Browse published articles attributed to Valencia Ray, with full-archive search.
Authenticity and personal power are linked. Authenticity is something I’m hearing or reading about quite a bit these days. What is authenticity, who is the authentic you, and why does it matter to your life? Authenticity is about mind with heart congruity, which leads to integrity, honesty, empathy, courage, and willingness “to thine own self be true.”
Women-owned businesses have been the fastest growing segment of new start-up entrepreneurial endeavors. I’m glad to see this, as I’ve been a professional and an entrepreneur for many (yes, many) years now. I have found being an entrepreneur takes a special kind of courage, and it can be an amazing platform to grow one up spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. I can tell you story after story of the types of personal growth and expansion experiences that I’ve undergone that would not have presented themselves as dramatically if I had only stayed in the world of the job market.
Innovation can happen in a “Two-Degree Shift,” meaning the answer you seek could be right in your face… if you could only perceive it! Have you ever heard the old adage, “If it was a snake it would have bit me?” (meaning what you were looking for was right in front of you, but you did not see it). It is not just a matter of what you want; what you need to consider is “how” you are looking at: People, Situations, and Circumstances. Also, slow down and consider “why” you want what you want so that: * You can engage your heart – your source of passion and courage to persevere.r
Productivity and performance matter, and unde eath this is how we think. We load up on ‘what to do?’ but the deeper question is ‘how do we think about it?’. If we think that work and life are hard and that to be successful we have to feel pressure or stress, we are likely to dampen our level of productivity and performance. It takes more energy to push against ‘hard’ than to enjoy ‘easy’. This is about our perception—a subjective matter. You see, it is not so much what we do as it is the mindset we hold about what we do, and how we focus our brain as we do it.
Clarity is powerful and is a primary ingredient to performing at your best. It is poorly understood and generally not a feature of most people's strategies. Why? Because we are too busy being busy. We take pride in taking "massive action."
Leadership is evolving, and it needs to. A one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach is no longer working, and for good reason. The immense change we are facing is requiring leaders to be authentic and vulnerable, which means “less fear,” not weak, and in touch with their own individual strengths and gaps. This requires courage, something I’ve also witnessed in the leadership of the Olympic athletes recently in London.
Our leadership “true potential” is not realized simply by inspiring others or feeling inspired or just having more information. Knowledge is not really power until it is applied. Recognition or an “aha” are only nice, interesting tidbits until you muster up the courage to make the change. Courage is a funny thing; it does not mean the absence of fear. It is primarily an intention to feel fear, but to go ahead and proceed anyway. Understanding the source of FEAR—mostly Fictitious Evidence Affecting Reality in our brain—can help to alleviate it.
The topic of leadership is being discussed online more than ever these days, or perhaps it’s just that I’m paying more attention now. Since we are undergoing rapid change in our social institutions, the need for real leadership is more urgent than ever before in my lifetime.
The courage to stare down fear requires more than meets the eye. In fact, if you keep your focus and attention on what scares you, you will feel more afraid. Yet, you will need to face your fear, name your fear, and then tap into your spiritual power of courage. Courage is not of the head; it’s of the heart.
Your true potential is an existing possibility that needs to be cultivated and nurtured. We all have a purpose for being born. You are not a random accident. Yet, many people do not realize that how we see our self is a huge determinant of whether or not we pursue a higher vision for our life. One of the greatest impediments to reaching your true potential is a lack of self-compassion.
The real root of all evil is not money; it’s lack of self-acceptance. By the way, even the Bible doesn’t say it’s money. There it says the “love of money” and love as used in the proper translation would be “lust” or attachment – in other words, greed. This is where lack of self-acceptance comes into the conversation.
It seems to me that many people are short on time and long on things to do. This certainly was an issue of mine also at one time. What I learned during those years was that time wasn’t the issue as much as was energy and focus. Lack of clarity and reflection time often drain the brain. When we are not clear about where we want to go and why, we waste a lot of our energy. And without passion and clarity, you are not likely to have much productivity. You may certainly have plenty of activity, but these are not the same thing; long hours often don’t equal productivity.
