance.”

—Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance

In stores January 10, 2011. Preorder your copy of The Connection now at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become a More Effective Leader

2011-12-12T08:10:00.000-08:00

If you suspect a man, don’t employ him,
and if you employ him, don’t suspect him.
--- Ancient Chinese proverb

Here’s one of the burning questions that I have observed keeps leaders up at night: “How can I be sure the people doing the work are really doing the work?” Many of these leaders come into work the next day and—reacting to their insecurity about whether everything is getting done up to snuff—ask questions about how much work has been done, such as “Did you get Isabel’s feedback on the proposal yet?” or “When do you think you’ll have the report?” These transactional conversations are necessary at times, but when they become the centerpiece of the employer-employee verbal exchange, they sap the same energy these employers so desperately need in their employees for their companies to be successful. This week, take stock of the transactional conversations you have with your employees, and reflect on how you can make these dialogues more transformational. Ask yourself how you can punctuate the targeted questions you ask your employees with more reflective, open-ended questions that enable them to question the purpose of their work and how it contributes to the organizational mission and the betterment of society. Consider how you can rise to one of the greatest challenges every leader faces: to help people connect with and then live their higher selves.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become Your Greatest Fan

2011-12-05T06:07:00.000-08:00

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another
with no loss of enthusiasm.
-- Winston Churchill

The word “failure” is so laced with judgment and negativity that I propose we erase it from our vocabulary altogether. Instead of using the word “failure” or “problem,” I suggest you use the word “challenge.” While the first two words make you feel badly about yourself (I don’t know about you, but the expressions “I’m a failure” or “I have a problem” make me want to climb into a hole and take up permanent residence there) the word “challenge” inspires you to work hard to overcome it. “Challenge” is also the only word that literally contains the word “change” within it. Also consider this insight from China: The word “crisis” is written in Mandarin with two characters. One character signifies danger and the other means opportunity. This is the choice you have whenever you face a crisis: surrender to the danger or find the opportunity. To find the opportunity, draw a table with two columns. At the top of the left column, write “Challenge.” At the top of the right column, write “Opportunity.” Write down some of the greatest challenges you have faced in the past few years in the left column, and then, in the right column, their corresponding opportunities. Next, write down your current challenges (in the left column), and then, in the adjoining column, the opportunities located within them. Repeat this exercise periodically, especially when you are feeling frustrated with the turn of events in your life, or down about yourself, or a lack of energy or motivation.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Live the Life You Have Imagined

2011-11-28T09:28:00.000-08:00

Don’t spend your life trying to be better than others.
Spend it trying to be better than yourself.
--- Anthony Silard

The only way to find the time to reflect on life in our over-stimulated society is to break out of the mix. It’s not enough to do things differently. Resilience is about doing the right things in the right ways at the right time based on how your environment and the people around you—whether it’s your customers, employees, friends, or intimate partner—are changing. Your inner wisdom that illuminates the right path forward will surface more often when you take time to reconnect with yourself. Like any other relationship, your relationship with yourself—picture a small child inside you waiting for your attention—needs nurturing and special time allocated for its growth. The more you develop this relationship, the more solid your core values and life Vision will become. Your values are the anchor in your life that informs you what you won’t change, and, in so doing, liberates you to change everything else. Dedicate some time this week to turn your gaze inward and reflect on what you most value. Even small amounts of time—a half-hour walk in between meetings, fifteen minutes of meditation in the morning, ten minutes to stretch and walk around after going for a run or to the gym—hold tremendous leverage, and will help you process your daily emotions and feel more centered and attuned to the change you need to embrace in your life.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Balance Work and Life

2011-11-21T06:04:00.000-08:00

Silence is a friend who will never betray.

--- Confucius

Ask yourself this question and try to answer it with brutal honesty: “How do I feel about being alone?” Do you embrace being alone, or do you go to great lengths to avoid yourself? Like a friend from whom you’ve become estranged, it can take awhile to reestablish your comfort with silence. Yet it’s important that you do. Consider music. It would lose its soothing quality if there were no periods of silence between the notes, and would become just noise. Similarly, your life will become an unbearable cacophony of noise if you refuse to give yourself time to relax, recover, and process what life has sent your way. No matter where you are, you can access these moments of silence that transform the noise of your life into a beautiful symphony. One strategy I practice daily is to pause for a few moments before entering a house, building, or car. I stop for five or ten seconds, look at the sky, and take a few deep breaths. After I walked in the front door of my building one day, the receptionist, Janet, asked me, “Anthony, why do you always do that? You stop and look at something, but you’re really not looking at anything.” This simple practice reminds me to not take myself too seriously, to breathe, and to appreciate the beauty of life. The vastness outside helps me connect with the vastness inside. While this may sound minimal, these few seconds of silence interspersed throughout my day make it easier for me to also pause for a few moments in more difficult circumstances—such as when someone puts me down or lashes out at me in anger, and I’m feeling a strong emotion like insecurity, anxiety, or resentment and need to reconnect with my higher Self before acting. Design a simple practice you can begin integrating into your schedule this week to embrace the silence in between the notes of your life.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Build Meaningful Relationships

2011-11-14T11:34:00.000-08:00

Sharing thoughts without a purpose is like driving without a
direction: you can end up just about anywhere.
--- Anthony Silard

Being an authentic person does not mean “letting it all hang out.” If you are thinking about distancing from a longtime friend because of how he’s been acting lately, or telling the person who has been pursuing you that you just don’t find them attractive, or sharing a controversial view on an issue not core to your campaign, or taking your company in a completely different direction that you still need to think through, you do not need to share these thoughts in the name of authenticity. While being authentic means being honest when you share information, it doesn’t mean disclosing every piece of information that floats across your mind. You share only what you genuinely think; yet you also think about what you share. You most likely understand this in your career. If you want to move your company toward a compelling Vision— whether it’s to develop the most user-friendly real estate software on the market, or build the most versatile football team in the league, or enable thousands of at-risk youth to attend college—then your interactions with your employees, board members, and coworkers must emanate from that Vision. The same is true in your relationships with your family members, partner, and friends—if you also want to move those relationships in a healthy direction. Feeling obligated to communicate every thought that crosses your mind—whether it’s aligned with your Vision or not—is not being authentic. Why? A thought based on a temporary mood or a negative emotion such as insecurity, anger, or fear, or a thought that would unnecessarily harm another human being, does not reflect your deeper, more intact self—where your authenticity resides. Spend some time this week reflecting on what authenticity means to you and how you will practice it in your life.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become a More Effective Leader

2011-11-07T13:10:00.000-08:00

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
---Confucius

I take Confucius’ words of wisdom to heart when designing leadership development programs. Many of the participants in my conferences learn more about leadership in our “leadership laboratory”—where they are placed in real-life leadership scenarios—than from any set of theories. Their preconceived notions of how a leader should act—which they learned from observing their parents and former teachers, coaches, and bosses—play out. During this “mental rewiring” process, each person refines their personal leadership style. Why does this work? Because you don’t become a leader, an astronaut, a ballerina, or anything else by just talking about it. To develop a deeply rooted understanding of your vocation that will stay with you when you really need it—that is, when you’re under pressure or the next crisis hits—you have to practice acting out your role. Reflect on an important goal that you want to pursue in your life. What role do you need to fulfill to achieve it? How will you get started this week acting out this role? Write down a few tasks to get yourself out of the starting gate and give this role a try. Incorporate what you learn along the way to further develop your acting skills.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Live the Life You Have Imagined

2011-10-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

When there is no light at the end of the tunnel,
it becomes very dark.
--- Anthony Silard

One of life’s greatest dangers is to not have the faintest clue what to do next. You’ve no doubt seen movies about celebrities who lose their way and succumb to drugs, self-destructive behavior, and even suicide. They achieve their goals beyond their wildest expectations, find themselves without anything left to aim for, and enter a personal hell. Consider the trajectory of Johnny Cash’s life as depicted in the movie Walk the Line. Celebrity brings a rush of excitement to the life of a former door-to-door salesman from Arkansas, which is quickly followed by depression and an addiction to pills. What pulls him out of it? A compelling Vision to improve the lives of prisoners and to love a woman. Did the Man in Black ever finish helping prisoners and then say, “Been there, done that. Time for a new goal”? No way. Did he run out of love to give to June Carter? Never. What unattainable Vision do you have that you will never stop working toward? To be a loving and devoted parent? To be an excellent doctor on the cutting-edge of health care treatment? To help people attune to their inner energy through the most compassionate yoga instruction possible? I realize this is a hard sell. I’m asking you to buy a ticket to a destination you’ll never reach. I know it sounds counterintuitive. So why buy your ticket? Because it’s the journey—not the destination—that gives your life meaning. To step on board, ask yourself this question over the next few days: “What will I never attain, yet willingly pursue for a lifetime?” Answering this question will help you discover your deepest passion and life Vision.

Frustrated with technology?

2011-10-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Create the Intimate Relationship You Desire

2011-10-24T05:37:00.000-07:00

Don’t tell me, show me.
--- Lyndon B. Johnson

Whatever he tells you he is usually is either how he wishes he were or how he perceives himself, but not how he truly is. In our microwave society, many people have come to believe that you can just add water, have a few dinners and—poof!—you understand another person. The only true indicator of how someone will act in the future is how they act in the present—especially when they have to handle adversity—which is only revealed over time. Have you ever heard the saying, “Watch how your date treats the server. It’s how he will be treating you in six months”? Whether it’s a romantic interest, a new friend, or a potential business partner, there are no shortcuts to building trust. A farmer can’t throw seeds on the ground and expect a good harvest. There is no express lane to understanding another person. The only tried-and-true method is to patiently observe their daily actions over time. Dedicate some time to getting to know someone a little better this week by asking them a few open-ended questions about their life, and then listening to what they have to say without judgment. Alternatively, just spend some time with them by going for a walk together or sharing a meal. These encounters, when repeated often over time, are the only way to build the necessary trust to create a healthy, meaningful relationship.

2011-10-17T05:31:00.000-07:00

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick
themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
--- Winston Churchill

When you dream, you experience moments when the future rushes in and you see what your life can become—if only you pay attention. To dream is to enlarge and expand these moments when you stumble over the truth; to put the activities you attach so much importance to on hold; and to plumb the depths of and attempt to understand the deeply rooted feelings these quiet moments evoke within you. Why is it so important to dream? Because going for what you really desire in life isn’t easy; it means putting an end to keeping your dreams at bay and your ceiling low. It means that just when you thought you wouldn’t be able to find any further reserve of effort within, you dig a little deeper until your metal detector starts buzzing and lighting up. It means no longer saying: “If I aim too high and don’t get what I want, I won’t be able to live with myself. It’s safer for me to just stay where I am and not think about something greater. This way, I won’t be disappointed.” If you insist on living this way, get ready for a life you don’t have to get ready for. Instead, take some time this week to design a few unique strategies to integrate time to dream into your daily life. Write down a few small, concrete ways to think regularly about what you most want to bring into your life.

