Found a great quote today about the power of Fairy Tales and Story. “Fairy tales do not give a child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.” —G. K. CHESTERTON, TREMENDOUS TRIFLES, ESSAY XVII, “THE RED ANGEL" Stories and Fairy Tales show us that we are capable of overcoming the challenges placed before us.

I’ve recently got to that amazing place as a leader where I’ve got an extremely talented driven team whose experience and knowledge surpasses mine. Many leaders proclaim that this is the end goal for every great team and I absolutely agree with them! What I wasn’t ready for was that sudden moment of realization that I don’t know how to lead a team like that. In my 15 years as a leader, I’ve strived for but have never been able to get to that state. I had that moment 2 weeks ago and it turned into one of the hardest work weeks of my life as I tried to wrestle with how to lean into the almost gut-wrenching feeling of ‘what do I do now?’ & ‘how do I put my money where my mouth is?’ I instantly saw why this leadership style isn’t more wide-spread, it requires vulnerability and a level of self-awareness most people aren’t comfortable with. It would have been so easy to pull back and lean into my ‘authority’ as a leader but I made a conscious decision against that. I’m still trying to figure it out and I’m bound to make a few mistakes along the way, but below are a few key actions I took to lean into the feeling: - Be honest with your team that you’re struggling! If you’ve truly built a team that you have empowered to work in their mastery and given them the psychologically safe space to be their best, that empowerment and safety should exist for you too! Showing vulnerability in this way will be hard and isn’t going to feel very good at first but when a leader demonstrates vulnerability it shows your team they are safe to do so as well. - Lean into your Mentors. On my worst day of the week that I had the moment of realization, I happened to have a call scheduled with my mentor and the entire call was spent on this topic. I scheduled lunch with my old boss later in the week who I knew also dealt with the same realization multiple times as he had changed careers. They both validated what I was feeling and told me how they got through. - Journal, Journal, Journal. I spent nearly 3 hours and jotted down 8 pages of notes of what was going through my mind and what I was feeling in my body as I worked through the realization. Journaling is something that falls to the wayside far too often but can be a huge help of uncluttering your mind and setting a course. Putting it on paper or in a digital journal forces you to work through from start to finish your thoughts and feelings.

As a follow up to Leadership Through Storytelling, I'm going to run a Value Story Workshop on May 28th at 7:30pm MST. We'll go through the process of developing one of your life stories that is at the heart of your core values. Attached is a list of values to start doing some brainstorming about your core values.

I've put a Summer Solstice Call in the calendar for Friday, June 20th. I'm looking to look back on the intentions we set at the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, as well as doing a Tarot Spread. I've got 3 options for Tarot Spread's and I like all of them so I'll let the group decide which way we go!

Last night was the 6th and final call for Leadership Through Storytelling. We did a quick review of each of the 5 modules and talked about plans for the course for the future. Below are the Slide Deck and Call Replay! Thanks for everyone that joined in and gave feed back! https://tinyurl.com/LTSWrapSlideDeck https://tinyurl.com/LTSWrapUpReplay