Sleep is apparently a little known secret to good leadership that is critical to high performance and well-being. It is not just for beauty rest; there are plenty of leadership and health reasons for getting a good night's sleep.
Work and life balance is central to health, real wealth, and enjoyable relationships. Gratitude and appreciation are apparently little known secret ingredients to what everyone is really seeking: inner peace, meaning, and joy. Then we can “in joy” our efforts and monetary results and use money constructively and with greater purpose. Then “stuff” starts to lose its meaning, in general.
Collaborative leadership allows others to get their “voice” in the room. As long as there is a healthy level of trust, the terms of group meeting engagement can be explicit. This allows for a culture that can embrace a diversity of thought, which is something that is crucial for innovation. While every opinion cannot always be integrated into the strategy systemically, allowing and respecting others to contribute will go a long way toward employee engagement and ownership. It will take a truly confident leader to admit that she or he does not know everything.
Self-awareness helps us wake up to aspects that are already present within us - we just don't see them. The blind spots of our society's conditioning over time can cause us to focus on what is allegedly 'wrong with us'. Sure, we all have shortcomings that challenge us to grow.
Is it 'eye' or 'I'? That is the question. It is interesting that they are pronounced the same. The physical eye allows you to see the physical world. The 'I'-who you think you are-determines the clarity of your perception: how you see the world and your life experience. Authentic leadership engages the head and the heart. The heart is the feeling nature and can either follow the lead of your ego ('I' in Latin, by the way) or your True, Authentic Self, the real 'I'.
Personal power and a sense of purpose are at the foundation of real productivity. Having a sense of purpose that is compelling for you fuels personal power and passion. Personal power is not about ‘power over’ others. It is not even about always ‘being in control’ over the environment. Haven’t you noticed? We cannot always control the environment or what happens to us, so we surely cannot really control other people.
The term “Resonate Leadership” reminds me of the ability it requires to play my piano skillfully. When I play the notes in harmony, it is soothing and harmonic. When played out of alignment and ignorantly, instead of music to my ears, it becomes unpleasant noise. This concept of “Resonance and Dissonance” is a good metaphor for skillful—or not—leadership and relationship skills. Feelings have a “vibe.” They are transmissible.
Perfectionism will reduce your personal power and effectiveness. I used to take pride in saying I was a “perfectionist” until I started to realize WHY I was a perfectionist. Truth was, I felt insecure and “making a mistake” pushed my “not good enough” button that I was doing my best to conceal. I was great at putting on a mask that appeared by most people’s account as smart, successful and competent.
Happiness can be so fleeting for many because we have our priorities backwards. Many people connect their sense of self-worth with their career, with what they “do.” What you “do” is not the same as who you are. Now for many this statement will sound totally confusing. “Of course,” you may think, “I am what I do.” This is because since we were young children we’ve been conditioned to equate what we do and have with our worth.
High-level productivity is a product of happiness—even in cows. There’s a lot of talk on the airwaves about innovation, productivity, employee engagement, and team building”…lots of talk. It’s really time for more action. I will say that I am seeing signs that people are finally realizing that we are “not in Kansas anymore,” as Dorothy said in the movie “The Wizard of Oz” when her house landed on the witch.
Emotional Intelligence is the mind of the heart, the right-brain in metaphoric terms. Realize that language has its limitations, and speaking in terms of the English language subtleties can be lost - such as having only one word for 'love'. When culture moved away from communicating with images, we also moved away from an appreciation of what the right-brain has to offer us as a human civilization. This is unfortunate, as our feelings are powerful influencers over the quality of our lives.
Leadership and personal development can be most effectively integrated into corporate and entrepreneurial training programs when approached through the gateway of neuroscience and brain research. It is our amazing brain that allows us to engage conscious reasoning, choice, and to imagine possibilities beyond what already exists. It allows us to access the field of infinite genius and creativity. I can say that what is apparent is that this new millennium ushered in a new awareness of the brain and mind.