2011-10-10T06:52:00.000-07:00

Freedom is not free.

--- Inscription on the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C.

To develop your own Vision for your life and relentlessly pursue it is the only freedom I know of. Like anything of import, it’s not free. The cost is to drill down to the core of your suffering. Why do this? Because confronting the pain that lingers inside you is precisely what liberates you from it. You will then be able to discover your passion for what you want to change in the world. “But why go through all this pain to confront even more pain that’s better forgotten?” you may be thinking. “I’d rather focus on what makes me happy.” I realize what I’m asking you to do isn’t easy. Let’s face it: “Confront My Suffering” probably isn’t the first thing you want to put on your “To Do” list. Yet it’s worth your time to fight the human tendency to avoid thinking about the pain you’ve experienced. Once you integrate these periodic self-dialogues into your schedule alongside “Meet Mary for Tennis,” your life’s mission—like a mountain lake after the sediment has sifted to the bottom—will start to become clear. Where you once saw an abundance of time and a scarcity of opportunities, you will see the opposite. Most importantly—for you and the rest of us you share this planet with—you will find a sense of meaning in the brief amount of time you have left on this earth, which will guide you toward thoughtful, compelling action. Take some time this week to think about the suffering you’ve experienced in your life, what it has taught you, and what this learning guides you to change in your life and the lives of others.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become Your Greatest Fan

2011-10-03T06:11:00.000-07:00

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.

--- African proverb

Many venture capital firms are actually more likely to invest in an entrepreneur who has already failed in a prior business effort, as long as the entrepreneur can demonstrate how he or she learned from it. Why? The entrepreneur has experienced the learning curve that only ‘failure’ generates. It’s my experience that the most successful leaders all have one thing in common: they “fail wisely.” After being fired from the company he started at age thirty (Apple), Steve Jobs used the opportunity to build the most successful animation company in history (Pixar). He later returned to lead Apple through its most successful period and revolutionize the music industry. Jobs has said that being fired from Apple “freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life … The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again.” Jobs is living proof that what one person calls “failure” is evolution and positive growth to another. As adults we brood over our “failures”—which is precisely what keeps us failing over and over again. Our feelings of failure generate even greater feelings of low self-esteem that diminish our capacity to succeed. The next time you have a thought such as “I’m a failure” or “Look, there I go, messing up again,” mentally reengineer your negative thought by instead asking yourself the questions: “How can I fail wisely?” and “What must I learn from this experience to help me more effectively reach my goals?” Apply the inner wisdom that emanates from your responses to move more assuredly forward—with the new skills and learning you have picked up along the way—toward your goals.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Build Meaningful Relationships

2011-09-26T18:49:00.000-07:00

It’s better to not get what you want and act with integrity
than to get what you want and not act with integrity.
--- Anthony Silard

When you deliberately engage in actions such as not holding your company to environmental standards (taking the right of people to live in a healthy world) or demeaning a coworker (taking their right to be treated with respect), you end up hurting yourself. How does this happen? Your self-image evolves in the direction of your actions. You see yourself as someone who takes from rather than gives to others, as someone who has a negative impact on the people around them. As a result, your self-image suffers, and you lower the level of treatment you will accept from others. Why would you accept such treatment? You feel you are receiving what you deserve. This unconscious meritocracy is very real and present within each of us (with the exception of some extreme cases such as sociopaths, who can act without an overarching conscience) and sets the floor and ceiling of your existence. In other words, it determines the bandwidth of the love you will allow yourself to receive from others. It is the concrete explanation of the old saying “What goes around comes around.” Reflect on a time in your life when you acted with integrity, even at the cost of a short-term goal or desire. Also recall a time when you placed your immediate interests above what you knew was right for others. What were the outcomes of these two critical moments in your life? How did they influence your self-esteem and inner strength? Now meditate on how you have been acting toward others over the last few months. Ask yourself this question: “What has come first—my desire to get what I want, or my deeper conviction to act with integrity?” Envision how you will act going forward to assimilate the integrity you need to fill your life with the relationships you desire.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become a More Effective Leader

2011-09-19T04:52:00.000-07:00

Leadership is the capacity to build relationships
toward a common purpose.
--- Anthony Silard

The word “company” is derived from com (with) and panis (bread), and literally means “to break bread with.” A company is nothing more than a set of relationships. As these relationships are constructed, so is the company or organization constructed. Unaware of this dynamic, many people explode at others and burn bridges when they feel anxious or frustrated. Alternatively, they don’t deliver what they commit to, which erodes trust and, consequently, the very relationships they need to generate long-term success. How do you define a healthy relationship? What behaviors characterize such a relationship? Picture yourself twenty years from now, and the type of relationships you want your life to be filled with. Describe these relationships so clearly that you can feel, smell, touch them. Write down how you will have to act to create them. Also note which actions you will have to avoid, even when your mood du jour insists otherwise. Now consider the important relationships you will need to build to create the company, organization, volunteer group, school club, family, or political campaign you’ve been dreaming about for years. Get started this week creating the relationships that will enable you to live the life you desire.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Live the Life You Have Imagined

2011-09-12T04:54:00.000-07:00

Never forget that your computer was designed by programmers living within the constraints of humankind’s current
level of knowledge.
--- Anthony Silard

What you love to do is much more than crunching numbers or committing everyday procedures to memory. All the facts that you memorize can also be memorized by someone willing to work for 10 percent of your salary in a nation far, far away. They can probably even be memorized by a computer. Yet while knowledge can be outsourced, wisdom can’t. Thanks to information technology networks that span the globe, knowledge has more reach than ever before, although not necessarily more depth. Take some time this week to attune to what your heart responds to, what most motivates you and makes you feel content with your life, and how you want to spend the days you still have left. Ask yourself a few times per day, “What do I feel like doing right now?” Then allow your feelings to pour out and reveal what you truly enjoy. Also ask: “What is the impact I deeply want to make in society?” and “How do I want the world to be different as a result of my life?” Put aside the what-I-should-be-doing voice that drones on incessantly in your mind, and listen to the what-I-feel-like-doing voice that emanates simply and clearly from your heart. This is the only path to a career that will sustain you.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Balance Work and Life

2011-09-06T17:36:00.000-07:00

If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.
--- Old proverb

What is the one thing in your career that you will never sacrifice? How about in your intimate relationship or marriage? What is the most important thing that defines what you and your partner are creating that you will always stand up for and honor? How about in your family relationships? Your friendships? Whatever is most important to you, schedule it first. If other things don’t get done, so be it. Identify the one thing you will do your level best to make happen, day after day. Visualize what you most want in your life, and then start making decisions that move your life in its direction. It really is that simple. To transform what you most desire into your reality, you must maintain a laser-like focus on attaining it – and do it first. I have observed that many people schedule what’s most important to them late in the day. When you do this, the chances of it not happening are high, as other things come up or take longer than you think. The message here is straightforward and yet elusive for most of us: Whatever you value most, go and do it. Then work your way down in terms of priority to your other tasks.

Training That Inspires

2011-08-31T07:42:00.000-07:00

Success doesn’t come from aiming at success.
Success comes from doing what you’re passionate about to the best of your ability.

--- Anthony Silard

In the nonprofit world we often are driven not by money or fame, but a passion to change the world. Make sure to provide your staff with a training that not only teaches practical concrete skills, but also helps you re-connect with your passion to improve outcomes.

Work with The Center for Social Leadership to create a dynamic, interactive training experience that will be educational and inspiring. Choose from over 35 workshops in the area of nonprofit/business development and tailor a program fit for YOU (Your Organization Uniquely).

To see a full list of workshops and conference models please visit our website at www.socialleaders.org or contact Executive Director, Lauren Berg, 202-241-6721 / Lauren@socialleaders.org

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become Your Greatest Fan

2011-08-29T18:56:00.000-07:00

Focus on the actions you take, not on how
others take your actions.

--- Anthony Silard

Guglielmo Marconi is testimony to Emerson’s prescient words, “Genius always finds itself a century too early.” The Italian inventor was taken to a mental hospital for believing he could ‘send messages through the air.’ After he was discharged, he invented the radio. To get an idea of how innovative Marconi’s invention was at the end of the nineteenth century, consider how Einstein helped people to understand it: “You see, wire telegraph is a kind of very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles...Radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.” Are you willing to believe in something and stick with it even if others laugh at you, or you don’t get the immediate results you desire? If you are unwilling to risk others taking issue with what you say or do, save yourself some time and take self-fulfillment and making a breakthrough off your list of potential results you will experience in this lifetime. Reflect this week first on what you feel you want to do, and then on what you think you should do. The former is your deepest voice speaking; the latter, the voice of others. Determine which voice will guide you.

Slowing Down + Focusing = Achieving Your Most Important Goals

2011-08-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

If you want to achieve your most important goals as quickly as possible, slow down.

--- Anthony Silard

We race around without a minute of quiet; Checking emails and taking calls while we drive, walk, and even when we are trying to relax. We are so busy we don’t have time to reflect on whether or not all this movement is moving us in the direction we want to be going in. Anthony Silard can work with you to make sure your energy and effort is leading you towards your most important goals.

Priorities are like friends – if you have too many you end up with none.

--- Anthony Silard

We are pushed or driven to work on so many different things that nothing actually gets done with quality. This constantly leaves you unsatisfied and searching for more to do and accomplish. Anthony Silard will work with you to bring your most important priorities into focus.

Leadership guru and president of The Center for Social Leadership, Anthony Silard, has been working to help individuals slow down and focus on what is most important to them for over seventeen years.

To learn more about life coaching and executive coaching options with Anthony Silard visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our Executive Director, Lauren Berg, 202-241-6721 / Lauren@socialleaders.org

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Create the Intimate Relationship You Desire

2011-08-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

Dating is a pendulum that swings back and forth between guilt and rejection.

--- Anthony Silard

Trying to find the right partner is like entering a massive food chain: either you like them more than they like you (rejection) or they like you more than you like them (guilt). Since everyone becomes both the hunter and the hunted, the food chain operates more like a pendulum. Here’s how the pendulum works: When you experience rejection, you swing toward someone who likes you more than you like them (you try to stave off your feelings of rejection by calling someone whom you know will be responsive, a “Plan B”), which eventually lands you in guilt because you don’t have genuine feelings for them. When you experience guilt, you swing toward someone whom you like more than they like you (because the recent attention you’ve been receiving makes you feel invincible, like anyone in their right mind would want to be with you) and you eventually land in rejection. To avoid becoming trapped in the arc of this endless pendulum swing, focus on your long-term goal of finding the right partner, and act in the present in ways that are aligned with this goal. This week, remind yourself that your thoughts about what didn’t work in the past or your fears about what might not work in the future get you nowhere. Call someone because they have the potential to fulfill what you are looking for in the long term, not as a reaction to guilt or rejection. Be honest with yourself: embrace that you want to find the right person, and accept that you can’t sit at the edge of the jungle in a lawn chair to do that. You have to ignite some fires, and accept that some will flicker out quickly and others will burn you. Know that both guilt and rejection are short-lived emotions that distract you from your most important task: to keep on lighting fires until you find the one that keeps on burning.

Turn Off the Judgmental Tape-Player that is in Your Head

2011-08-17T06:51:00.000-07:00

Total Connection will aid you in not only controlling your “outer voice” but also your “inner voice”. Come to learn and practice techniques on how best to deal with conflict and anger as well as how best to recognize and nurture your strengths. Gain strategies around how to be more patient with others and yourself. Get in touch with your own needs and become more aware of the needs of others.

In this cutting-edge workshop series, you will have the opportunity to clarify your most important values, turn off the judgmental tape-player in your head, and revitalize the latent part of yourself – which you may have subordinated ever since your early childhood when you were more vulnerable with others and less concerned about getting hurt – that trusts in the human spirit and the capacity of human beings to act with love and compassion toward each other.

For more information on Total Connection and how you can choose the right model for your business or your family, please visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our Executive Director, Lauren Berg, 202-241-6721 / Lauren@socialleaders.org

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Live the Life You Have Imagined

2011-08-15T06:09:00.000-07:00

Live 365 days per year, not one day 365 times.
--- Anthony Silard

It’s easy to understand why change is not high on our list of priorities. It’s no big surprise that most of us, when confronted with the daily choice of Turn my mind off in front of the TV and eat some ice cream or drink a beer versus Think about the dysfunctional, entrenched patterns that keep me stuck in my life and actually do something about them, opt for the former. We avoid change because it requires us to exert a higher level of effort, step out of our box, and do things differently. Yet anything we perceive as positive in our lives – love, earning a decent livelihood, improving a relationship, communicating our needs with compassion and understanding the needs of others – requires immense effort. What we consider negative – angry denunciations of others, violence, sex without love – is almost always a lack of effort, a lethargic “giving in” to our baser instincts. Reflect for a moment on what positivity means for you. What important life goal compels you to dig deep into your soul and make a real, concerted effort to achieve it? Take some time this week to identify a goal that will motivate you enough to embrace and weather the change you will encounter on your path while pursuing it.

Planning A Training? An Upcoming Conference?

2011-08-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

You don’t want the same old results, so don’t give your staff the same old trainings.

Work with The Center for Social Leadership to create a dynamic, interactive training experience that will be educational and inspiring. Let the Center for Social Leadership find out from you and your team which trainings you need most. With that information we can work with you to choose from over 35 workshops in the area of nonprofit/business development.

I would definitely recommend this conference to other nonprofit directors. This is real world information and speaks directly to the nonprofit arena.
Laurie Andres, Children’s Nurturing Project

Thank you Tony for helping me find my passion!
Forty years of not knowing and to finally have an
“ah ha” moment!
Pam Smart, Connections for Life

This conference has dramatically broadened and encouraged my plans for my nonprofit enterprise... Thank you.
A life-changing experience.
Art Shields, Lifesavers World Inc.

If you aren’t getting similar reactions to your current trainings, contact The Center for Social Leadership and let us work with you to not only train, but inspire your staff. To see a full list of workshops and conference models please visit our website at www.socialleaders.org or contact Executive Director, Lauren Berg, 202-241-6721 / Lauren@socialleaders.org

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Balance Work and Life

2011-08-08T05:16:00.000-07:00

Those who move in all directions move in no direction.
--- Anthony Silard

Pick a situation and ask yourself if you are keeping your life focused on what you most value or becoming overextended by saying ‘Yes’ to too many people or activities. If you love playing basketball or tennis, are you making enough time to truly enjoy your time on the court or are you going through the motions to jam it into your schedule along with all your other priorities? If being a nurturing parent is important to you, are you hurriedly reading your children bedtime stories while your mind drifts from fairytale land back to the preoccupations of your job, or are you devoting your full energy to both the story and the inquisitive line of questioning from your child about the characters? When you try to fit too many things into your day, your life begins to feel stuck rather than dynamic as you experience yourself living a convoluted, distorted version of your desired life. Take a moment to draw two columns on a piece of paper. Write ‘No’ at the top of the left column. Below it write down a few things you want to say ‘No’ to in your life. At the top of the right column, write ‘Deeper Yes’. Below it, write down what are you saying a ‘Deeper Yes’ to by saying ‘No’ to the corresponding action in the left column. Meditate on how the entries in your Deeper Yes column are aligned with your Vision for how you want to live your life.

Connect Your Daily Actions to Your Life Vision

2011-08-03T06:38:00.000-07:00

People with no center move in all directions.

--- Anthony Silard

Is everyone pointing you in a different direction? Does it feel like the arrows in your head are crisscrossing and spinning you around? Is your internal compass wavering as to what direction is true north? Anthony Silard is ready to work with you so that your arrow is pointing directly at your values, passions, goals, and dreams. He will help lead you to your path so you are not zigzagging down someone else’s.

One-on-one life and/or executive coaching helps you to clarify your purpose and direction. You will feel satisfied at the end of the day knowing your daily actions were connected to your larger life vision. You will spend less time thinking about what to do and more time doing. You will spend less time thinking about how to be and more time being.

Life coaching and executive coaching are ways to bring direction, serenity and greater success into your life.

To learn more about life coaching and executive coaching options with Anthony Silard visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our Executive Director, Lauren Berg, 202-241-6721 / Lauren@socialleaders.org

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become a More Effective Leader

2011-08-01T05:46:00.000-07:00

Integrity is the shortest distance to where you need to go.
--- Anthony Silard

Make a commitment to be truthful with others and you will be pleasantly surprised by how much easier it is to go about your day without having to worry about what you told to whom and how to cover your tracks. Although it may take more time in the short term to speak genuinely and honestly, you will reduce the future prevaricating and second-guessing that always accompany the alternative. All other benefits aside, you will just plain feel better about yourself. You will also attract more people into your life who also act with integrity and whom you can securely build your life and career around. To bring more integrity into the way you lead, create your ‘Integrity Index’ for the week. To fill this index, ask yourself questions such as: “How will I measure my integrity?”, “What constitutes honesty in my book?” and “What do I have to do to earn a perfect 10?” Give yourself a rating from 1 to 10 each week based on how well you are realizing your Integrity Index. Each week, ask “Am I fooling myself here, or is this real integrity I’m aspiring toward?” The higher the standards you hold yourself to, the longer will your affair with leadership last. Continue to upgrade your Integrity Index each week until you are comfortable with it.

Nurture Your Passion. Increase Your Social Impact. Enjoy Yourself.

2011-07-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

Allow us at The Center for Social Leadership to learn directly from you and your staff about what your organization needs most. Then work together with us to tailor a conference or workshop series that speaks directly to your staff and your organization’s needs.

With a training program fit for YOU (Your Organization Uniquely) you can expect to get your needs met in any area of nonprofit development from team building to strategic planning, from reducing burn out to increasing financial resources. President and lead facilitator for The Center for Social Leadership, Anthony Silard, has been coaching nonprofits for over seventeen years. Anthony, along with our team of consultants, will work diligently with you and your staff to make sure all training is poignant and relevant to your current situation.

To see a full list of workshops and conference models, please visit our website at www.socialleaders.org or contact Executive Director, Lauren Berg, 202-241-6721 / Lauren@socialleaders.org

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Build Meaningful Relationships

2011-07-25T05:22:00.000-07:00

He who angers me controls me.
--- Chinese proverb

He or she who causes me to feel insecurity, or resentment, or fear, or jealousy, or envy, controls me. Yet here’s the news: no one else “causes” you to feel any of these emotions. No one climbs a ladder and steps into your brain and forces you to feel anything whatsoever. You choose to feel all of these emotions just as you choose to feel happiness, lightness, inner peace and grace. While others do stimulate certain emotions within you, the centerpiece of self-control is recognizing that you are the sole proprietor of your feelings. Pick a situation in your life and ask yourself whether you are practicing self-actualization or “actualization by others.” If you are having The Same Old Argument in a long-term relationship, or launching one in a new relationship at home or at the office, what is your role in perpetuating it? You are most likely very strategic when it comes to achieving your work goals. If you were to apply this same strategic thinking, combined with a healthy dose of love and empathy, toward the person in question, how might you act to defuse the tensions you are both experiencing and help bring the issue to resolution, or, if this is not possible, to a peaceful state of “Let’s agree to disagree”? Design some strategies this week to bring more harmony into this relationship.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become Your Greatest Fan

2011-07-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
--- Thomas Edison

When you were a kid and were learning how to ride a bicycle, you probably fell off at least twenty times before you could even ride a block. Each time you fell off, did you stop and sulk for a few hours or days about how much of a ‘failure’ you were? I doubt it. Instead, I bet you got back up, dusted yourself off, and tried again. This time you had the benefit of just a little more experience and knowledge of how to ride (or at least how not to ride) which, with much repetition and openness to learning, finally enabled you to take off and ride like the wind. Now you hardly ever fall off your bike. I hate to break it to you, but it’s not because you are especially agile now. It’s because you went through the necessary trial-and-error period to learn how to ride gracefully. Pick an important goal in your life, such as trying to find a new job, or meet the right person, or launch a new product, or manage your employees more effectively. Imagine – right here in this moment – if you could stop getting down on yourself when you discover a way that doesn’t work. Instead, start seeing it for what it truly is: one of your many attempts – like those of the famous inventor of the phonograph and the light bulb – to find a way that does work. Each of these attempts enhances your cumulative experience, edges you up the learning curve a little higher, and brings you closer to successfully achieving your goal.