Your true potential will be elusive if you are fearful of change. In fact, if you want to expand the vision for your life, you will have to stop looking for the status quo. Most people have warning signs that they need to move on before things get to the point of crisis. Yet they tend to react and cling to the known world, misery and all, instead of empowering themselves to respond proactively. “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” ~Rahm Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago
Happiness and peace of mind is not something that will be found outside of you on any long-term basis. All of the rapid change and commotion that is going on in the world today is a reminder of this. If my inner happiness were based on controlling the events that occur around me, I'd be in trouble right now. Yet, even in the midst of the outer instability in the world as reported by the media, I feel more grounded and less fearful than at anytime before in my life - why? For one thing, I'm learning the real power of mindset.
Change and transformation are happening in business and society at large, like it or not. We human beings are constantly changing, even at the level of our body’s cellular biology; yet vast numbers of people try to hold on to “just the way we are/I am” to avoid personal growth. When something shows up that contradicts our perceptual worldview, we tend to ignore our experience or intuition and disconnect from what our own inner truth is telling us as we attempt to cling to what we know. This will not allow you to adapt to change easily, by any means.
Happiness is a perception that is subject to how one sees life, how one interprets their circumstances. Brain research essentially shows we create our reality by assigning the meaning to our lives. Research shows that our ability to create and manage positive emotions is one of the foundations for success (and happiness) in business and life.
Before you do another thing, are you clear about where you are going and why? We’ve become a society of frantic doers, not taking the time to reflect and get clear before taking massive action. And even when we do create a strategy, it is often in the old way of thinking, and so our plans have trouble taking root… the road map has changed, and we get so busy “doing” that we miss the signs along the way.
Lack of vulnerability is one reason why team relationships are so dysfunctional. The lack of trust leads to people putting on their “persona” (the root word in ‘personality’) masks. In our culture, vulnerability is confused with the concept of weakness.
Women entrepreneurs are a rapidly growing demographic, yet the key is not to simply start a business but to also be successful at it. I owned and operated a very successful medical and surgical practice before selling it to now share insights into business and life that I’ve applied personally by integrating cutting edge science with ancient wisdom principles.
Change is the theme of our times. We can either embrace it and proactively create the change we want to see or allow it to randomly come upon us. Either way, change will continue to be a part of our lives. Neuroscience can help us as leaders to learn how to optimally operate our truly amazing brain. Change is an art as much as it is a science. We need to integrate our whole brain and mind. Both hemispheres are involved in the creative process. We have been repressing and leaving out our 'art' side - the right brain.
Leadership development when valued in the organizational culture can mean more business, more employee engagement, and more fulfillment at work. Another word for leadership development is “personal development.” Leadership development done “on purpose” can lead to teams that have a sense of purpose. This is the heart of ownership and alignment: humanity’s search for meaning.
Emotional intelligence helps us to be smarter about our emotion. Emotion is a part of our mind-body connection. It is another expression of our intelligence. Feelings are the effect of our emotional perception. They add color to our lives. I say "perception" because how we look at a situation determines the meaning we assign. Let's keep this simple; there are only two classes of emotion - love or fear.
Networking and personal power are vital to growing your business and being a successful leader. This is true whether you are a one-person business, a professional, or a corporate leader running a billion-dollar business. Nowadays, this is truer than ever. We have systematically been taught in the past (which means it is a part of most people’s habitual way of thinking, whether they realize it consciously or not) that rugged individualism and “logical” thinking is the path to “success.” Of course, that depends on what one means by success.
Our life purpose platform needs to be built on a foundation built upon the rock of our truth, who we feel (with heart) we are, not just who we “think” (head) we are. Belief is based more in a sense of feeling, not thinking, actually. I’ve discovered the hard way, that allowing society and others to set my priorities can be deadly for living with clarity, confidence and peace of mind. It also can swing you on both sides of the financial spectrum, for those of you who are money-motivated and still believe that money is the golden formula for a happy life.
Emotions are contagious, and how you focus your attention can either keep you stuck on how you feel or switch gears to where you want to go. It is our attention that is sitting in the driver’s seat of our mind. Most people seem not to know this. They think that if they keep talking about something, resisting it, pushing it away, worrying about it, or even thinking about it, somehow they can get rid of it or prevent what they fear from manifesting.