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Create the Intimate Relationship You Desire

2011-07-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering
as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
--- Spinoza

The only path to loving another person as they truly are is to confront your demons – the insecurity, self-doubt, guilt, remorse, and, of course, fear of being hurt again, and let’s not forget the worry about growing old alone – and say to them, “I know you guys are all here for a reason. Please tell me what that reason is.” Each of your emotions – even and especially those you label ‘negative’ – has shown up to teach you something. Believe it or not, they are each making themselves present for your self-preservation. Your worry about growing old alone may be there to say, “Stop fooling yourself and dating people who are emotionally unavailable. It’s time to choose someone who actually reciprocates.” Your self-doubt may have shown up to say, “You have to confront me first before you reach out to another person. I’m here to remind you of the importance of believing in the beautiful person that you are.” Every time a difficult emotion starts to consume your mental attention, ask it what it has shown up to teach you. Make some time during the week to go for a walk in the sunlight, or to meditate in a serene, comfortable spot in your home, or to just sit quietly somewhere, and identify the tough emotions you have been facing. Give each a name (e.g. “Fear” or “Self-Doubt” or “Grief”) and visualize it as a real-life image. Ask it why it has come into your life, and what the much-needed benefit of it hanging around is to you. Befriend these self-imposed obstacles to loving yourself, and the entire world will start to appear different. You will see others not for the need they can fill in your life, but for their intrinsic qualities. Once the lens through which you see potential partners shifts from need to want, you will see them as they are, perhaps for the first time.

Bringing Strategies from the For-Profit Sector to You in the Nonprofit Sector

2011-07-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

The newest trend in the business world is peer education groups. Senior staff from across a spectrum of corporations meet in small groups to discuss best practices, learn from real-life successes and failures, and get support from others that experience similar demands on a day-to-day basis.

The Center for Social Leadership is now making this model available to the nonprofit world. Peer Leadership Groups allow senior nonprofit leaders to learn from each other’s experiences and expertise. They create a trusting atmosphere where one feels at ease sharing the hardships and stresses of the often over-demanding, under-appreciated nonprofit sector.

Expect to gain:
• New ideas and best practices to implement in your own organization
• Genuine support for your unique situation
• Opportunities to collaborate with organizations outside your
usual circle
• Innovative fundraising strategies
• And much more!

To learn more about peer leadership groups in your area and how to enroll visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our Executive Director, Lauren Berg, 202-465-7447 / Lauren@socialleaders.org

Smile, It’s Monday (Independence Day): Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Live the Life You Have Imagined

2011-07-04T12:33:00.000-07:00

Your passion is most likely the only thing you produce that can never be outsourced.

--- Anthony Silard

Whether you have been laid off or are no longer motivated in a dead-end job and fear the consequences of making a transition, here’s the question you have to answer: What do you offer to the world that uniquely emanates from your heart? Why? Just about anything else you do with your productive time can be easily reproduced by someone who charges much less. Consider it a given that jobs comprised of tasks involving your mind and hands will move to countries where other minds and hands (and microprocessors) can perform them more cheaply. Your true calling, however, does not stem from your mind or hands. It originates in your heart and, for this reason, cannot be generated elsewhere. It’s your unique stamp, your signature product, and no one else can produce it any more than they can write a letter to your beloved as you can. The key to career security, then, is to connect your passion with what others value. Ask yourself this question: “When have been the two or three moments in my life when I have been the happiest?” Reflect on your answers, and consider what you truly enjoy doing with your time that could be put to good use toward a greater purpose you deeply believe in.

Planning A Training? An Upcoming Conference?

2011-06-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

I would definitely recommend this conference to other nonprofit directors. This is real world information and speaks directly to the nonprofit arena.

-Laurie Andres, Children’s Nurturing Project

Thank you Tony for helping me find my passion!
Forty years of not knowing and to finally have an “ah ha” moment!

-Pam, Smart, Connections for Life

This conference has dramatically broadened and encouraged my plans for my nonprofit enterprise... Thank you. A life-changing experience.

-Art Shields, Lifesavers World Inc.

If you aren’t getting similar reactions to your current trainings, contact The Center for Social Leadership and let us work with you to not only train, but inspire your staff. To see a full list of workshops and conference models please visit our website at www.socialleaders.org or contact program director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Balance Work and Life

2011-06-27T06:27:00.000-07:00

People can have many different kinds of pleasure.
The real one is that for which they will forsake the others.
-- Marcel Proust

Have you found that pleasure in your work for which you would be willing to forsake all other pleasures? If you found yourself either shaking your head or laughing nervously after reading the last sentence, it may be time for a career change. Gloria Steinem once said, “Writing is the only thing that, when I’m doing it, I don’t feel like doing anything else.” Are you fortunate enough to have found that one thing in your career that makes you feel so content you don’t wish you were doing anything else? How about that one pleasure in your personal life, or in your marriage, or in the time you spend with your family? If you haven’t found it, it’s time to go off-line so you can start getting more from the time you spend online. Start going for a short walk during your lunch break, and an even longer walk after work. If the weather does not cooperate with your plans, find a meditation center where you can sit in silence and let your mind take off at its own pace, toward new destinations. Alternatively, find a quiet place where you can write in your journal. For an even more radical approach, take a week off and go somewhere you can relax and contemplate about how your life has been going. Make a commitment to yourself this week to spend more time reflecting on what most motivates you in your personal and professional life.

Question: What is your greatest passion?
What inspired it?

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become a More Effective Leader

2011-06-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

Tell them what you want, reward them for giving it to you, and get out of the way. That’s my strategy in a nutshell.

--- Gordon Bethune, former CEO, Continental Airlines

In today’s economy, we employ ‘knowledge workers.’ They control the means of production – their knowledge. They become valuable by occupying a specialized niche of knowledge and developing it further than anyone else. You can’t do the same work your employees – the knowledge workers – can do any more than the art gallery owner can paint a masterpiece, or the NFL manager can run a football through a strong defense, or the hospital CEO can perform a heart transplant. Those tasks are the specialized functions of the artist, the running back and the surgeon. Yet you have to lead these people. Your role is to inspire them to achieve spectacular results, to standardize and measure those results, to let them know the score (e.g. who has brought in what results) and to reward those who have scored high. Write down a few ways of interacting with your team members that will bring out the unique creativity of each individual and inspire them to apply their ingenuity toward achieving your collective goals.

Question: What most gets in your way of being flexible at work? What helps you?
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Build Meaningful Relationships

2011-06-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

Strike when the iron is cold.

--- Harriet Lerner

If you are crossing the street, do you walk when there are a lot of cars speeding in front of you, or do you wait until they pass? Just as you wouldn’t cross a street if there were cars racing through it, don’t express how you feel when the other person has strong emotions of anger, irritation, insecurity, jealousy or fear racing through their body. Each emotional charge the other person feels is like a car. If you want to get your point across, wait until the coast is clear. Allow their strong emotions to pass. Once they do, they will be ready to hear you again; but not until then. If you have spent time in Hawaii, you know there are times when the waves are too rough to swim. Like the cars on a busy street, the waves are also like the other person’s negative emotions. Being authentic about how you feel is an attempt to get your needs met. When the other person is experiencing a strong negative emotion, they become disconnected from their authentic Self, defensive, and unwilling to meet your needs. Be patient. The waves will subside, and the ocean will become calm again. Then it will be a good time to go swimming. Be attentive this week to the emotions of the people around you. Use your good judgment and attunement to their emotional state to determine the right time to once again be assertive about what you need.

Question: What have you found helpful in managing your anger or other negative emotions? _____________________________________________

Invite your friends to start their week with Smile, It's Monday: www.smileitsmonday.com

Should, Should, Should…

2011-06-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

With so many ‘Should’s,’ what happens to the ‘Could’s’ and ‘Would’s’?

I should work harder so I can make more money

I should have a house and car as nice as my neighbors

I should go along with what they are saying so I leave a good impression

If you weren’t always doing what you “should” do, maybe you would have time to plan a vacation with your family… you would finally follow through with that project you always wanted to do… you could concentrate on your own personal growth… you could pursue your dreams… you would feel more free.

Leadership guru and president of The Center for Social Leadership, Anthony Silard, has been working with individuals on making their ‘Could’s’ and ‘Would’s’ come true for the last 17 years.

To learn more about life coaching and executive coaching options with Anthony Silard visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our program director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Live the Life You Have Imagined

2011-06-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

Passion gets us out of the starting gate, but not across the finish line.

--- Anthony Silard

Passion alone is not enough to achieve our goals. We also have to be strategic. As I see it, there are three goals of work: to do good (create a social impact), do well (generate revenues that enable us to earn a decent livelihood and continue doing our work) and do right (treat our team members and customers with dignity and respect along the way). To achieve these three goals in the third millennium, we must recognize that we now live in a society rooted in the intersection of knowledge and passion. To survive and thrive, you must corner a specific niche of knowledge that has a high barrier to entry (i.e. that no one else has or can easily obtain) and utilize this knowledge to serve a strong customer need. Yet regurgitating knowledge alone doesn’t work; it must emanate from your heart and tap the reserve of passion within you. To get started, identify the critical needs of a customer group that won’t go away anytime soon. In other words, name their pain. Then ask yourself this question: “How can I serve their needs in a way that I am personally, deeply passionate about and that applies specific, nuanced knowledge that I and I alone possess?” Brainstorm a few ideas this week to reflect upon as you consider the direction you want to move your career in.
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Total Connection

2011-06-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

How you connect with yourself ultimately dictates how you connect with others. That running dialogue that is constantly putting you down and judging others is probably getting in the way of you truly making a heart connection with yourself and those around you.

Total Connection - Compassionate, effective communication does not just improve your verbal interactions, it also brings greater peace and love into all areas of your life. It helps you to feel a connection with your everyday actions and feelings and allows you to express yourself first to yourself and then to others.

Just Drop In! The First Class is Always Free!

Every Tuesday
7:00 – 8:30
Cleveland Park, 3883 Connecticut Ave. NW (DC)
or
Tailor an on-line or in-person workshop series to fit your needs

Communication Is Learned Through Practice, Not Theory

For more information on our Tuesday series and/or how you can choose the right model for your business or your family, please visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our Program Director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become Your Greatest Fan

2011-05-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

In school, you learn the lesson and are then put to the test.  
In life, it’s the opposite: you are put to the test and then learn the lesson.

--- Anthony Silard

There is much irony in this disconnect between education and reality. In real life it’s constantly brand-new material, so there’s no reason to get down on yourself for making mistakes. As the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke perceptively observed: “There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.” Yet most of us are accustomed to using the word ‘failure’ in association with our performance. How did this start? We began judging ourselves from our first days in elementary school based on the marks our teachers gave us to indicate their perception of our performance; and we haven’t stopped since. When you received a ‘D’ or an ‘F’ on a test, you were told that you ‘failed.’ You have most likely perpetuated this internal line of reasoning – “When I don’t perform well, I am a failure” – to this day. Reflect this week on your self-voice – the procreator of your voice with everyone else. When you catch yourself in the act of beating up on yourself, stop in your mental tracks and remember that there’s no dress rehearsal for life, and the important thing is not whether or not you made a mistake, but whether you embraced the necessary learning to move further toward your goals.
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Balance Work and Life

2011-05-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

Priorities are like friends – if you have too many you end up with none.

--- Anthony Silard

One of my clients once told me, “I’m just not able to say ‘No’ to my boss. I stay late at the office most nights to meet his expectations, and then return home late to my wife and children and don’t feel good about myself. They don’t feel good about me either.” To help him change his schedule, I first had to help him become aware that he was constantly making choices. Every minute after 6 pm, he was making the decision to stay at the office. Life is a series of choices, and what you choose creates your destiny. When you say ‘No’ to something, you are almost always saying a ‘Deeper Yes’ to something else. My client had to learn that to say ‘No’ to his boss was also to say ‘Yes’ to his wife and children; and, conversely, all the times he had said ‘Yes’ to his boss he had also been saying ‘No’ to his family. Another client became the ‘go to’ person in the office as she was not able to say ‘No’ to her employees requests for support throughout the day, and as a result was never able to progress toward her company’s larger strategic goals. Saying ‘No’ is particularly difficult for those of us who love to please others and crave their approval. Yet when you are unable to say ‘No,’ everything becomes your priority, which means nothing is your priority. Reflect this week on what you must learn to say ‘No’ to in order to say a ‘Deeper Yes’ to what you most value in your life.

Note: We are all at a conference and for this reason Smile, It’s Monday is being sent today (Tuesday) – please forgive us. Next week’s Smile, It’s Monday will also be sent on Tuesday as Monday is a holiday, and then we will be returning to our normal schedule. Thank you for understanding.

Don't Miss It... This Wednesday!

2011-05-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

Come on out for happy hour prices on beer, wines and mixed drinks! Catch up with familiar faces, introduce yourself to new ones and unwind with a drink after work while donating to at-risk youth in DC.

$15 ticket gains entry plus one free drink AND a chance to win a 90-day membership to Washington Sports Clubs!!!

Please reserve your tickets: http://cslhappyhour.eventbrite.com

When: Wednesday, May 18th at 6pm

Where: The Science Club DC
1136 19th Street, NW, Washington DC
Tel: 202-775-0747

Metro Access:
• Farragut West (Blue/Orange Lines)
• Dupont Circle/Farragut North (Red Line)

Proceeds benefit The Center for Social Leadership's Young Leaders Program, a program targeting low-income high school students. CSL teaches low-income youth Five Critical Skill Areas that enable them to learn the leadership skills necessary to identify and pursue the careers of their choice and to find and sustain themselves in healthy, meaningful lives. Go to our website www.socialleaders.org to find out more about the Young Leaders Program!
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Please Join my Full Alignment Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/?tid=1505301745809&sk=messages#!/group.php?gid=67625744947&ref=ts

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Create the Intimate Relationship You Desire

2011-05-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

Your desire should be not for desire, but for the other person.

--- Anthony Silard

I understand this quote well because I’ve been there. I have felt the perilous self-doubt that follows the other person leaving in a relationship; the feelings of inadequacy, of aimless wandering and confused wondering about what I did wrong that never yield a conclusive lesson. I have desired to feel attractive again; have defined myself by the attention and approval I received from the opposite sex; have chased others for the love I couldn’t find within myself. We all have had our moments where we doubt ourselves and try to locate on the outside what we can’t provide ourselves on the inside. It never works. On your next date, ask yourself if the other person’s desire is to experience desire or to be with you for who you uniquely are. Ask yourself the same question about your own desire. We often use desire to get our emotional needs met as rapidly as possible, yet, like a farmer hastily throwing seeds onto the ground, we are unlikely to meet our expectations. A true emotional connection grows at its own (usually much slower) pace. We often accelerate into intimacy because it feels like we have to wait an eternity to feel intimate love once again. Be patient and also persistent. Put yourself out there: participate in group activities you will enjoy – such as hiking, skiing, bicycling, practicing Arabic or French, joining a philosophy discussion – whether you meet someone or not. (A great source of these activities is www.meetup.com.) When you least expect it, expect it: someone will come along whom you desire for who they are, not for the feelings about yourself that you futilely hope they will bring into your life, which will never come from an outside source.
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become a More Effective Leader

2011-05-09T09:12:00.000-07:00

Every great institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man.
 His character determines the character of the organization.

--- Ralph Waldo Emerson

You must have character to inspire others to have character. I have observed the truth of this dynamic in organizations large and small: if the CEO is not direct with people and hides out in their office, the same behavior will be visible in almost every person in the company, silos will take over, and you won’t get a straight answer from anyone. If the CEO is supportive and nurturing in her approach yet resolute about achieving a clear set of goals, again you will find this behavior and attitude throughout the organization. So if you want to have people of values working for you, be a person of values. If you want to manage people who are sensitive to the needs of others, be sensitive to their needs. Treat your people with old-fashioned honesty, courtesy and decency, and they will be much more likely to treat your customers with old-fashioned honesty, courtesy and decency. Start this week by identifying a few values you want to actualize each day in the way you interact with others. At the end of the week, take a personal inventory of how well you’ve done. Continue this process each week to determine the values you most want to assimilate into your personal leadership style.
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Good People + Good Cause= Good Fun!

2011-05-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Build Meaningful Relationships

2011-05-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

What you think should not always be what you say,
 but what you say should always be what you think.

--- Anthony Silard

Sharing thoughts without a purpose is like driving without a direction: you can end up just about anywhere. Feeling obligated to communicate every thought that crosses your mind – whether it’s aligned with your Vision or not – is not being authentic. Why? A thought based on a temporary mood or a negative emotion such as insecurity, anger or fear, or a thought that would unnecessarily harm another human being, does not reflect your deeper, more intact Self – where your authenticity resides. Identify a person you would like to be authentic with this week. Plan your conversation in a way that enables you to be yourself – with purpose. Start with someone who is easier to talk to – consider it batting practice – and gradually work your way toward more challenging conversations with other important people in your life.
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Invite your friends to start their week with Smile, It's Monday: www.smileitsmonday.com

An Evening Out to Support Youth Empowerment

2011-04-29T09:03:00.000-07:00

Come on out for happy hour prices on beer, wines and mixed drinks! Catch up with familiar faces, introduce yourself to new ones and unwind with a drink after work while donating to at-risk youth in DC.

$15 ticket gains entry plus one free drink AND a chance to win a 90-day membership to Washington Sports Clubs!!!

Please reserve your tickets: http://cslhappyhour.eventbrite.com

When: Wednesday, May 18th at 6pm

Where: The Science Club DC
1136 19th Street, NW, Washington DC
Tel: 202-775-0747

Metro Access:
• Farragut West (Blue/Orange Lines)
• Dupont Circle/Farragut North (Red Line)

Proceeds benefit The Center for Social Leadership's Young Leaders Program, a program targeting low-income high school students. CSL teaches low-income youth Five Critical Skill Areas that enable them to learn the leadership skills necessary to identify and pursue the careers of their choice and to find and sustain themselves in healthy, meaningful lives. Click here to find out more about the Young Leaders Program!
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Please Join my Full Alignment Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/?tid=1505301745809&sk=messages#!/group.php?gid=67625744947&ref=ts

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Live the Life You Have Imagined

2011-04-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession,  let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain’t music.  It’s close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.

-- Billie Holiday

In 2007, Netflix had a lot to be proud of. Through an unprecedented, innovative, internet-based model of DVD ordering and mail delivery, it had virtually put Blockbuster (remember them?) out of business. Blockbuster took years to develop its own online presence for DVD rentals, and it hurt them irrevocably. By the time they had copied Netflix’s model, Netflix had already built inimitable brand equity through quick turnaround and high-quality customer service. Founded by Reed Hastings in 1997, Netflix’s revenues exploded from $5 million in 1999 to almost $1 billion in 2006. Blockbuster shrank from Goliath to David during the same period, and closed thousands of stores. Hastings remained agile: he knew it was just a matter of time before downloads replaced DVDs, and boosted spending on digital downloading research from $10m in 2006 to over $40m in 2007. The new Goliath triumphed: one year later, instead of moving to a new movie downloading startup, Netflix’s customers shifted to the company’s downloading plan in record numbers (Netflix’s current plans include free streaming of movies from the internet). Pick a current challenge you are facing in your life and ask yourself, “How can I play the ball not where it is, but where it’s going to be next?” Whether it’s a challenge you are facing at home or in the office, project yourself into the future. Envision the direction, based on current dynamics, that a product, initiative, or relationship is heading. Ask yourself what you can do now to embrace change and work toward the outcomes you desire later.
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Gain Skills, Resources, and a Support Network All at The Same Time!

2011-04-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

Join a relaxed, confidential, trusting environment of your peers once a month. Discuss real life challenges and successes. Learn from other the experiences of other organizations. Create connections outside your sector of the nonprofit field. Benefit from Anthony Silard’s eighteen years in the nonprofit /leadership field.

While these peer-to-peer learning groups are facilitated by Anthony Silard, leadership guru and author of Full Alignment, they are designed to make the participants the leaders, thus creating a unique blend of peer learning and facilitated instruction only found through The Center for Social Leadership’s Peer Leadership Groups.

Groups meet once a month for a half-day (4 hours) for a full year. The next Washington DC series will start in September. Enrollment is limited to 15 people in order to create a trusting, intimate atmosphere. Register today!

To learn more about Peer Leadership Groups in your area and how to enroll visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our program director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become Your Greatest Fan

2011-04-18T07:43:00.000-07:00

If you want to become a leader on the outside,
 you must first become a leader on the inside.

--- Chris, a student in The Center for Social Leadership's Young Leaders Program

So many of us focus almost all our time on the results, desired outcomes and changes we want to see in our companies, organizations, schools, families and society. Yet we fail to realize that we can’t export abroad what we can’t produce at home. Visualize the person you want to become and how you want to treat others. Write down a few adjectives to describe how you would like others to perceive you. If you truly want to act this way toward others, start by acting this way toward yourself. Why? Because the voice you use with others is always the same voice you use with yourself, and vice-versa. Those who are self-critical will soon be criticizing you. Those who love themselves and believe in their ability to reach their highest potential will, if you are fortunate enough to win their hearts, love and believe in you. Whatever you want to be in the eyes of others, start being it in your own eyes. Not only will you achieve much more in your life, but you will be a much happier person along the way. Write down one thing you can do this week to develop the most important relationship in your life: your relationship with yourself.
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Invite your friends to start their week with Smile, It's Monday: www.smileitsmonday.com

Communication Is Learned Through Practice, Not Theory

2011-04-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

Have you ever walked away from a conversation or a disagreement and then spent hours thinking about what you wished you had said?

Are there people in your life that you wished understood you better?

Do you wish you could find the right words more quickly?

Stop wishing and start practicing. Why? Communication is learned through practice, not theory.