Personal power is not often linked to the types of feelings that we have. In fact, most people would rather not acknowledge their feelings at all, which is unfortunate as research has shown that the magnetic energy of feelings is 5,000 times greater than that of thought. Our culture overemphasizes thinking and underestimates the power of feeling.
Collaboration is the here to stay; the days of “The Lone Ranger” are numbered and rightfully so. It is unnatural to live isolated with the old ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality and this was only a paradigm anyway. Disregarding others is like cutting off your nose to spite your own face. There is more than one way to live life. Be forewa ed however; the paradigm you create will show up as your “reality”. I can see around me people awakening to this truth.
Transformation feels scary. Why? It is mostly because we’ve been conditioned unwittingly to think of change as “life threatening.” Granted, we have an instinct for survival wired into our brain, yet we have a greater authority – conscious choice – that can temper the violence of this fear-response to change. If we do not realize that we can “rewire” our brain and change this perception, we will continue to act robotically. This would not be so unhealthy if we had not been programmed with so much fear and limitation in our thinking. Who wired us? Where does this come from?
A real change leader is courageous in dealing with personal growth - changing one's self. Let's be clear here; personal growth is not about 'fixing yourself'. It is about learning and growing to reach more of your true potential. A leader will need to acknowledge her or his fear and keep moving forward anyway… leading the way. This is simple, yet not easy - at first. Facing change may not be without doubt or uneasiness; still, the more one comes from a place of confidence and authenticity, the more likely courage will be the response instead of denial.
Effective productivity comes from managing our energy, not our time. Time is a construct, and everyone gets the same amount every day. The issue is not how much time as much as it is how much energy and how you are using and renewing. Energy is the capacity to do work. When we re-energize the whole of ourselves — spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physical — we will have more energy to be productive. These four areas need optimum functioning to achieve optimum results.
I believe what I believe until I change my mind. Seasons change. And you have a birthright and choice to change yours too when it is expedient to do so. It’s not about what you believe as right or wrong as much as it is expanding your sense of self-actualization (as Maslow would have said), compassion, love, purpose, and meaning—for yourself and those you interact with. Does it expand your light and your vision for your life, or does it keep you in the darkness of fear?
Business and personal life are directly connected, with the common denominator being you, haven’t you noticed? It’s time to integrate ourselves into the whole being that we are. Law of Attraction is simply this: the vibrational pattern of energy from thought and feeling that is affecting your perceptional system and connecting with like thoughts and feelings from others.
Core confidence is the key to breaking the never-ending cycle of not being "good enough". As you know "good enough" is relative so how could you ever make this determination as a way to being? It is so connected to "doing" that you will always have something else to, well, do. Basing your confidence and self-esteem on what you accomplish, your job title or how much money you make is a bottomless pit - here today, gone tomorrow.
Confidence is a key element to empowerment. If you can't speak up, take risks or all too often buckle under the opinions of others, your gifts and talents will likely never reach authentic expression. Let me say that confidence from the core, authentic self is what I am referring to.
I came across a study by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers in the American Economic journal: the link is at the end of this post. The conclusion was essentially that women are not happier despite educational gains, social status and higher levels of economic power; in fact maybe they are less happy.
Reaching true potential is easier said than done. We’ve conditioned our brain and mind to trust outside of our self. Once I garnered the courage to color outside the boundaries of what I was informed from those around me to be true, I really began to grow. Here’s the catch: I had to learn to trust myself. It’s amazing for me now to notice just how much we are willing to let science or others dictate to us what works for us and what doesn’t. Actually, there is much trial and error going on, even in science.
Law of Attraction is tied to what I call “visioning by design.” Visioning by design is applicable to your business or to your personal life. As an eye surgeon, vision has always been near and dear to my heart in the literal sense, and as someone who has always had an interest in personal growth and living with purpose and personal power, “life vision” is also top of mind. Belief is what will bring the experience of your vision to your life, not just “thinking about it.”
Understanding mindset as the root of what causes your outcomes in life can be a tricky thing as its operation is often out of our awareness. One of the reasons it is so easy to overlook the connection between how we think and feel and the results that we get in life is because we are so not “integrated” in the way that we think and live our lives.