Compassionate communication workshops provide templates and models for dealing with conflict or unmet needs in any type of relationship. You will be given opportunities to practice using these techniques so that they become easy to access in real-life situations. Bring a compassionate communication workshop series to your office or personalize a compassionate communication workshop series for your family, marriage, or group of friends.

For more information on our compassionate communication workshop series and how you can choose the right model for your business or your family, please visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our Program Director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Please Join my Full Alignment Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/?tid=1505301745809&sk=messages#!/group.php?gid=67625744947&ref=ts

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Balance Work and Life

2011-04-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

When you have been emailing or Facebooking or Skyping lots of people for hours  and then you turn off your computer, the feeling you get is as if you’ve just had a party,  everyone has left, and you are all alone – only you haven’t had the party.

--- Anthony Silard

Technology has turned most of us into people who live almost entirely in their minds. We compute, calculate and quickly ingest, process and regurgitate others’ ideas. It’s the pinnacle of the capitalist revolution: never before have human beings been so capable of attaching labels, numbers and images to the outside world. Never before has everything imaginable under the sun been so easy to identify, measure, codify and utilize for profit. If you put a prism in front of a rose, it begins to believe it’s the rose. If you put the same prism in front of a pile of cow dung, it takes on the appearance of the dung. Yet it is neither the rose nor the dung; it is the prism. We have begun to take on many of the qualities of the machines we sit hunched over for the better part of our waking hours – we process myriad piles of data in the form of emails, text messages, attachments and links; we make quick calculations and decisions as to what to give attention to and what to put into our queue; we complete function after function in an iterative, rapid-fire succession, quickly toggling from one to the next. This would all be well and good if one vital part of the human body was not being sacrificed, day in and day out: the heart. What activities can you engage in this week to reconnect with your heart? This is a very real and, in an existential sense, urgent challenge. Your humanness depends on it.
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Please Invite Your Friends

2011-04-08T10:04:00.000-07:00

Align Your Actions with Your Ideal Vision of Yourself

2011-04-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

Envision the person you want to be

Envision the type of work you want to be doing

Envision the type of parent, friend, partner, or co-worker you want to be

Envision yourself on the way to bed at the end of the day feeling satisfied and fulfilled

Full Alignment: A Practical Guide to Transforming Your Life Vision Into Action will help you craft a vision statement that can be referenced and revised year after year. This well-crafted vision, like a red bulls-eye in front of the bow-and-arrow in your outstretched hand, will help you know where you are going and when you veer off course.

To purchase Full Alignment or for more information on our special bulk rate (for nonprofits and education institutions) visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our program director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Start Exercising Again

2011-04-04T07:41:00.000-07:00

People often tell me, “I don’t have the time to exercise.”
 I always reply: “You don’t have the time not to exercise.”

--- Anthony Silard

In Catholicism, the custom of “tithing” was to give 10 percent of one’s income to the church. Many people give a percentage of their time to volunteer for a worthy cause in their community. We can apply the same concept toward our bodies. In today’s technology-laden world, you complete many tasks that you used to have to stand up and move around to accomplish without even leaving your desk. Yet our bodies weren’t created to be stationary for such protracted periods of time. Lie in bed for a few days without getting up and what happens? You get “bedsores.” What are the long-term effects of sitting in your chair for hours on end in front of a computer? You have 168 hours in every week – 168 hours that you will never have the privilege of living again. Consider the emotional, physical and psychological benefits of devoting five of these hours – one hour per day for five days – to exercising your body, and how much more you will both enjoy and accomplish during the other 163 hours. Get started now by creating your exercise schedule for the week. Follow your exercise schedule as you do your schedule for eating, or sleeping, or brushing your teeth. You don’t skip dinner or decide not to brush your teeth if you are in a bad mood; apply the same thinking to exercise: it’s a necessary part of what makes your week flow and come together.
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In 2011 Don’t Just Think About It… Do It!

2011-04-01T07:41:00.000-07:00

Bring your staff together for a unique and innovative training opportunity. Work with The Center for Social Leadership to tailor a conference or workshop series that speaks directly to your staff and your business/organization’s needs.

With a conference fit for YOU (Your Organization Uniquely) you can expect to:

• Boost morale
• Improve communication
• Increase effectiveness
• Reduce burn-out
• Renew passion
• Stimulate new ideas and best practices

Don’t find yourself stuck in the old ways of 2010. Make the changes NOW that you have always wanted to make.

To see a full list of workshops and conference models, please visit our website at www.socialleaders.org or contact program director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become a More Effective Leader

2011-03-28T09:35:00.000-07:00

Actions speak louder than words. They also lie louder than words.

--- Anthony Silard

If you are in a leadership role, people scrutinize your every move. They are looking for character, integrity, and competence. Why? They want to feel secure that the ship will arrive at its destination, and that you will look out for their needs during the journey. When your character is stable and rooted in a burning desire to help others – whether it’s to provide health care to elderly people, or to design cutting-edge fashions that make people’s lives more beautiful, or to enable young people to build their self-confidence through athletics, or to raise children to be healthy, confident, compassionate human beings – you inspire loyalty in others. You help them feel secure that you are committed to reaching the destination they want to reach, and that you will have a strong hand at the helm. This is why they board your ship. Write down a few ways you can provide security and stability this week to the people in your office, on your team, or in your home.
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Increase Your Skills - In Order To Better Use Your Passion

2011-03-24T10:04:00.000-07:00

Use your passion more effectively by increasing your set of organizational tools. Add strategic planning, effective communication, board development, work-life balance, and innovative fundraising to your list of strengths.

Join the 2011 Certificate of Transformational Nonprofit Leadership series. Share your passion with other nonprofit directors from across the country that are passionate about change. Learn from their challenges and successes. Exchange ideas and methodologies.

The Certificate of Transformational Nonprofit Leadership offers you peer learning opportunities, as well as access to the top trainers in the country in the areas of fundraising, social marketing, work-life balance and financial management. Including: Michael Maccoby (Oxford Business School), Tony Schwartz (Author, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working), and Alan Andreasen (Georgetown Business School).

Space is limited to 20-25 participants to provide an intimate learning experience. The series starts this March. For more information, visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our Program Director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Build Meaningful Relationships

2011-03-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

Just because they say “Action” doesn’t mean you have to do anything.

--- Advice given by Al Pacino to Jesse Eisenberg, star of the 2010 film The Social Network

In a recent interview, Eisenberg shared that the veteran actor’s advice on a film set in 2005 “helped me think of acting as something that I was in control of.” What are some of the ways others say “Action” to you? You most likely deal with situations where others shout at you, push your emotional triggers, look at you expectantly, or try to guilt you into doing what they want. Pacino’s advice is extremely powerful: you don’t have to do anything. Your response can be no response. About fifteen years ago, I naively asked an elderly Vietnamese villager what the war was like. I have never forgotten his chillingly wise response: “I choose silence.” You, not others, are in control of your actions. No one else can climb a ladder into your brain and force your lips to move. Pick a situation that’s currently taking place in your life and ask yourself if your actions are originating from your inner wisdom or if they are re-actions, or ‘second actions’ determined by the ‘first actions’ of others. If you’re having the same old relationship argument for the 56th time this year, ask yourself how you will reconnect with your values and use compassion, empathy and assertiveness to move the relationship in a better direction. If you’re constantly defending yourself at work, consider how you will choose silence at times and let your performance do the talking. Whatever the situation, the next time your buttons are pushed, practice taking a pause, slowing down, and reconnecting with your deepest values before determining how you will or won’t respond.
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Every Year You Make a New Year’s Resolution. How Many Years Have You Succeeded in Achieving Your Goal?

2011-03-16T08:46:00.000-07:00

Take steps to make this year different. Gain a new set of tools to help you prioritize and live aligned with your core values and beliefs. Harness your own power and carry it with you throughout 2011 and into the years to come.

One-on-one life coaching with Anthony Silard can help you turn your personal ideas and life dreams into manageable action steps.

One-on-one executive coaching with Anthony Silard can help you turn your work ideas and career dreams into manageable action steps.

Life coaching and executive coaching are ways to bring direction, serenity and greater success into your life.

To learn more about life coaching and executive coaching options with Anthony Silard visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our program director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Live the Life You Have Imagined

2011-03-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

Spend your whole life earning money to pass on to your children and they will spend it.  
Spend your whole life building character to pass on to your children and they will keep it.

--- Anthony Silard

The most important thing you leave your children is not money, but your name. Project yourself to the last days of your life. What will you most wish for – that you had left your children more money, or that you had lived by values you believe in and had avoided certain actions that did not reflect the person you wanted to be? While they will spend whatever money is left in your bank account, they will keep their memories of you – of the values you stood for, the love you shared with them, the sacrifices you made on their behalf – forever. These memories will leave them with feelings of either strength and pride or bitterness and shame about their heritage. Write down some of the most important values that you wish to actualize every day of your life. How will you live these values this week?
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Seeking Love or Expressing Love?

2011-03-09T08:05:00.000-08:00

If we understand the ways in which people communicate and why, we can better understand their needs and better express our own. See through the screaming or the passive-aggressive language and you will realize that the other person is just seeking love. Recognize that the other person is most ready to listen to you when they are expressing love.

Use effective, compassionate communication to get your needs met while meeting the needs of others, and to strengthen the relationships in all areas of your life.

Bring a compassionate communication workshop series to your office or personalize a compassionate communication workshop series for your family, marriage, or group of friends. The base skills are the same... Open yourself up to learning better communication in one area of your life and it will spread to all the other areas.

For more information on our compassionate communication workshop series and how you can choose the right model for your business or your family, please visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our Program Director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org

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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Balance Work and Life

2011-03-07T07:10:00.000-08:00

People with no center move in all directions.

--- Anthony Silard

When someone has lost their center, they become what I refer to as “all sails and no anchor.” I know this term well because I’ve been there myself. When we are always on the move, we become like a car that never stops to refuel, and lose our ability to sustain ourselves during the journey. Life is a process of extending from the center and returning to the center. You extend from the center when you go out into the world, take risks, build relationships, and pursue your passion. You return to the center when you step away from all these activities, slow down, and reconnect with yourself. If you don’t take the time to return to the center, you continue extending further and further away from who you are. It becomes more and more difficult to retrace your steps and find your way back home. Balance the time you dedicate to whatever you are trying to accomplish in your life with regular periods of physical, emotional, social and spiritual renewal, and you will be pleasantly surprised with how much more directed, purposeful and, ultimately, successful – as you come to define success – you become. To get started, write down the word ‘CENTER’ in capital letters and underline it. Underneath, write down one physical, one emotional, one social, and one spiritual way of spending your time that helps you return to your center. Dedicate more time to these activities this week.
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Anthony Silard Interview on Inconvenient Leadership

2011-03-02T16:13:00.001-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRKUNfs7HPM

Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become a More Effective Leader

2011-02-28T06:45:00.000-08:00

Peace if possible, but truth at any rate.

--- Martin Luther King, Jr.

MLK hails from a long list of leaders – including John F. and Robert F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Gandhi – whose lives were taken from them for voicing their beliefs. This list goes back literally to the dawn of time: we count humanity’s years on earth from the birth of a man, Jesus Christ, who was crucified at the stake for what he believed. The world’s most famous philosopher, Socrates, was forced to drink poison for his views. Cicero, the Roman statesman and philosopher who laid the foundation for our political system of democracy, was decapitated for his beliefs, his head and hands placed on the speaker’s forum in Rome. What is the price of authenticity for you? While it’s most likely not your life, it may be the comfort of your job, or the patronage of your clients, or the existing patterns of your relationships. Do you stand for anything so strongly that you would be willing to risk losing this comfort? Ask yourself what you truly stand for, and start making time this week to actualize it so your life starts moving on a path now that you can be proud of later.

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If Your Car Were Out of Alignment You Would Take It to a Mechanic. What Do You Do When Your Life is Out of Alignment?

2011-02-23T07:11:00.000-08:00

Think about what it feels like to drive a car that is not aligned… It is shaky and hard to control. Instead of a smooth, enjoyable ride it is a stressful one. If all the areas of your life are not aligned you experience a similar feeling. You feel jerky and out of control. Even if one area is going well you still feel stress in the other areas.

Full Alignment: A Practical Guide to Transforming Your Life Vision Into Action is the best resource to help you along the journey toward Alignment in all areas of your life.

In this landmark book, leadership guru Anthony Silard shows you how to bring your life to purpose by transforming your lofty dreams into concrete, deadline-driven goals and then choosing actions on a moment-to-moment basis that are congruent with your deepest values.

To purchase Full Alignment or for more information on our special bulk rate (for nonprofits and education institutions) visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our program director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Live the Life You Have Imagined

2011-02-21T07:13:00.000-08:00

Persistence doesn’t mean insistence.

--- Anthony Silard

If you are returning home after work today and the road you usually take is closed, what will you do? Will you sleep on the street until your usual route is reopened? I don’t think so. You will find another way home. As the old saying goes, there are many roads to Rome. You can apply this same flexibility to how you achieve your personal and professional goals. Persistence is only a powerful tool when coupled with flexibility. To access its power, force yourself this week to see the writing on the wall, even if it’s not what you want to read. If you don’t get the results you want when you try to invent a new product, or work for social change, or improve a relationship, then change your approach. Not change meaning, “I will change what I’m trying to accomplish.” Change meaning: “I will change how I’m trying to accomplish it.” To access the power of persistence, launch a three-step process every time you come up short when trying to achieve a goal: first, stop to recognize why the strategy you tried didn’t work; second, apply this learning toward creating a new, innovative strategy; third, give the new strategy a shot. Note there is no step called “Feel Badly about Myself” or “Become Consumed with Self-Doubt.” To achieve your most important goals, persistence is necessary. Getting down on yourself is optional.

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Smile, It’s Monday (Valentine’s Day): Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Create the Intimate Relationship You Desire

2011-02-14T07:12:00.000-08:00

I looked for love and it was nowhere.
 I loved and it was everywhere.

--- Anthony Silard

When we look for love, we seek it in exactly the form we desire it in, and ignore it in the various forms in which it already appears in our lives. We ignore the love that is given to us from ourselves, our families, our friends, and become fixated on the one specific form we crave, e.g. “My father’s saying something supportive about my new career choice” or “My partner writing me a card, or bringing me flowers, or saying ‘I love you’ more often” or “Someone thinking I’m attractive and asking me out.” While we have absolutely no power over when and how and how much love is given to us, we have 100 percent power over how we give it to others. If you have a partner, Valentine’s Day is a reminder to give to them in a way that celebrates their uniqueness. If she or he loves opera, surprise her or him with two opera tickets, or an opera CD. Even better, take a piece of colored paper and some colored markers, draw a big red heart in the middle and fill it with what you love about them. There’s no material substitute for writing from the heart. If you have not yet met the right person, Valentine’s Day can feel like Celebrate Your Job Day for the unemployed. We can all get down on ourselves when we find ourselves single on Valentine’s Day; we just want to crawl into a hole and let this day hurry up and be over. Yet we have to remember: Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love. The more you recognize the love that already exists within and around you, the more you will attract it in the new form you desire it in.

Author’s Note: Just over a month ago, I walked to the top of Sagaing Hill, a very spiritual Buddhist temple just a short trishaw ride away from Mandalay in Burma. I meditated for an hour and came up with this year’s Valentine's Day quote for Smile, It's Monday. This quote has many layers of meaning. I hope you will discover its right meaning for you based on where you are in your life right now.

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Transform, Transformation, Transformational

2011-02-10T10:30:00.000-08:00

Transform ideas into action

Transform fleeting passion into sustainable energy

Transform an overwhelmed staff and board into a motivated team

Transform your fundraising model into a ‘friend-raising’ model.

Transformation comes from hard work and a willingness to change. In 2011, decide what is working and what isn’t.

Join the Certificate of Transformational Nonprofit Leadership series in order to transform what’s not working.

In this cutting-edge nonprofit leadership certificate program, you can expect to learn to: 

 1. Develop some innovative new fundraising strategies to leverage resources for your cause  

2. Manage and inspire people with fewer resources   

3. Keep staff morale high in the face of cutbacks  

4. Leverage financial resources and board involvement in a tough economy 

And much more!

Space is limited to 15-25 participants in order to provide an intimate learning experience. The series starts this March. For more information, visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our Program Director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Start Exercising Again

2011-02-07T07:02:00.000-08:00

No man is free who is not master of himself.

-- Epictetus

What is your long-term Vision for your physical and mental health? Exercise is not an end in itself, but a means to achieve your larger life goals. The question then, is what are your larger life goals with respect to your health? To help you figure them out, ask yourself these questions: “What do I want my body to look like ten years from now?” Even more importantly: “How do I want to feel about my body today and every day hereafter?” Also ask a few questions to determine the role of exercise in your life, such as “What are the effects of exercise, mediation, and yoga on my mind?”, “How do I feel about myself when I exercise regularly?” and “Am I here just to take care of others, or also to take care of myself?” In addition, think about the next generation by asking yourself these two questions: “What kind of example do I want to set for my present or future children with respect to how I take care of my physical and mental health?” and “How do I want them to view their health?” Your answers to some of these questions will help you craft your long-term Vision for the role exercise will play in your life. Once you have developed this Vision, design some concrete goals to put into place immediately to actualize it.
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become a More Effective Leader

2011-01-31T07:12:00.000-08:00

Imagine there are thousands of people standing on a pier, and dozens of ships heading out to sea. A leader is like the captain of one of these ships. If you want to become a leader, the question you need to answer is: “Why would anyone want to board my ship?”

--- Anthony Silard

The #1 feeling people look to their leaders to provide is security. Stability. Safety. The word “lead” comes from “to guide” or “to travel.” Consider an initiative you are trying to build that involves other people – such as a company, nonprofit, musical troupe or family. Whether it’s your employees, family members, musicians or customers, they all have three critical requirements you must fulfill if you want to lead them: first, that the ship is heading to where they want to go (you must inspire them with your passion for a Vision greater than yourself); second, that the captain – you – is trustworthy and capable of getting them there (you must be honest and act with integrity); and third, that you will treat them well during the journey (you must be empathetic to their needs). Which of these is your greatest challenge – passion, empathy or integrity? Come up with a few strategies you can practice this week to work on your challenge area and become a more effective leader.
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Sponsor a Nonprofit Leadership Conference in Your Area

2011-01-27T13:21:00.000-08:00

Do you want to do something to strengthen the nonprofit efforts in your area?

Do you want to make a difference in education, housing, health care, the environment, animal welfare, human rights and more?

Do you want to help transform positive ideas into a strategic plan with action steps leading towards a collective vision?

Are you a funder? A nonprofit association? A strong corporate citizen? “A do-good-er”? An influential part of a coalition? Bring a leadership conference to your area that will give nonprofit staff the skills they need to sustain and grow their organizations.

Work with the Center for Social Leader’s president and leadership guru, Anthony Silard, to create a conference that best fits the needs of your sector of the nonprofit field or area of the world. Throughout Anthony’s fifteen years of teaching leadership he has developed easy-to-implement techniques and strategies in all areas of nonprofit development. Choose from over 30 leadership workshops, such as: Effective Communication for Managers, Balancing Success and Happiness, and Strategic Planning Made Easy.

To see a full list of workshops and conference models please visit our website at www.socialleaders.org or contact program director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Live the Life You Have Imagined

2011-01-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

If you build it, they will come.

--- from the movie Field of Dreams

A friend of mine was looking for a new job, not an easy undertaking in a tough economy. Over dinner a few weeks ago, he said, “Tony, I know I’m in a dead-end job and I need to make a career change – for myself and for my family. I had an interview for a job I really want. I know I can do this job, and that it would be a great change for me. Yet the thing is, no matter what happens, I’m happy. I come home every evening to my wife and two kids, which is the most beautiful thing in the world. Everything else is extra. If I get this job – and I’m going to do my best to make it happen in this company or another one – great. Yet my happiness doesn’t depend on it.” Now I want you to imagine a man like this sitting across from you in an interview. Someone content in their own skin who radiates this inner stability. He is exactly the kind of person you want working for you, because he has the internal wherewithal to build positive momentum with the rest of your team and be loyal to your company. He called me a few days later to say he had been offered the position. To apply his way of thinking to your own life, consider what you want to attract into your life to feel successful. Now reflect on ways you can embrace and appreciate the beauty and love already filling your life, knowing that whatever you want that you don’t already have will be the beauty and love you already know, in another form. Remind yourself that what you seek you already have, in a different form, and use the feelings of power that emanate from these thoughts to unabashedly attract what you desire into your life.
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Full Alignment: Transforming Your Life Vision into Action

2011-01-19T10:29:00.000-08:00

Full Alignment contains a revolutionary new goal-setting system that will enable you to transform your loftier dreams into concrete, deadline-driven goals.

I came away feeling re-energized and rejuvenated… Full Alignment is an essential book for CEOs, middle managers, entrepreneurs, rising stars, self-starters, and others who want to embrace change and create and achieve more compelling goals in their work or life.

 — From the foreword by Christine Letts, Senior Associate Dean for Executive Education, Harvard University

To purchase Full Alignment or for more information on our special bulk rate (for nonprofits and education institutions) visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our program director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Balance Work and Life

2011-01-17T07:26:00.000-08:00

If you want to achieve your most important goals as quickly as possible, slow down.

--- Anthony Silard

The only problem with rushing through life is we miss out on it. We also miss the deeper messaging that emanates from our hearts if only we are willing to slow down enough to listen to it. When you refuse to connect with your inner intuition, you head down the wrong path. Later, you expend a lot of time and energy switching back, retracing your steps and trying to rediscover the right one. If you want to achieve your life goals – whether they are to pursue the right career, or find the right partner, or create a successful business – a much wiser strategy is to give yourself some unstructured time each day for your thoughts to catch up with your actions. Otherwise, your actions so far outpace your ability to process them that you cease to recognize what you are doing, why you are doing it, and, ultimately, who you are. Schedule some unstructured time to just be this week, and remind yourself that you are a human being, not a human ‘doing’.
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Q: What Do You Use All the Time, Everyday, And in Every Aspect of Your Life? A: Communication.

2011-01-12T06:33:00.000-08:00

Make your communication compassionate and effective.

Compassionate Communication focuses on three core skill areas, each vital and necessary for healthy communication:

1) Listening with empathy (Detecting the unmet needs within the other person)

2) Speaking with authenticity (Identifying and sharing your own unmet needs)

3) Holding your anxiety (Letting go of the expectation that your needs will be met within your preferred time-frame)

Bring a compassionate communication workshop series to your office. Personalize a compassionate communication workshop series for your family and/or friends, or for you and a loved one. The base skills are the same... Open yourself up to learning better communication in one area of your life and it will spread to all the other areas. Visit www.socialleaders.org.

Compassionate Communication teaches you how to build a heart connection with others through a process where you:

• Detect, without judgment, the unmet needs that underlie the other person’s words

• Enable the other person to feel safe rather than manipulated in the conversation so they can become vulnerable enough to share how they truly feel

• Express your own unmet needs in a way that provides the other person with the opportunity to give you what you are asking for without obstructing their freedom

• Ask specifically for what you want (and avoid the tendency to resent not getting what you never asked for in the first place)

• Establish the clear intent of working through the issues together until the needs of both parties are met to the highest extent possible (this is how we define healthy communication)

For more information on our compassionate communication workshop series and how you can choose the right model for your organization or your family please visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our Program Director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become Your Greatest Fan

2011-01-10T07:11:00.000-08:00

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending.  The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.

--- Saint Augustine

To deepen your foundation, write down what you stand for, what you want to remembered for, and what you most value in your life. Based on what you have written, formulate some daily practices that will bring you closer to your higher Self – the voice within that guides you to “do the right thing,” independent of the consequences. Write down a few of these practices. Integrate these daily practices into your Vision Statement (my book Full Alignment: A Practical Guide to Transforming Your Life Vision into Action includes a guide to creating your personal Vision Statement; available at http://tinyurl.com/FullAlignment ), a guiding document that describes who you are and what you stand for. By writing down what you value the most and referring to it once or twice per week – especially when stimuli in the external world (such as when you don’t get what you want in a situation or feel criticized by another person) are pulling you away from how you want to be as a human being – you increase your chances ten-fold of transforming your desired life into your reality.
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So Many Ideas, But I’m Not Acting on Any of Them…

2011-01-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you just need someone who is trained to listen to you…

… Someone who is trained to help you navigate through the weeds to get you to the bright buds of your own ideas and to then help you figure out what kind of care they need to make them bloom and flourish.

Everything you need is already within you, but sometimes you need a trained guide to help you find and cultivate it.

One-on-one life coaching with Anthony Silard can help you turn your personal ideas and life dreams into manageable action steps.

One-on-one executive coaching with Anthony Silard can help you turn your work ideas and career dreams into manageable action steps.
Life coaching and executive coaching is a way to bring direction, serenity and greater success into your life.
To learn more about life coaching and executive coaching options with Anthony Silard visit our website www.sociallears.org or contact our program director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Start Exercising Again

2011-01-03T07:13:00.000-08:00

Success doesn’t come from aiming at success.  Success comes from doing what you’re passionate about to the best of your ability.

--- Anthony Silard

The next time you are at the gym, focus on doing ten reps of any given exercise and watch what happens. You may achieve ten reps, but if you do it will most likely be with lousy form. Instead, try it this way: First, decide to aim for ten reps. Second, forget about the number ten and focus on your form. Do each rep slowly. Fully outstretch and then slowly retract your arm, leg, back or stomach while keeping your vertebrae in a straight, locked position and your head looking directly forward. You may only achieve seven or eight reps, but they will be performed with quality, you will be much less likely to pull a muscle or injure yourself, and you will increase your muscle tone and strength much more rapidly. To achieve your goals in exercise, as in life, briefly visualize what you want to accomplish and then expend 98 percent of your energies on what you will do to get there. To get started, set your exercise goals for the week. Then write down a few sentences about the techniques you will use to achieve them.
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Build Meaningful Relationships

2010-12-20T08:25:00.000-08:00

There is only love – all else is illusion.  At every moment, in every conversation you have ever been in or ever will be in,  you and the other person are each either seeking love or expressing love.

--- Anthony Silard

We seek love in many ways, such as shouting, belittling, attempting to guilt someone into doing what we want them to do, manipulating, giving the silent treatment. Arguments happen when two people are seeking love at the same time. Our most intimate, loving moments – including “lovemaking” – happen when two people are simultaneously expressing love. Here is the key to effective communication: When the other person is seeking love, listen. Show empathy. Try to understand their needs. When they are expressing love, it’s your opportunity to be assertive, to get your needs met. In fact, it’s the only time when you can get your needs met, because it’s the only time when they will actually listen to you. Identify a person who has been a thorn in your side lately. The next time they get on your nerves, remind yourself that they are seeking love in their own way, yet are pushing it further away from them because they haven’t learned healthier ways to get their needs met. How can you lighten your position just a little bit, and help them to get the love they desperately need? Try this strategy – it’s the first step to filling your life with more loving, meaningful relationships.
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Invite your friends to start their week with Smile, It's Monday: www.smileitsmonday.com

How to Grow Your Organization in Hard Economic Times

2010-12-15T09:36:00.000-08:00

This conference met my needs and exceeded my expectations. I cannot recall when another conference has addressed my needs/interests so well and provided so many inspiring and practical ideas.

-- Michi Gates, North Bay Regional Center

This conference influenced my outlook on how long I see myself continuing as a nonprofit director. I plan to stick it out and to pursue becoming a great leader… I would recommend this to other nonprofit directors without question. Great Content!

-- Rod Malloy, Mission Solano

Join us for the 2011 webinar series that is helping sustain and grow organizations during these hard economic times.

The Certificate of Transformational Nonprofit Leadership offers you access to the top trainers in the country in the areas of fundraising, social marketing, work-life balance and financial management. Including: Michael Maccoby (Professor, Oxford University’s Said School of Business), Tony Schwartz (Author, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working) and Alan Andreasen (Professor, Georgetown Business School).

In this cutting-edge nonprofit leadership certificate program, you can expect to learn to:   

1. Develop some innovative new fundraising strategies to leverage resources for your cause  

2. Manage and inspire people with fewer resources   

3. Keep staff morale high in the face of cutbacks
  
4. Leverage financial resources and board involvement in a tough economy 

And much more!

Space is limited to 20-25 participants as to provide an intimate learning experience. The series starts this February. For more information visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our Program Director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become a More Effective Leader

2010-12-13T10:40:00.000-08:00

Even a hunter cannot kill a bird which flies to him for refuge.
--- old Samurai saying

Leaders who act with integrity pay less attention to the latest political or economic calculus and instead focus on the human calculus. These leaders hail from all walks of life and hold positions ranging from CEO to service representative. Take Chiune Siguhara, the Japanese consul general in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1940. After the Nazi’s Blitzkrieg on Poland, Polish Jews fled to neighboring Lithuania. One of their only hopes for escape as the Nazis continued their takeover of Europe and closed in on Lithuania was to obtain transit visas to travel to Japan. Siguhara issued these visas despite many refugees not having passports or proper identification. Despite repeated orders from his superiors to stop, Siguhara issued over 5,000 transit visas. After he was fired from his position for insubordination by the Japanese government, he continued issuing transit visas until his last day, even handing the lifesaving documents from the window of his departing train. Meditate on the wisdom of the Samurai before moving forward on your next initiative. Instead of immediately pushing for what you want, ask yourself first, “What is the human calculus here?” Write down the effects of the various options on the human beings involved – your employees, customers, the people in your community – and then make your decision.

When My Career is Going Well My Personal Life Suffers... When My Personal Life is Going Well My Work Suffers

2010-12-08T09:15:00.000-08:00

I can’t talk to people in the office about all the stress in my personal life, but it affects my work or at least my overall well-being at work.

My friends and family can’t understand why I spend so much time at the office and get paid so little for it and/or get so little credit for it.

I often feel isolated and lonely in my mission to create change, to make a social impact or excel in my career.

If any of these three sentences made you nod your head or made you want to stop reading and ignore your initial reaction, keep reading!

Leadership guru and president of The Center for Social Leadership, Anthony Silard, has been working with individuals on these very issues for the last 15 years.

Life coaching and executive coaching is a way to bring balance, serenity and greater success into your life. Everything you need is already within you, but sometimes you need a trained guide to help you find it and apply it.

Tony really facilitated rather than trying to impose his ideas or beliefs. He led us through a very sequential process of coming up with the goals and objectives that we had in our minds already. Yet when we asked for suggestions and his opinion he was willing to give it and was very knowledgeable and experienced.  
Heidi, Former Executive Director of ROCK

To learn more about life coaching and executive coaching options with Anthony Silard visit our website www.socialleaders.org or contact our program director, Hannah Kahl, 202-241-6721 / Hannah@socialleaders.org
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Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Balance Work and Life

2010-12-06T09:02:00.000-08:00

There is no point in living if you can’t feel your life.

--- Mexican proverb

Our deepest motivations do not come from the instrument we over-use in our technologically-driven society (the mind) but from the other vital organ – the heart – that will atrophy if we continue to ignore it in the name of efficiency. When we stop feeling, we stop enjoying our lives. Determine some changes you can make to your schedule to reclaim your heart every single day. Go to a concert. Stop work at 6 and take a yoga class. Watch the leaves change. Make love with your partner more often. Free up unstructured time in your daily schedule to just be. The more you access the messaging that emanates from your heart each day, the more you will accomplish in your life and, even more importantly, the more you will enjoy what you accomplish. If you don’t feel joy from what you achieve, after all, what’s the point of achieving it? Write down a few changes to your schedule that will enable you to make a heart connection with yourself and/or others this week.